Re-thinking the Early Years Funding Model Maccs Pescatore
It is universally understood that the period from birth to five or six years is key for a child’s development of social, emotional and intellectual capabilities. At no other time in a person’s life are their brain’s synapses connecting on such a scale. The quality and level of development at this stage sets the framework for the child’s future attainment and his or her impact on society. This period cannot therefore be overlooked without significant consequences for the child and society.
The Current Model However, the early years is currently woefully undervalued by our Government. As it stands, in the UK, primary and secondary education is legally mandated and fully state-funded (albeit parents can opt to pay for private education). Early years education, below the age of five, however, is neither. This has led the Government to adopt differing approaches to funding these two distinct services. While happy to take responsibility for education in primary and secondary age children, the Government eschews it for the early years. The principal responsibility for the care and education of children below five years rests with parents or carers and is predominantly delivered by private institutions, 10
with just a few state-maintained nursery schools. In 2019, the Department for Education’s (DfE) last reported data set showed that there were 400 state- maintained nurseries in England serving 36,500 children of a total of 72,000 providers offering 1.7million childcare places. To contextualise this financially, in 2020-21, the DfE’s own publication stated that it spent £31 billion on local authority schools and £24 billion on academy trusts to educate primary and secondary age children. It spent £14 billion on further and higher education. Spend on the early years was just £1.5 billion, equal to only 2% of the DfE’s total budget. DfE funding is not paid to early years settings directly but given as a lump sum to local authorities who then dole it out. These funds have often been and continue to be dispensed inaccurately and improperly. Earlier this year, Freedom of Information requests from the National Day Nursery Association found that three-quarters of local authorities reported underspends of £62 million in Government funding for childcare places. The existing system is not properly delivering the current funding to providers who have delivered their service, essentially leaving them unpaid.
