A new report published by the Early Education and Childcare Coalition and the University of Leeds warns that the governments planned expansion of funded childcare hours is at risk of not being delivered due to a workforce crisis.
The report, ‘Retention and return: delivering the expansion of early years entitlement in England’, reveals that 57 per cent of nursery staff are considering leaving the sector in the next 12 months, one likely reason being the recent changes to staff:child ratios. This comes at a crucial time as the Government prepares to roll out the ‘biggest expansion of childcare in history’ – 30 hours of ‘free childcare’ will be offered to eligible parents of nine-month-olds by 2025.
The research estimates that childcare places would need to increase by 6% to meet this demand, a figure that is considered a conservative estimate. In addition, researchers found that the ‘early years workforce would need to grow by 8 per cent to deliver the expansion of the 30 hours promised by the Government in the spring budget.
However, due to an inability to recruit and retain staff just 17% of early years providers said they are likely to increase the number of places they offer. The number of nurseries reporting average waiting times of almost six months for a place was 67%. The research further revealed that almost 50,000 additional staff could be needed in 2024 and again in 2025 to service existing demand and satisfy the additional entitlement.
