The Office for Budget Responsibility has stated that the investment in the childcare and early education within this Spring Budget statement will have the largest impact on potential output. If so, we ask why is out of school wrap-around care tagged on to a much larger commitment to early years education? It is the first investment in the sector after more than a decade of Government inattention.
A family’s childcare needs don’t stop when a child starts school. One of the reasons that demand is currently outstripping supply is because wrap-around providers are closing in significant numbers due to exceptionally challenging working conditions. The risks wrap-around providers are expected to take would not be tolerated in any other industry; constant threat of schools taking over, insufficient support for parental fees, lack of support from any statutory service, and the list goes on.
The sector is passionate but cannot carry on without support. Today’s announcement does nothing to support a sector already in crisis. Giving local authority funds is useful only if it helps to support existing provision, not by funnelling money into schools.
Any pathfinder programme must consider the reality that if there were gaps in demand that could sustainably be filled, they would already be filled by the existing sector of providers.
This is not what the sector has been asking for or needs. This is not what schools have been asking for or need. This is not what parents have been asking for or need.
Investing in local authorities to fill perceived gaps in availability of out of school provision must come with a focus on and investment in the existing market of dedicated, high quality out of school providers. Taking action which would further destabilise an already vulnerable sector by focusing only on schools is irresponsible and a waste of taxpayer funds.
Schools are unlikely to have the space, staff, desire or demand to run out of school care on top of their existing responsibilities, regardless of any start up funding offered. We have a sector who have already started up and are still struggling; more start up funding is not the answer.
The promised £289 million is a drop in the ocean of what a gap filling programme is likely to cost in the real world. This announcement makes no mention of how to stimulate demand for the places that would be created, nor any measure to help parents afford such provision. Sadly, this announcement also neglects the support that the wraparound sector urgently needs to be able to recruit staff, maintain high standards, pay rent and other overheads, all of which are crippling everyday issues, threatening the viability of the existing sector.
The Government states in its Budget paper that many parents work even fewer hours when their child reaches school age; without support for families to pay for the services created by this fund, or parallel investment in supporting out of school businesses delivering these vital services to maintain lower costs to families through supply side funding, this investment will once again prove a sticking plaster solution delivered too little, too late.