Sector leaders have hit out at a government blog justifying plans to expand funded childcare hours, with Early Years Alliance (EYA) chief executive Neil Leitch branding its claims as “simply not true” and a “gross insult” to settings.
He is concerned that the Department for Education statement around the expansion suggests that settings currently charge “inflated fees” to parents and that the government is “properly covering the cost” of providing free places.
“By making sure the government is properly covering the cost of providing the free places, there will be no need for nurseries to charge inflated fees for additional hours parents want to pay for,” claims the DfE’s blog.
But Leitch said: “The suggestion that early years settings charge ‘inflated fees’ is a gross insult to providers who have done their very best to keep fees as low as they can in the face of years of government underfunding.
