What prompted the change? It seems likely the government realised that without a big recruitment push its flagship policy to expand funded childcare would fail to deliver, both for families and electorally. The campaign is accompanied by a pilot across 20 councils to offer 3,000 new entrants “golden hellos” of £1,000 to join the early years workforce.
The need is urgent: latest figures show that extending the 15 hours a week of funded childcare to all parents of two-year-olds from April could require an extra 100,000 childcare places. This will be challenging for providers to deliver from a capacity perspective and will require thousands of extra staff – latest jobs data shows a 146 per cent rise in childcare vacancies advertised.
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