Councils are calling for more power to build nursery capacity after nine in 10 said they feared closures of settings will put government childcare expansion plans at risk.
The call follows the recent publication of research by the Local Government Association (LGA) which shows that four in 10 councils said they saw more settings close last autumn (see in numbers) and that disadvantaged families were disproportionately affected by this.
The study raises doubts about whether £204m of extra funding for councils – announced in July to deliver the rollout of 15 hours of funded childcare to all two-year-olds from April 2024 and of 30 hours for all children aged nine months and above from 2025 – will be enough to prevent the situation from worsening.
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