On the surface, it seems like a simple and obvious solution to an increasingly urgent problem. The cost of childcare and early education services in this country are among the highest in the world. Staff wages make up the majority of costs for early years providers. The number of staff at a setting is determined by staff-child ratios – that is, the legal limits on the number of children per adult.
Therefore, if you relax these ratios, costs for early years settings go down and so too, in turn, do prices for parents.
At least, that’s what the government has claimed. By “‘cutting red tape”’ in the early years sector, it says, it will cut costs for parents and ease the cost-of-living crisis.
