During a question-and-answer session with the minister at the summit at the Nursery World Show at London’s Business Design Centre, one delegate said, ‘I would like to make a suggestion that won’t cost you any money, but I guarantee you won’t do it.’
The minister jokingly replied, is it ‘for me to resign?’
The delegate went on to say, ‘I would like you to change the way the communications pretend it is 15 or 30 hours of “free” childcare.'
She questioned how she can tell parents they will have to pay £23.50 for 30 minutes outside of the funded hours as the money she will receive from her local authority from April doesn’t cover the actual cost of delivery.
Responding, the minister for children and families said, ‘You are making a point lots of people have.
‘We call it free because it should be free to access a place. You are right, there are things it doesn’t include and you want to charge separately for. Lots of people say we should call it subsidised and not free. We want people to know it’s free to access.’
The crowd collectively replied, ‘It’s not’.
The minister concluded, ‘We have no plans to change the way we describe it [the 15 and 30 hours] at this time.’
David Johnston also faced questions from delegates about how the early years entitlement is funded based upon a school model, 9-3pm a day and term-time only, which providers argued doesn’t work for the private, voluntary and independent sector as most settings operate 10 or 11 hours a day across 52 weeks a year.
He went on to admit that some settings might not offer the hours and said that they [the DfE] couldn't compel people to offer them.
He said, 'We would never compel people, if providers really think they don't want to do this, take people on these hours, we will not, we would not, we could not compel people to do so. But when I go round to settings people are positive about this, they are seeing increasing demand, they are expanding some of them, and I think that's a good thing.'
He urged people to get in touch with him if they had any suggestions about tackling retention in the sector, and with any practical problems in general that he could fix. He emphasised that the Government's sector recruitment campaign, launched on the same day, was designed to promote the importance and positivity of working with young children, and that the sector needed to actively support this to position it as an appealing career option.
Problems with retaining staff, particularly graduates, also came up. The minister said he would look at the issue of practitioners not wanting to work with under-twos once they gain their degree.
He also said he wanted to work with the sector on any challenges it faces and stayed at the Business Summit after his keynote address and questions to talk to people individually.