Cross-party MPs are warning the Government has more work to do with its incoming childcare policies to ensure children benefit from high-quality affordable early years education to help parents and providers.
The Education Committee has published a new report, ‘Support for Childcare and the Early Years’ following an inquiry into the affordability of childcare and early years education it launched last December.
Within the report, the Committee calls on the Department for Education (DfE) to ‘work closely and consistently with childcare providers and local authorities to set the funding rate for the extended 30 hours at a sufficient level.’
It also says that the DfE should stop describing the hours as ‘free’ and instead refer to them as ‘funded’ or ‘subsidised’ after parents said that the ‘free’ label was misleading given the hours are term-time only and many providers charge for additional hours or consumables.
