Early years leaders throw down the gauntlet to new minister Elizabeth Truss

Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA), urged Elizabeth Truss to help relieve financial pressures on providers delivering the government’s free childcare programme to three- and four-year-olds.

“NDNA hopes that more will be done to address the issue of funding shortfalls for free entitlement places as 76 per cent of nurseries say funding for three and four year old places does not cover their costs,” she said.

“This threatens the sustainability of the nursery sector and increases the cost of paid for places as nurseries seek to make up the shortfall. We also hope the government will consider the exemption of nurseries from VAT and business rates to bring greater equality between public and private sector nurseries.”

Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Pre-school Learning Alliance, welcomed the appointment of Truss as a politician who has shown “a keen interest in early years policy and the childcare issues facing families”.

But he said the government reshuffle must not derail the progress of the ongoing childcare commission.

“The reshuffle has come at a crucial time for early years as the government has just rolled out its revised Early Years Foundation Stage and begun to extend the free early years entitlement to two-year-olds,” he said.

“However, we are concerned about the uncertainty the reshuffle has created in the Prime Minister’s childcare commission, especially as both of its co-chairs are no longer in post.”

The commission had been chaired by former children’s minister Sarah Teather alongside Maria Miller, former minister at the Department of Work and Pensions and now Culture Secretary. Their replacements are yet to be confirmed.

Leitch added that he hopes early years will remain a high priority within the Department for Education (DfE), given that the brief has now been handed to a junior minister – or parliamentary under-secretary – despite it being held previously by a minister.

“We trust that this does not reflect the government’s view that early years is now a lesser priority than before,” he said.

Truss’ website describes her as “a vocal campaigner for reforms" to childcare. The Conservative MP for south west Norfolk wrote a report for the think-tank Centre Forum earlier this year, calling for the UK to adopt a model of childcare regulation and inspection similar to that used in the Netherlands, to reduce the cost of childcare.

Under the Dutch model, childminder agencies train and monitor childminders and act as intermediaries between providers and parents. Funding is channelled through these agencies, between five and 30 per cent of which are randomly selected for inspection each year.?

Truss believes this would allow for higher ratios of children to staff. She argues that where childminders can currently only care for three children aged under five, this should increase to five; and where they can now only care for one baby, they should be able to take on two. She has also suggested that nurseries should be allowed to apply for academy status.

Truss said: “I am delighted and feel very honoured to have been offered this position as parliamentary under-secretary of state. I look forward to working within the DfE and formulating policy that has real benefit for families not only in south west Norfolk but across the UK as a whole.”