Stop plans to relax early years ratios in their tracks
Neil Leitch
Monday, July 11, 2022
Words matter, and those working in government know it.
Who can forget the government’s attempts to rebrand what Labour politicians had termed the ‘bedroom tax’ as a ‘spare room subsidy’, or more recently, a proposed ‘windfall tax’ on energy companies as an ‘energy profits levy’?
The same has long been true of the early years sector: how long have politicians – from all parties – insisted on describing funded early education and care as ‘free childcare’ in a bid to sell the offer to parents?
And it doesn’t end there.
When the long-awaited consultation on changes to early years ratios was launched on Monday, then-children and families minister Will Quince described the proposals as intended to give greater “flexibility” and “autonomy” to early years providers, who he only expected to use the new ratios “occasionally” if at all.
The words used in the official Department for Education press release on the plans, however, were quite different. They described the proposals as part of a “drive to reduce the cost of childcare for parents”, even going so far as to claim that the change could reduce early years costs for parents of two-year-olds by as much as 15 per cent (around £40 on average).
And of course, it is those words that were widely quoted in the national press: “Childcare costs to be slashed by £40 per week under new government plans”, announced the Independent on Monday last week.
But of course, that’s not true in the slightest. The government announcement itself acknowledges that those savings would only “potentially eventually” be possible “if providers adopt the changes and pass all the savings on to parents” – and we already know that the chances of this happening are slim to non-existent.
A recent Early Years Alliance survey of over 9,000 early years settings found that only 51 per cent of providers delivering places to two-year-olds work to current maximum ratios all the time, meaning that around half already have scope to work to more relaxed ratios more often than they currently do, but choose not to.
That same survey found that only five per cent of nurseries and pre-schools would always operate to looser ratios if the government’s proposal went ahead, and overall, the survey found that only two per cent of nurseries and pre-schools believe that parental fees at their setting would lower as a result of changes to ratio rules.
For the government to even suggest to parents that ratio changes are likely to result in such substantial cost savings is at best misguided and at worst, deliberately misleading.
So if parents aren’t going to save much, if any, money from a relaxation of ratios, who exactly is this policy going to benefit? Clearly it’s not the already-overworked, overburdened early years workforce, the majority of whom told us that they would leave their setting if it opted to loosen ratios. Nor is it the cohort of children who are recovering from the lasting impact of the pandemic on their learning and development and now face the prospect of receiving less individual care and attention.
The only people who could possibly benefit from these changes are the politicians who, when questioned on what they are doing to address the growing cost-of-living crisis, can claim that they have ‘tackled the rising cost of childcare’ by ‘slashing red tape’ in the sector. And make no mistake about it, when prices fail to fall, the blame will be placed squarely on us for failing to pass savings onto parents, not on those who pursued a policy that was clearly never going to succeed.
That’s why we in the Alliance are urging as many in the sector as possible to respond to the consultation on ratios. Given all the recent political changes, there is now a real opportunity to stop this proposal in its tracks, but we need to make sure that our voices are heard to have any chance of doing so. For far too long, the early years has been treated as a political football. Both we, and the children and families we support, deserve so much better.
Neil Leitch is chief executive of the Early Years Alliance