Consultation launches on ‘flawed’ plans to relax childcare ratios
Fiona Simpson
Monday, July 4, 2022
The government has launched a consultation over controversial plans to relax childcare ratios for two-year-olds in England.
The plans, which were first suggested by children’s minister Will Quince in March, would see ratios in nurseries changed from 1:4 to 1:5 staff to children, bringing England in line with Scotland.
According to the Department for Education this could “potentially eventually reduce the cost of this form of childcare by up to 15 per cent, or up to £40 per week for a family paying £265 per week for care for their two-year-old”.
However, providers have branded the DfE’s claim “fundamentally flawed”, noting that the government’s calculations are based on all nurseries and pre-schools working to maximum ratios “at all times”.
A recent study by the Early Years Association (EYA) found that just 51 per cent of providers delivering places to two-year-olds currently work to maximum ratios all the time while just five per cent of nurseries and pre-schools would “always/permanently” operate to looser ratios if the government’s proposal went ahead.
Meanwhile, 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, according to the EYA.
Neil Leitch, chief executive of the EYA, said: "Given the scale of the challenges facing the early years at the moment, it is beyond frustrating that the government is wasting its time consulting on relaxing ratios, rather than just admitting that if we want to have affordable, quality, sustainable care and early education in this country, we need to invest substantially more into the sector that we are doing at the moment.
“Our own research has clearly shown that the proposal to relax ratios for two-year-olds in nurseries and pre-schools from 1:4 to 1:5 will not only fail to lower the cost of early years places, but in any settings that do adopt the new ratios, will drive down quality and worsen the already catastrophic recruitment and retention crisis the sector is already experiencing.
“Watering down early years standards at a time when children need more support than ever is not, and never will be, the answer.”
Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, added that relaxing ratios “won’t make any meaningful difference to the cost of childcare for providers or parents”.
“Many children are coming into early years settings with additional needs having been impacted by Covid restrictions. More children are struggling with language acquisition and with their personal, social and emotional development as a result. This is why now is not the time to be giving young children less support,” she said.
The eight-week consultation, which is due to close on 16 September, will also seek the views of parents and early years practitioners on changes to ratios for childminders and plans to “make the Early Years Foundation Stage statutory framework explicit that ‘adequate supervision’ while children are eating means that children must be in sight and hearing of an adult”.