The Early Years Alliance has written an open letter to the Chancellor, education secretary and children’s minister urging them to publish the funding rates for the extended entitlement without further delay.
Written by the EYA’s chief executive, Neil Leitch, the letter warns that the delay in publishing the funding rates for the new one and two-year-old offers is putting the entire policy at risk as it is ‘near impossible’ for settings to plan for the extended 30 hours.
With no response from the Government to its consultation on the new early entitlement offers despite having closed in September, and just five months to go until the first phase of the new policy is rolled out, Leitch argues that the current situation is ‘not acceptable’ for providers.
The letter states, ‘Final local authority rates for the new offers have still not been published, further delaying the process of confirming rates for frontline providers. This is making it near-impossible for settings to budget or plan for this policy – or in some cases, make a decision on whether they will opt into the schemes at all.
