Research by the Alliance has revealed that most councils keep to the bare minimum legal requirement for early years sector membership of schools forums.
The organisation says that private, voluntary and independent providers are underrepresented on the majority of schools forums.
It is calling for a change to the law to require local authorities to include a proportional level of early years representation on all schools forums to ensure the sector's views are heard on funding decisions.
It says that the impact of early years underrepresentation on schools forums has been highlighted most recently by concerns from providers about SEN inclusion funding, in terms of their ability to access this funding, and the fact that some councils are sourcing this money solely from their early years funding pots, despite having the option to fund it from high needs funding pots.
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