Extend 30 hours to more families, urges social mobility body

It outlines the recommendation in its report, State of the Nation 2018-19: Social Mobility in Great Britain, in which it says gaps between advantaged and less advantaged children open up before birth and persist throughout life.

It says urgent action is needed to address the stagnation of social mobility over the last four years, with measures such as the closure of hundreds of children's centres - and the scaling back of hundreds more sites - making it a challenge to ensure the hardest to reach families benefit from early years support.

With 500,000 more children in poverty since 2012, it said child poverty had an important influence on social mobility and young people living in poverty often had worse health and education outcomes and started school developmentally behind their more advantaged peers.

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The government's 30-hour childcare for those working 16 hours or more was "well-intentioned, but risks impeding social mobility", the commission said.

"Many poorer families lose out because they were either not eligible for the support or unaware of it," it added.

The government should extend the eligibility of the offer to those earning the equivalent of eight hours per week as a first step to making it available to more parents.

A national marketing campaign to promote the revised 30-hour childcare offer should also be introduced which would work with local authorities to specifically target low-income households.

The report found the early years workforce is facing a skills gap, its workers are low paid and has poor career progression. 

"A staggering 45 per cent of childcare workers claim benefits or tax credits," it said. 

The commission also questions whether the pupil premium - which gives schools additional funding to meet the extra costs of supporting the most disadvantaged pupils - is effective in closing the social mobility gap. It highlights how the attainment gap between the most and least disadvantaged pupils has failed to narrow significantly since its introduction.  

"We call on the government to consider whether the pupil premium is effectively targeted and whether differential levels of funding might be more beneficial for those with long-term disadvantage," the report states.

Responding to the report's recommendation to extend the 30 hours childcare offer, the Early Years Alliance said the current policy benefited well-off families more than those from poorer backgrounds.

"However, the determining factor in who can and can't access funded childcare is not so much the eligibility criteria as it is the invisible barriers created by the government's underfunding of the policy," said Neil Leitch, the alliance's chief executive.

He said funding levels were set low and had remained frozen for several years, leaving providers little choice but to ask parents to pick up the shortfall in voluntary charges and higher fees for non-funded hours.

"It's clear what the impact this will have on those families who need their childcare to be ‘free' - they'll struggle to access places.

"It's hard to see how the Commission's recommendation of a national marketing campaign for funded hours can change that," he added.

The National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) said the government was a "bad parent" which was failing too many of its children.

"It's truly shocking that in the last seven years, an additional half a million children now live in poverty," said Stella Ziolkowski, NDNA's director of quality and training.

She said high quality early education was the best way to lift these children from poverty enabling them to fulfil their potential.

"But with the majority of families (85 per cent) accessing 30-hour childcare places with an income of more than £40,000, it's clear that this well-intentioned policy is just entrenching disadvantage further.

Ziolkowski said the rate the government pays to educate two-, three- and four-year-olds was too low resulting in rising nursery closure rates and fewer places particularly in deprived communities.

"Whilst we agree that broadening the 30 hours entitlement is good for children of lower earning families, we need to ensure sufficient high quality places are available to facilitate this to happen," she added.

Liz Bayram, chief executive at the Professional Association for Childcare and Early Years, said: "It's good the Commission has recognised the 30 hours offer is failing disadvantaged three and four year olds as well as many qualifying two year olds and is right to highlight that underfunding of these government funded early education places has to be addressed if we're seriously going to tackle social mobility in this country.

"We're also pleased they're looking at the early years workforce but disagree it's just about getting more ‘talented people' into the sector. We've amazing people working in early years delivering high quality care and learning on a shoestring. But with low pay, no status and limited career progression too many are forced to leave the job they love. If funding is improved settings can invest more in their staff. Currently, practitioners can often earn more working in retail. They face social mobility challenges alongside many of the children they care for."

The commission, which drew on new data on parental occupation from the Office for National Statistics for its research, said its raft of recommendations aimed to give those from poorer backgrounds a better chance to succeed.

The annual report, its sixth to chart rates of social mobility, found inequality is still "deeply entrenched, there is a persistent gap in early literacy, the attainment gap at the end of secondary school has hardly shifted since 2014 and the better off are nearly 80 per cent more likely to end up in a professional job than those from a working-class background".

The report also calls for the Department for Education to complete its review of children's centres and "ensure the investment in the home learning environment reaches disadvantaged and vulnerable families".

Last summer, children's minister Nadhim Zahawi indicated the long-promised review had been shelved indefinitely. 

Dame Martina Milburn, chair of the commission, said: "Being born privileged in Britain means that you are likely to remain privileged. Being born disadvantaged however, means that you may have to overcome a series of barriers to ensure that your children are not stuck in the same trap."