Figures published by the National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) reveal that councils are “shortchanging children and leaving providers out of pocket” by moving early years funding to tackle overspending in other areas of education.
The early years group received Freedom of Information Act responses regarding education and early years budgets from 130 local education authorities (LEAs) across England.
Of these, 95 councils (74 per cent) reported an underspend on childcare for three- and four-year-olds in 2018/19, totalling £63.5m.
The 10 LEAs with the highest underspends are:
Among those councils underspending, almost half (42 per cent) kept the money in their reserves, totalling £18.8m.
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