The petition on the Parliament UK website urges the Government to increase funding for early years settings to ensure they remain open in light of the 9.7 per cent rise to the national living wage, effective from April.
Behind the petition is Vicky Willetts, manager of Pre-school @ St Mark’s in Cheshire, who states, ‘We believe Government funding for early years settings is too low, and making it difficult to keep these settings open. This will only be more difficult with the increase in minimum wage. Everyone wants childcare standards high, but we believe more funding is needed to achieve this.
‘Some early years settings, especially in deprived areas, rely on early years funding to pay staff, bills and maintain high standards and with the increase in minimum wage some of these businesses may struggle to remain open.
‘Additional Government funding for early years settings should help reduce the pressures on these settings, and we believe is desperately needed.’
If the petition secures 10,000 signatures, the Government is required to provide a response. If a petition on the website reaches 100,000 signatures, it must be considered for parliamentary debate.
Willetts told Nursery World, 'We at Preschool@stmarks have set up this petition calling for an increase in Government funding as the majority of our children are funded, and we are already running at a loss.
'With the increase in wages and funding staying at the current rate it is unsustainable. We will need to bridge this deficit ourselves, through fundraising events. We are a charity-run pre-school and are not interested in making a profit, but it needs to be sustainable. We strive for high quality care and education, but at this rate we are going to struggle.'
The National Day Nurseries Association, which is supporting the petition, has published a graphic showing nursery costs against funding from 2017/18 to 2022/23 (see below) to illustrate the financial struggle of early years settings.
Chief executive Purnima Tanuku said, ‘NDNA is fully supporting this petition which will no doubt reflect the strength of feeling within our sector after the Chancellor ignored the importance of early education and childcare in the Autumn Statement.
'We have the evidence of underfunding and the impact on settings, children and families but the Government is wilfully refusing to invest sufficiently in early years, expecting providers and parents to pick up the shortfall instead.
'Our research with members shows that the Government is the biggest customer of early years places but it does not pay a fair price. This underfunding is growing and as a result, we have seen the rate of nursery closures increase over the past few months, especially in areas of deprivation.
'To help politicians understand the issue we have mapped the growing gap between rising costs, like wages, and the inadequate funding increase that simply do not keep pace. With inflation over 11 per cent and food costs even higher the sector needs to see an increase in investment to keep pace.'
