Education Committee
Oral evidence: Early Years: improving support for children and families, HC 211
Tuesday 9 June 2026
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 9 June 2026.
Members present: Helen Hayes (Chair); Jess Asato; Mrs Sureena Brackenridge; Mark Sewards; Peter Swallow; Caroline Voaden.
Questions 155 - 195
Witnesses
I: Sarah Ronan, Executive Director, Early Education and Childcare Coalition; Rachel Grocott, CEO, Pregnant then Screwed; and Justine Roberts CBE, founder and CEO, Mumsnet.
Witnesses: Sarah Ronan, Rachel Grocott and Justine Roberts CBE.
Q155 Chair: Welcome to this oral evidence session of the Education Committee. This is the fourth public evidence session in the Committee’s inquiry on the early years, and this morning we are hearing from parent-led organisations about the experience of parents in bringing up children in the early years and the systems of support and services they rely on. I am very pleased to welcome our witnesses this morning. I would be grateful if you could introduce yourselves to the Committee.
Justine Roberts: I am the founder and executive chair of Mumsnet and Gransnet. Mumsnet has roughly 8 million monthly users who come on our platform to discuss all their concerns, and often their feckless partners. We have about 3.3 million members who are currently parenting a child aged five and under. I am here to represent their views. We have an analysis of conversations over the last 24 months, so I have lots of recent data points about what parents are saying on the subject.
Rachel Grocott: I am chief executive of Pregnant then Screwed. We are a small organisation that has existed for a decade, providing services to help women and parents navigate childcare, flexible working, pregnancy, and maternity discrimination while, at the same time, campaigning for systems to better support them. Like Justine, we have a community—not quite as big—of about 4,000 members. What I will be presenting today is the research we have done with those members. Over 5,000 mothers completed a large survey, primarily on childcare, and I have lots of quotes to back up the data. I am pleased to be bringing their voices to you today.
Sarah Ronan: I am executive director of the Early Education and Childcare Coalition. The coalition is a policy partnership between parents, children, early years providers, the early years workforce, and the wider business community. You will have heard from many of our members over the course of this inquiry: Pregnant then Screwed, Mumsnet, Early Years Alliance, Save the Children, as well as trade unions such as Unison. We work together to co-design solutions to some of the system’s biggest problems, such as affordability and access. That work includes modelling some potential reforms to tax-free childcare and offers that parents depend on, but also undertaking consistent, qualitative research with parents, particularly focused on certain demographics such as low-income families. Alongside that, we are also working across combined authorities to understand what a regional approach to improving early years support would look like.
Q156 Chair: I will begin with a nice open question. What I will say at the outset is that we are going to delve into a lot of the detail, and we always run out of time, so just have that in mind. We have lots of topics to ask you about and there will be an opportunity to get into detail. If I can ask for an overview first: what are the biggest problems that parents and the organisations you represent report regarding support for children and families in the early years?
Justine Roberts: The biggest problem is easy access to support early on. People recognise the general ambition of trying to get intervention to parents when there is need, but what parents do not feel is an ongoing availability of support when there are early signs of trouble. The difficulty of access and patchy provision are the themes that come up a lot. You are going to go into detail, but that is the broad overview of it.
Q157 Chair: By “trouble”, do you mean in relation to SEND, poverty or domestic abuse? All those things or—
Justine Roberts: Yes, all those things. It is not just viewing it as intervention when there is a crisis, but support before there is a crisis would prevent the crisis in the long run, particularly around access for kids with special educational needs and parenting questions. They frequently reference how much they support the idea of family hubs and things like that, but there are just not enough of them. The mindset of support should be there before it becomes a crisis.
Rachel Grocott: I would summarise it as a whole series of interconnected systems and issues. We are here today to focus on childcare and education, but for a lot of parents we support the issues start a long time before that in pregnancy and maternity discrimination. In some cases, women experience discrimination as soon as they disclose a pregnancy loss in the workplace. The system is really stacked against women from the very early stages, even before they have started a family. We see insufficient levels of statutory maternity pay that often force women back to work far sooner than they are ready for; people living in financial hardship and poverty even before they get to the point of trying to access childcare.
The bulk of the issues that we see are around people being unable to afford and access childcare. It is all these issues interacting with each other and not one sole thing on its own that makes it feel as if the system is stacked against mothers in particular, and that ties into Justine’s point around the support that women are asking for.
Sarah Ronan: Our work obviously focuses on early education and childcare specifically rather than the wider early years system, although we consider how that interacts with hubs and other services. Unsurprisingly, the main issues that parents are still facing are around affordability. Even if you are eligible for Government support, it does not necessarily follow that you can find a place. Waiting lists have become longer as a result of increased demand. You may also live in a place that has limited access. It is not necessarily that you live in a disadvantaged area, but you may live in a rural area. Those issues around affordability and access still remain. We see that a lack of flexibility for parents is increasingly a problem, particularly as people work more shift hours, and there are growing concerns around quality as the sector has had to grow quickly to respond to demand.
To sum up, what we hear from parents is that they recognise that progress has been made on early years but they have doubts about whether it is a system they can rely on at the moment.
Q158 Mrs Brackenridge: We hear the Government’s ambition to give every child the best possible start in life. How do you interpret that phrase? Do you think the Government are delivering on this through their early years’ strategy?
Justine Roberts: There is a lot of positivity about the ambition itself. I do not think you will find many people on Mumsnet who disagree that the early years matter enormously, and that intervention during that period can shape later outcomes in health, education and wellbeing.
Parents rarely describe that best start in life narrowly. They tend to look at it in more than educational terms, so things around attachment, health, responsive parenting, opportunities for play, and stable family environment.
In discussions about school readiness, which is a large part of what people understand the Government are trying to do with Best Start in Life, we come back to children being more likely to thrive if parents receive support early rather than after a crisis point. There is very little appetite for framing the issue as a parental responsibility alone. Parents generally accept that they have primary responsibility for children’s development, but they describe a wide range of support that is necessary.
Is the current policy delivering? The answer is no. Many believe the system is not delivering consistently on the ambition, and not because of a rejection of the individual policies that all seem to be quite popular, such as funded childcare, family hubs, parenting support, health visiting and SEND provision. In principle, all are wonderful but the increasing feeling is that access is very fragmented. It is difficult to get to and is only available once problems have escalated. Overall, it is a tick for the ambition but not for the delivery.
Rachel Grocott: I completely agree with that assessment. We very much see the same in the stories and data we hear from our membership and community. Absolute agreement with ambitions and principles. To build on what Justine said, for many of the families we support the emphasis is on surviving at the moment. It is about making money last until the end of the month, having enough to pay for childcare and possibly keep a job, too. For increasing numbers, it is not worth their while to work, so women are dropping out of the workforce. It is very much about surviving and not thriving. That ambition is great and everybody agrees with it, but how we get there is the real issue for the parents we support at the moment. They are struggling every day and it is affecting what we hear.
Sarah Ronan: We were delighted to see the Best Start in Life strategy published. What we have seen over the last decade or so is a hollowing out of the services that really make a difference in the first five years. It felt like it was reviving that ambition. It is a really good mission statement of where we want to end up. Whether we end up there or not will really depend on funding, delivery and implementation. Some stuff in it felt like a real departure; the focus on early education as part of childhood development, not just as a labour market tool. That is a really important shift, and something we have lagged behind on compared with other countries.
Other things we are particularly pleased to see are naming the role of private equity and driving gaps in access, particularly in the most disadvantaged communities, which feels really important in terms of levelling the playing field. There are challenges around integration and early years systems, which you will get where there is a childcare market that is largely private and for profit. How you integrate that with public services is a challenge. There are obviously some really good policies in there around workforce, and we saw one of those rolled out this week with early years teaching sessions in disadvantaged areas. There is a real lack of a workforce strategy as part of this, and for us it is one of the big gaps because it is the workforce that builds capacity in the system for parents. It drives outcomes for children but it is also safeguarding wrapped up in a workforce strategy, and that is something that needs to be addressed moving forward.
Q159 Chair: To follow up on that, you have spoken about funding and workforce. Are there any other particular barriers to delivering the Government strategy that you think they should be turning their attention to?
Sarah Ronan: One of the biggest gaps is how you give every child a fair start in life if not every child is accessing the same early education. Obviously, the strategy acknowledges that there are gaps around eligibility. There are cliff edges and thresholds that come into play. The Government have, in the child poverty strategy, which I know you currently have a joint inquiry on, set out their intention for a DFE-led childcare review. That cannot come soon enough. The poorest third of children get no access to the current 30-hour expansion, meanwhile the education attainment gap is widening. This is urgent and is something that needs to be addressed.
Q160 Caroline Voaden: I would like to talk to you about school readiness. What role do you think parents should play in ensuring children are school ready by the end of reception, or going into reception? What support, resources or interventions do you think are needed to help them do so?
Sarah Ronan: We can all acknowledge that parents are children’s first educator. They are the single biggest influence in a child’s life in those early stages. We also need to acknowledge that parents are under increasing pressure at the moment with the cost of living. One thing we hear consistently from parents through the surveys and interviews that we do with them, which really bring this to life, is that often in a two-parent household they are like ships in the night. They want to do more and they know they need to do more. When we talk about the impact of the cost of living, we talk about the financial figures but there is another cost. Some parents are not able to find the time to support their child’s home learning environment in the way they would want. There is a lot more we can do to support parents, and bringing down the cost of living is obviously part of that, but also meeting parents where they are by getting information and support to them early on. It is not just about the obvious things such as toilet training; it is really about making sure that children are confident when they turn up to school at reception. Not just ready to learn but feeling good about being there. They are excited to be at school and to start that learning journey. If we want them to be excited about it, we have to support parents early on to instil it, create the space to do so, and support that environment. That is really difficult for people at the moment.
Rachel Grocott: I completely agree and would offer some quotes in support of the point Sarah has just made. These are quotes from members in our recent research of over 5,000 mothers. “I returned to work full-time and work from 5 am one day a week to condense hours in order to afford childcare.” These are the realities that we are seeing, to Sarah’s point about having the time and space to be able to think about things other than surviving. We often see that it is not happening. “How did you afford childcare?” “I picked up freelance work, got in debt, ate less, skipped bill payments.” I could go on, but the point really backs up what Sarah has said.
Justine Roberts: I would agree with what has been said. Parents on Mumsnet definitely believe they have a central role in preparing their kids for school. The subject of school readiness around early years is the discussion that has grown the most over the last two years. The idea that school readiness is important is definitely getting through. They very clearly say that they believe it is about the things Sarah and Rachel have said: it is about confidence; it is about the ability to sit and listen; it is about the ability to put shoes on, skills and confidence. It is not about academics. There is a slight feeling that there is too much push on being ready with numbers and words, and not enough about the child’s ability to thrive in a setting and their social skills. I am sure we are going to come on to the prevalence of screens and what they are doing to kids’ school readiness, their ability to learn through play, be in social settings and be confident to take turns and do all the things that make them ready to learn. Parents on Mumsnet view it as the school’s job to take care of the academics in the main, and it is their job to get the child confident and socially ready for school.
Q161 Caroline Voaden: You skipped ahead and saw my next question. There has obviously been a lot of talk about screen time. In a recent survey, both teachers and parents have listed parents spending more time on electronic devices than with children as one of the key reasons why children are not school ready. We have talked a lot about how much time children are spending on screens. Do you think there is an issue with parents spending too much time on screens? Do you think there should be guidance around this as well?
Justine Roberts: Guidance for kids is incredibly helpful. Mumsnet has been campaigning for restrictions on children’s use of phones for some time, particularly social media with the dangers of that. The basic message of our campaign is that these things are built to be addictive, and we are all addicted, but it is particularly important for young children’s developing brains. What we would like to see is some proper enforcement on these platforms about the type of thing they are building. You put your kid in front of “Peppa Pig” on YouTube and before you know it they are watching shorts, which are giving them endless dopamine hits. They are highly addictive. Everything else seems boring. Books seem very boring by comparison. Sorry, I have wandered a bit because I am quite passionate about this.
Caroline Voaden: We all are.
Justine Roberts: Let us be frank that the whole business model is built on keeping our attention. That is adults as well. The only difference between adults and children is that we have had time for our brains to develop, so that is why our focus should be on children. Absolutely, why not give parents guidance?
I know more and more young people, and I am talking about people in their 20s, who are swapping their smartphone for something else. We have actually built a smartphone that gives you alternatives and turns off all the flashing lights. The addictive features of these platforms are wrong, and the Government need to act on this. I very much hope they will in the near future.
Caroline Voaden: I asked a question about addictiveness in the Chamber yesterday; all of us are on the same page.
Justine Roberts: Good.
Rachel Grocott: I need Justine to come and speak to my 11-year-old daughter who is currently asking me for a phone and getting precisely that answer. We need to recognise, building on the points we were making earlier, that a lot of parents’ phone use is about survival. It is about organising life. It is about arranging the multiple forms of informal childcare that often make parents’ lives work. Our data shows that the vast majority of working parents are juggling more than one form of childcare in order to make it work around school hours, shifts and balancing work. We have data and quotes to show that people have to keep their children at home, while they are working from home, because there are no nursery places or childcare places available for them. So it is a matter of necessity and survival rather than being on TikTok or whatever platform you want to name.
Guidance, absolutely, but let us also change the system that means parents are forced into that kind of behaviour in the first place. Similarly for children, Sarah mentioned ships in the night. If there is no adult who can solely focus on a child, what choice is left to parents? We need to look at those rather than solely provide best practice guidance that works in an ideal world, as we are definitely not in an ideal world at the moment.
Sarah Ronan: I will not repeat what Justine and Rachel have said. I agree with all of that, but I want to add that there is something about parental use of screens that starts in those really isolated, early and lonely days of becoming a parent. Sometimes it is during the night feed when you go on your phone to check on a rash. It gives you some sort of connection to the outside world in those early days when you are operating on a different schedule than everybody else because you are up in the middle of the night. There is something around the isolation that comes with being a parent for the first time where a reliance on phones and being connected sets in. There is also something about how this developed. It is rooted in the pandemic and us all being online constantly for a year and a bit but not getting back to normal interaction post-pandemic.
Q162 Caroline Voaden: We went to Estonia last year and had a look at kindergartens there. They start formal school at age seven and spend a lot of time before that making sure children learn to regulate their emotions and socialise so that they are ready to go into formal learning. What social and systemic barriers do you think most hinder children’s readiness for school by the end of reception in England compared with approaches such as Estonia’s, which is placing greater emphasis on social and emotional development?
Sarah Ronan: One of our ambitions for the early education childcare system is to get to a place similar to Estonia, where parent fees are capped at a percentage of household income. I am pleased to hear that you have had the opportunity to go out there and see the system.
The focus on school readiness or being ready for reception, or whatever term we want to put on it to make it feel like we are not setting four-year-olds targets, does not appreciate the individualism of every child. We are not giving them the space to grow and see where they end up. What we hear from parents consistently is that they ultimately want a confident, kind and sociable child. I am not an expert in pedagogy but we hear from parents frequently that, when their child hits four, they do not feel they are quite ready to be there yet. A question came up in your first evidence session when Sarah Tillotson talked about the fragmented system we have in early years and what that means for transitions into school. There is something around that, and how we do more to support that transition into school. If we are fixed on their needing to be at a certain position by the age of four, we need to think about how we better support that transition at such a very young age.
Q163 Caroline Voaden: Do you think four is too young?
Sarah Ronan: I am not an expert in pedagogy. I am an expert in the current childcare system, so I am going to stop short of saying that for fear that our members might have a different view. If some children, for example, have an undiagnosed need, or they are still waiting on a diagnosis, or it is just who they are and there is nowhere else or there is no other option, then it feels young for parents. That is what they tell us. They keep telling us that it feels they are only babies for a short time and then they are in school. We need to think about that, but we mainly need to look at how we support parents and children around that transition.
Q164 Caroline Voaden: Rachel and Justine, do you have thoughts to add on barriers to school readiness?
Justine Roberts: There is not much conversation about Estonia specifically, but there is an awful lot about the school starting age. The general consensus is that four is too young, particularly because the academic learning starts then. Our parents are very strongly in favour of play being a good way to do learning, and in fact say that we move too swiftly in the curriculum to more academic learning and that play should be incorporated all the way through primary school. Learning via play is one of the key things that comes through our conversations, and that children who struggle to develop skills through play are going to struggle with the school transition. One of the problems for kids is actually that we are starting them too early and they have not had the opportunity to transition well, so they are doubly behind. Social development is viewed as being as important as academic readiness, and they think play is the way to do it. We should either start later, which might be quite problematic for a lot of parents, or do it differently and have more play-based learning.
Caroline Voaden: So maybe start at four but have a different introduction into—
Justine Roberts: Exactly. I do not think you will find loads of parents on Mumsnet saying, “Please do not start school until seven.” However, they would say do it differently.
Q165 Caroline Voaden: In that system where formal school starts at seven, they are all in childcare from about the age of one. We saw that they were all in it by 18 months; they were all there. Rachel, anything to add on that?
Rachel Grocott: I was going to make the same point about undiagnosed needs. I feel that the more we learn about the needs of children with different brains, different neurodevelopmental approaches, the more we need to adapt our approach to support all brains, not just the ones that are capable of sitting still and listening at four. We increasingly hear from parents who find that they are in that situation, and it is hard to navigate the current system.
Sarah Ronan: Can I add something quickly? We see a lot of alignment between parents’ view of school readiness and early educators’ view of school readiness. They are very much on the same page, but it feels like a different page from teachers and schools. They look at it as though those years should not be a phase to get through just to get to the point of attending school. It is being patient with the child, giving them what they need and that focus on emotional and social wellbeing. Parents and early educators tell us that they feel the approach differs greatly at school compared with what they feel needs to happen. There is a lot of alignment between early educators and parents on this topic.
Justine Roberts: I forgot to mention that many of our contributors describe a really sharp transition between play-based early years and structured classroom settings, so thinking about a more gradual approach to that would be very helpful.
Q166 Peter Swallow: Rachel, you touched on some of this in your last response but Best Start family hubs were designed to offer accessible, joined-up support for families in early years. In your view, what core services do you think they are best placed to offer to support parents?
Rachel Grocott: We have mentioned quite a few areas already, including the need for support in those early years, particularly where there is so much vulnerability. We have talked a little about SEND and the needs of parents there. What we see in the services that we offer at Pregnant then Screwed is that there is often a gap around human support for issues related to pregnancy, maternity discrimination and the multiple intersecting issues. I have described the way it feels, almost like a piling up of lots of issues, and the thing we hear from people calling our advice line every single day is, “I just needed to talk to someone who got it, and it needed to be a human being.” We would love to explore how we can provide that kind of support via the family hubs, whether it is the same kind of approach or something that Pregnant then Screwed are involved in directly. That human support is so important in those early days and we have found all the way through the parental journey. I was reading comments from people on the train this morning saying, “These needs don’t finish when they go to school either.” This support is needed, and it is often missing or provided by small charities at the moment. To go back to your question, absolutely information, but that human contact support is vital as well.
Q167 Peter Swallow: Justine, is that something Mumsnet users would recognise?
Justine Roberts: Yes. There is a general lament for the loss of some services that used to exist: health visitor drop-ins, children’s centres and Sure Start. Many parents feel that they were opportunities to access informal support from experts. Obviously, they have Mumsnet for peer-to-peer support and they get a lot of help from that, but the informal support from perceived experts seems to have disappeared. That is the view, and it is lamented.
Rachel Grocott: I recently had some conversations with very new mums who were amazed to hear that those things used to exist and said things like, “Oh, I wish that was available now. No one has come to check on me. No one has asked me questions about that. I do not know where to turn.” We now have a generation of parents who have not had that support and are looking back with a much more positive view of what went before.
Q168 Peter Swallow: Sarah, do you feel that Best Start family hubs have the resources to deliver everything we have heard that it is important they are delivering?
Sarah Ronan: We have seen that the funding for hubs is a fraction of what we had for Sure Start. I completely appreciate the fiscal environment but, if we are really going to deliver on the Best Start in Life strategy, it needs to be funded properly to meet that ambition.
We are doing a lot of work in the north-east at the moment. We are working with the North East Mayoral Strategic Authority on delivering their regional childcare strategy as part of Kim McGuinness’s child poverty action plan. In the last few weeks, we have done lots of focus groups and interviews with parents around early years support. When people access hubs, they really value what they get. It is whether they can access them. It is not just whether there is one in their area but also if it is open enough hours. Some local authorities do not have the funding to be able to staff them all the time. When you hear that, and you hear of the positive experience, it feels like there is a potential missed opportunity if the funding is not there to be able to keep them open.
We had the local authority guidance for hubs a few months ago, and one of the services they talked about providing was childcare navigators, having that support to help families understand what they are entitled to. In a really complex childcare system, that is absolutely welcome. The other positive about the hubs and plans for continued roll-out is the prospect of having over 2,000 partner satellite sites as well. That is going to be really important in terms of meeting parents where they already are. One of the challenges with hubs is always outreach. How do you get to the families that are hardest to reach and may not already be in contact with a health visitor? Services such as health visitors and childcare support that have a really accessible front door to the system is what we need from hubs, but they need to be funded to deliver on the ambition of the strategy.
Q169 Peter Swallow: Noted. Sarah, we are going to segue to the early years workforce now, which is something you raised in your opening remarks. When we, as a Committee, visited Estonia, one thing we were really struck by was how it requires early years teachers to hold a graduate-level degree in early years, something that is far from the situation here in England. Do you think that our lack of equivalent requirements affects the quality of childcare and early years education?
Sarah Ronan: We know the evidence shows that children’s outcomes are improved by having a graduate in a setting, and we had that announcement this week, which we welcomed. We were really pleased to see that. It is great that we have these incentives to attract graduates, particularly into the most disadvantaged communities, but we need to keep them once they are there. That comes back to those underlying issues with the workforce around low pay, progression and all those things. There are lots of people in coalition organisations, and the coalition across the system, who really lament the fact that we no longer have the graduate leader fund, which made a big difference in getting graduates into settings. It is something we would like to see expanded. We welcomed the Government this week expanding the incentive programme to 10 additional areas, which is a good start, but we need to do more.
Q170 Peter Swallow: Justine, is this something that Mumsnet users worry about?
Justine Roberts: I am old enough to remember when Liz Truss was Education Secretary and tried to introduce reforms to increase the academic demands on the workforce but also increase the number of kids they were allowed to look after in early years, which possibly was the worst webchat that has ever happened on Mumsnet in terms of hostility.
Parents, as I have already expressed, are broadly not so worried about educational attainment in the very early years; they are worried about confidence and school readiness. This requires attention from the professionals. My answer is that it would be amazing if all providers were able to access graduates, but not if it means the numbers they have to look after goes up.
Q171 Peter Swallow: Rachel, there is a tension here, is there not? Having more qualified staff risks making childcare even more expensive, but there is also this tension between whether early years should be about education or childcare. What is your perspective on this question?
Rachel Grocott: To the first point, it has to be about funding. I echo all the points Sarah has made about the childcare sector needing to be properly funded, especially when the Government are the largest purchaser of childcare places so are setting the rules for everybody else. All the data shows that Government funding does not meet the actual cost of delivering the spaces. That has to be the first answer.
On the second point, it can be both. It can be childcare, so parents can go to work, as well as child development. There is an increasing recognition among parents that it is both; parents are not putting kids into childcare so they can go and pursue their career. It is about both those things. We have definitely seen a shift in that kind of narrative in recent years.
Q172 Caroline Voaden: You have already touched on this a little, Justine, but I wondered if you could expand on how you think current workforce challenges in the early years sector are affecting parents’ experience and perception of childcare provision?
Justine Roberts: It is well rehearsed, but parents constantly describe affordability, availability and quality complaints. They are all interconnected. The difficulty in accessing suitable childcare severely limits parents’ opportunities to work, and it puts incredible stress on families. People are making employment choices based on the fact that they cannot access suitable childcare. In the round, that is not great for the economy. I wholeheartedly support Rachel’s point that it needs to be properly funded by Government. At the moment, it is patchy and there are real limits to the availability of quality childcare, which is limiting parents’ employment choices.
Q173 Caroline Voaden: Sarah, how have the staff-to-child ratio changes introduced in September 2023 affected the quality of care? How do you think these changes have been experienced by parents?
Sarah Ronan: Parents were not in support of them to start with. When the consultation response was published, it noted that there was overwhelmingly a negative reaction, and parents are still not supportive of it. That has not changed. It has been interesting for us to see, because obviously they are minimum ratios. At the very beginning, when they were introduced, a lot of providers said that they did not feel comfortable adopting them. What we have seen is that, as financial pressures on providers have increased, they have had no choice but to adopt them even if, in an ideal world, they do not want to. That says a lot about the funding environment and financial pressures for providers.
On general workforce challenges more broadly, there was already an existing recruitment and retention crisis in early years prior to the roll-out of the 30-hour entitlement. Demand has exacerbated that. We saw from the NFER education workforce report earlier this year that the Government have set a target of attracting 35,000 staff into the sector to meet demand. They made huge progress in year one, then plateaued. They have only attracted 600 people into the sector in the last year, as opposed to 20,000 the previous year.
We are one year into a three-year piece of work on the early education workforce. We are working with parents quite closely to understand how they view the workforce. It has been really interesting to watch how it has changed over the last three years alongside the roll-out of the 30 hours. You may have heard me say it before, but in one of the focus groups we did last year—it sticks in my mind so clearly—a parent said that it was now kids looking after kids. They can see that the workforce has shifted over the last few years in order to meet demand. I say it all the time, and I will say it again: for so many of the issues we are talking about here around affordability, access, places, safeguarding, quality and outcomes, the golden thread is the workforce. If we are going to support parents and children to thrive, we have to support the workforce.
To go back to your original point about ratios, where you have acute recruitment and retention challenges, some settings may not be operating at even minimum ratios. If we are talking about people being under financial pressure, they cut the chef, the cleaner or the admin person. That is taking staff away from rooms as well. This is all having a knock-on impact across settings. We are well overdue a workforce strategy; we have not had one for nine years. Having one would help to address a lot of the challenges that we are talking about in this inquiry.
Q174 Mark Sewards: I was going to ask you a few questions about affordability; I still will, but you have already addressed many of the points I was going to try to tease out. Sarah, I was struck when you said earlier—I think it was you—that the poorest third of children get no access to childcare at all. How affordable is childcare to the families you represent once all the costs are taken into account? Can you talk about different groups? This question is open to everyone, and I am very interested to hear your answers. More specifically, can you tell us what proportion of household income might be spent on childcare?
Sarah Ronan: Every year we do an annual Pulse Check report with More in Common, where we survey parents of under-fives and the wider public. Last year—bearing in mind that we were partway through the roll-out of the expansion, so people should have been feeling the benefit of it—32% of parents of under-fives told us that they were getting into debt to pay for childcare by either taking out a credit card or a loan or borrowing from family and friends.
The parents who are eligible consistently say that the 30 hours is making a difference to them. From the Coram family and childcare survey that was published in March, we have seen that is the power of Government intervention: it brings fees down for parents and makes a difference. It is just not making a difference to the families that need it most, which is the issue. We know from analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies that it is predominantly middle to higher earners who are benefiting from this.
There is a question that we need to ask about what we are doing with £9.5 billion of taxpayers’ money and whether it is delivering the best return on investment. That is not just in terms of affordability and putting more money in the pockets of those working families but whether we are future-proofing those children. We need to make sure that not only are we doing what we can to alleviate poverty in the poorest third of families at the moment by supporting families into work, but that we are looking at the role that early education plays in breaking that life cycle of poverty by giving those children a good start in life.
In the same Pulse Check last year, 53% of parents in England told us that childcare was still unaffordable, but that rose to 71% among single-parent families. Our colleagues at Gingerbread highlight this extensively. It was also the issue around affordability but, as I said earlier, even if you are eligible for Government support, can you find a place? Some of the most disadvantaged communities are the ones that are really missing out. We have a question that we need to answer around whether the system is fair and how we can reform it to ensure that it is.
Q175 Mark Sewards: Are there any further comments on general affordability before we move on?
Rachel Grocott: Just on the impact on parents’, and usually mothers’, jobs and careers as a result of those issues around childcare affordability. Our data shows that 25% of mothers are unable to return to full-time work because childcare is too expensive. Many are reducing hours or changing careers because they cannot access childcare that works for them. We are losing women from the workforce, and they are being pushed into either not working at all or working in jobs below their level of experience and at a lower level of pay.
I will just read you a couple of quotes to illustrate those points. “I have basically been told I will not be promoted further unless I work like I have no childcare responsibilities.” “I have tried everything to return back to work. Juggling it all for the last five years means I am now unemployed, trying to get work but cannot commit to roles due to childcare.” Again, I could go on, but this is having a really tangible long-term impact on how women are able—or rather not able—to participate in the workforce.
Q176 Mark Sewards: Do you know if those quotes come from people entitled to 30 hours?
Rachel Grocott: I would have to look back at the data, but we have a mix, and the data showed exactly what Sarah said for those who are eligible. Thirty hours is absolutely making a difference, although not the full difference because their costs have still gone up in many cases, but it is better than it used to be. There are huge numbers who are not eligible or still cannot access the places—all the issues that Sarah has already mentioned.
Justine Roberts: I agree with all that, but I would say that the volume of conversation about childcare affordability has gone down and actually been replaced by housing as a key determinant of children’s success and outcomes. I do not know if we are going to come on to that. It has gone down, but there are still massive problems, as I have already alluded to. It would be remiss not to acknowledge that the 30 hours have made a difference.
Q177 Mark Sewards: You have talked about the £9.5 billion and whether this is the best way to spend it. Are there any costs that are least visible to us all that we are not discussing, specifically deposits, late fees and term-time gaps, and what should we do to address them?
Sarah Ronan: Describing them as hidden costs is not helpful. We have seen that in recent comms from the Government, and it paints a picture of a sector that is acting in an unscrupulous way. The bulk of providers are family-run independent businesses that are trying to keep their heads above water in a really difficult financial climate. The issue with costs is that a lot of it is just unclear, and that is a result of years and years of marketing these entitlements as free and people developing an expectation around that.
Even though we have shifted that language in the last year or two, we have had the Prime Minister describe it as free. That is not helpful to anybody, and it paints a picture where you get these other things that you have to pay for: nappies, meals or whatever it might be. I am not saying that there are no providers who inflate costs or that there might be things that are put on an invoice at the end of the day and you are like, “He definitely didn’t eat £30 of fish fingers this week, I know that for a fact,” unless it was my eight-year-old, who actually might if he had his own way. We need to recognise that where these costs are coming from is often that providers are trying to cross-subsidise and make up shortfalls in funding.
The thing that often comes through in our research with parents around the 30 hours and whether they are feeling the benefit of it is actually around the fact that it is term-time only. When that is stretched out across the year, it really equates to only 20 to 22 hours a week, which is two full-time days at work. That is the thing that really gets people’s backs up, where they are saying, “I was told I was getting 30 hours. I thought I would be able to go to work for three days this week, and actually it is only two days.” That feeling of being mis-sold something is a bigger factor for a lot of people.
Mark Sewards: Are there any further comments on that one?
Rachel Grocott: Just lots of agreement.
Q178 Mark Sewards: Finally from me on the 30 hours, specifically for parents who are receiving it, we have just heard from Sarah about where the shortfalls are. Do you have any more data or specific stories that you can share with the Committee about parents who are accessing it but are still facing significant shortfalls between that and real costs?
Rachel Grocott: Yes.
Justine Roberts: Just that, anecdotally, it is coming up a lot that people are saying, “I’m limiting my employment because it’s not affordable.” I have no more than I have already said.
Sarah Ronan: We have spent a lot of time talking about the 30 hours, but obviously we also have universal credit childcare support and tax-free childcare in the mix. The issue around the extra charges and consumable charges is a real issue for parents who are claiming childcare support through universal credit. They are often not able to get any support back for that, and it can mean that they are just not able to take up an offer of returning to work.
We are doing some work at the moment with the London School of Economics and Political Science on modelling reform of universal credit childcare support and tax-free childcare. We have just done quite a lot of work directly with parents around how to make those systems easier for them. I have a quote here from one parent who was saying, “The first two weeks that my little one was in nursery were £560, and that was at the cheaper end. I had to find that while being on maternity leave. I had to put it on a credit card and wait for that to come back,” because of still having to pay for childcare costs upfront when you are on universal credit. The following month it was £1,100. She had to stick that on a credit card as well and wait to get that back.
Those changes that we saw to universal credit childcare support in March 2023, when the previous Government announced that you could use a flexible support fund to claim costs upfront, has had very little impact. The OBR’s outlook last October also verified that it had not had the desired impact. To your question about hidden costs, that is much more of an issue for parents who are on universal credit.
Q179 Caroline Voaden: Research by the Sutton Trust suggests that the poorest families derive almost no direct benefit from the new childcare entitlements. In your view, are there particular groups of children or families who are not accessing or benefiting from the new entitlement scheme?
Sarah Ronan: Yes. Our main overriding mission is that we want to see equal access for all children, regardless of their parents’ employment or immigration status and no matter where they live in the country. We know from ONS and Ofsted data that it is not just about whether you can access the 30 hours but whether you can find quality provision in your area, and that is a bit of a postcode lottery.
Alongside those children who are excluded because of eligibility criteria, there are obviously children who have SEND or an emerging or undiagnosed need and cannot get the provision they want. Parents who have no recourse to public funds also have restricted entitlements around childcare. I also mentioned at the start about shift workers and that flexibility.
When we are talking about access to suitable provision for children with SEND, we also need to consider the way in which that interacts with poverty or speech and language delays, and all these things. We keep talking about this idea of a well-managed mixed market where there are all types of providers and where parents have choice, but they do not have the choice they really need in the places where they really need it. The funding, and the way our funding and support for families is structured, does not support that choice either.
One of our hopes from the child poverty strategy and the childcare review is that we will see some movement on the issue of eligibility and the children who are locked out. I mentioned at the start that, obviously, we have a widening education attainment gap as well as a child poverty crisis that needs to be addressed, and closing that eligibility gap would really help.
Rachel Grocott: I will just illustrate Sarah’s points around accessibility for shift workers in particular. We hear a lot from parents on those issues: “I am currently using funded hours, but the current provider has changed when I can use those hours. I can now only use them between 1 pm and 6 pm. Nurseries offering funded hours have minimum days; you have no choice but to pay extra. Pre-school hours—9 am to 3 pm—do not work for most working families.”
We have evidence from families where both parents are working in the NHS and cannot access childcare that works around their shifts. As we have mentioned previously, families are not spending any time together. One more point is around students. We hear a lot from people who are trying to finish studies in order to progress their career, yet they are not eligible for childcare support so it is virtually impossible for them to finish their studies. They then get stuck in this loop.
Q180 Jess Asato: I have a constituent who is trying to do exactly what the Government want—train as a teacher—but his wife has had to give up her job so that he can retrain, because they cannot afford the childcare as they are not eligible. It is a real issue that obviously has an impact on other policy priorities. The Department has focused on improving affordability, but what non-financial and systemic barriers continue to limit access to childcare? Are any groups disproportionately affected? What changes would be effective in addressing these barriers? We have heard a little about this, but I want to give you an opportunity to raise any issues for other groups.
Justine Roberts: I would reiterate that the SEND system appears throughout conversations. It is an area of ongoing frustration because of the delays in diagnosis, the complexity of the system and the need to fight for support. We often see conversation about how it means that, if you do not have money, you cannot get a statement. And if you cannot get a statement, you cannot get the right childcare support. That system is just so interconnected and is well overdue reform, which I know is being looked at.
Rachel Grocott: Most of our data is linked to childcare cost and accessibility, but there is also the issue I mentioned right at the beginning about how lots of issues interact to penalise parents and especially mothers. The discrimination that I mentioned—the issues that are affecting women’s roles and choices at work even before they become a mother—are really significant, and we know they are affecting groups with marginalised identities more specifically. We see the interactions between pregnancy discrimination and racism, or certain attitudes toward LGBTQ+ families. Those types of discrimination also interact with the issues that we are seeing, so we need to be aware of those factors at play as well.
Sarah Ronan: I had mentioned some other groups as well. We know that, particularly for children with SEND, around 65% do not use their full entitlement to the 30 hours because they cannot find suitable provision. We also know that for parents of children with SEND, it is really difficult to stay in work because you may need to be nearby to be able to go to your child if they need you. The issue of a lack of inclusive, suitable provision for children with SEND is a really big factor. As I said, for parents who have no recourse to public funds, their children are getting less of an entitlement.
I know I have talked about childcare deserts and access to places, and we keep thinking so much of childcare is based around urbanised areas where we have a high concentration of commercial centres and stuff like that, but if you live in a rural area, it is really hard to access childcare. Childminders can play a really important role in bridging those gaps, but unfortunately they are also in decline, so that may be something we want to look at and address.
Q181 Jess Asato: You were talking about childcare deserts, and that is what we are moving on to next. How would you assess the current availability of childcare provision? Are the Government doing enough to tackle this issue of childcare deserts?
Sarah Ronan: When the school-based nursery programme was announced, it was partly to be able to plug the gap in provision in some communities. We saw a report by the Sutton Trust and the Social Market Foundation published last week, which showed that, actually, very few school-based nurseries are opening in the communities where they are most needed. We probably need to look at the reasons why. The report provides some really helpful insight into what is deterring schools from opening nurseries in those areas. Even if that programme were to be a success, it is not a silver bullet. We need to look at why these gaps in access are showing up.
I mentioned at the start of this session that the Best Start in Life strategy highlights the role of private equity in driving some gaps in access. I know that the Government are thinking about what more they can do to incentivise provision in those communities, and we would definitely welcome that. There is a role for other types of providers—such as social enterprises and not-for-profit providers—to open in those areas with adequate and sustainable funding to make sure that they survive.
In terms of incentivising provision and addressing childcare deserts, we see a role for the mayoral authorities to play in shaping provision across regions. I mentioned the north-east, and Greater Manchester, Liverpool, WECA and South Yorkshire are all doing fantastic work around this at the moment. When you are thinking about the priorities of some mayoral authorities around skills, economic inclusion and growth, it is right that the local childcare market is able to respond to some of those agendas and ambitions. If the population becomes more skilled, people are going to need more childcare so they can go out to work. We probably need to think about whether the mayoral authorities have a role to play in providing some leadership around addressing childcare deserts.
Rachel Grocott: I have some data from our research to illustrate the childcare deserts specifically for SEND families. Some 26% report no suitable provider within a reasonable distance, 30% cannot find childcare during school holidays, which is something we are hearing a huge amount about at the moment, 24% cannot find suitable wraparound care, 31% have reduced working hours because of lack of childcare options and only 12% return to full-time work compared with 21% in the full sample that we heard from. This quote just summarises it, “Childcare is dire but childcare for those with SEND doesn’t exist.” That is obviously an extreme end of the situation, but it also comes through very strongly. Parents are really struggling with that desert.
Q182 Jess Asato: Obviously, we have heard about this issue of availability and that the hours provided do not necessarily match the lives that we live at work. Why do we think the market has not expanded to meet the need for flexible childcare hours?
Justine Roberts: Funding. It is as simple as that really. I just do not think the settlement is high enough to make it a meaningful and worthwhile activity for lots of people, and that is why providers are shutting down.
Sarah Ronan: Funding is part of it, and providers not being able to scale to be able to meet demand. They are quite often struggling just to be able to deliver what already exists, let alone anything outside that. I have a quote here from one parent we spoke to the other week: “We found the nursery place that we wanted, and I just knocked at their door and I was begging, ‘I will take any spot you have free week by week. I will literally just cater to your needs if you can get my child in there.’” That is how desperate people are for places. That is what the starting point is, and the idea of providing anything else on top of that when you cannot meet the minimum demand feels like a bit of a stretch at the moment.
Q183 Peter Swallow: We have already extensively discussed the challenges with childcare availability, particularly for children with SEND. I wondered if you could just expand a little more about how that affects not just parents in terms of trying to manage childcare but, in fact, child development as well. It strikes me that it is a double disadvantage in many ways. Not only does the family struggle to get support for childcare—meaning that they are locked out of employment, with all the other challenges that come with that—but also that child is then not in an environment where their SEND needs can be addressed and supported. We are missing an opportunity for early intervention to support that young person with SEND needs.
Sarah Ronan: We were in a focus group a couple of weeks ago where there were parents who had children with special educational needs and disabilities and were not aware of disability access funding or SENIF. That just speaks to how complex the system is for parents to navigate and be able to find the support that they need. This may be something that family hubs could help with in terms of a brokerage role in helping families to find suitable provision, which should probably be explored. We do not have lots of recent data around the impact on parents and household finances, but as I mentioned earlier, we know from focus groups and qualitative research that it is really difficult for parents to stay in work if they do not have suitable provision for their child.
We have obviously just seen the SEND consultation close. There is some really fantastic ambition for children that the Government have set out, but we would urge a greater focus on inclusion in the early years for those children. The SEND White Paper has some really great stuff around early years, but promoting inclusion at the earliest possible opportunity and supporting early educators to be able to provide that would give reassurance to parents of those children and enable them to go back to work if they choose.
Q184 Peter Swallow: Justine, are your users noticing the damaging effects of not being in childcare, particularly for their children with SEND?
Justine Roberts: You are right to focus on the interconnection of these things, because if you cannot get your child into a suitable childcare setting, it often means you are making different employment choices, which is putting financial stress on the family. Ultimately all these stresses mean that there is less time for families to spend time together and actually the child development piece goes with that. Not only do you lack it from the childcare setting but you put a load of stress on a family, including poverty and all the rest of it, and the idea that you are going to be at home doing enrichment play activities goes out of the window. It is a triple whammy really.
Q185 Peter Swallow: Rachel, I have spoken both to early years providers and parent carers in my constituency about applying for an EHCP, and they tell me that it can be very difficult to do it in early years. That is not least because the process takes so long that, by the time they complete it, they have moved settings and effectively lose all the benefit of it being able to apply in the early years setting. Again, if they are not able to access early years at all, they are on the back foot in terms of getting that support in place ready for the start of school. Is that something that you are seeing as well?
Rachel Grocott: We absolutely see that pressure, although we also hear from parents who are withdrawing their children from childcare because they do not feel there is sufficient SEND training and provision in those settings. That is affecting their child’s health, wellbeing, confidence and development. It is not always the case that the setting is right for that child; it depends on their needs and where they are in that journey as well.
The other effect of everything that you have just mentioned and that we have just talked about is that parents often have to give up their job to care for their child, but also become an expert in the SEND needs of their child, how to meet those needs and home educate in a way that works for them. It is a whole system of disadvantage; I do not think double is quite sufficient for the levels we are seeing. A really challenging thing is that everybody’s journey is so different. For some children, it is absolutely as you describe and they would benefit from being in a childcare setting if one were available, but for others it is actually the opposite.
Justine Roberts: The other thing is the sheer time it takes to negotiate the system. It is such a time drain on people’s resources that, again, it just means that children are missing out on other family activities.
Sarah Ronan: Could I add something from an interview we did with a parent the other day? They were saying that, because waiting lists are what they are now and we have this high demand, it is very normal for parents to have to put their name down on a waiting list for a space when they are pregnant so that they can return to work at the end of maternity leave. This parent raised a really important point around children with SEND. She had put her child’s name down on a waiting list for a nursery that, when the need emerged, was not suitable for that child. She could not find a setting that was suitable because waiting lists are what they are, and then having returned to work, she had to drop out of work again.
With the demand and pressure that we have placed on the system over the last couple of years as a result of the roll-out, Government intervention is good but there is another question around the pace of it. It means that those children who are already struggling to find their place in early years are getting pushed further and further out by that pressure.
Q186 Mark Sewards: I have one final question to wrap up this section on availability. What reforms to the current system would you prioritise to improve the availability of early years provision?
Sarah Ronan: As an immediate intervention rather than reform, it would be that we need to stabilise funding levels so that providers can actually invest in their businesses and grow provision. Last year we did a survey of around 1,000 providers. It was a few months after the rise in employers’ national insurance contributions and the increase in the minimum wage came in, and obviously the NICs increase is not factored into the funding formula for early years, which also does not reflect pay differentials. People were being really squeezed and had to make decisions to reduce the number of funded hours they offer, the number of places they provide and the number of children they take.
An immediate thing that we could do—particularly with that three and four-year-old funding rate—would be to make sure it covers the cost of delivery so that providers can be supported to grow and invest. The other thing is around supporting the recruitment and retention of staff. Ultimately, you can stabilise funding, but unless you have the people to deliver that education and care, there will not be any availability.
Rachel Grocott: I agree. The only thing I would add is to revisit a previous point that the funding gaps Sarah has just outlined are why it is so important that parents and providers are not pitted against each other in some kind of contest for why childcare is not working, which we have already covered.
Justine Roberts: Just picking up from previous discussions, the reform that would be good to look at is provision for SEND kids in childcare settings.
Q187 Jess Asato: We will move on to safeguarding now. The Committee heard that there is an operational gap between statutory intent and real-world practice in early years safeguarding. Would the individuals and organisations you represent agree?
Sarah Ronan: The practical, real-world concerns are basically: do you have the right people? Are they well trained? And do you have enough? We also need to learn from what we have seen in other countries around safeguarding, Australia being one. We do not want to be in a situation where we are seeing these absolutely horrendous cases come through. Last week, I read something that made my blood run cold; it was just absolutely horrendous. The Government have moved really quickly on safeguarding in early years, and they are doing a lot to address that.
I know I sound like a broken record, but where you have an operational gap is workforce, workforce, workforce. There are not enough people, and we do not have the investment in the quality, training and, importantly, culture. How you bridge that operational gap is a culture that incentivises whistleblowing, safeguarding, accountability and all those things where staff feel safe enough to be able to highlight things. Creating that kind of culture requires workforce stability and good leadership, and we need to invest in that.
Rachel Grocott: We have not done specific research on safeguarding; we have not gone out and asked our community questions about it. Coming through in organic comments, we have definitely seen an uptick in parents raising it as something to be concerned about. What I would say is that we see in our data that it often layers on top of other issues. “It’s really hard to find a space. It’s really hard to make ends meet so I can pay the bills and keep my career, and now I have to worry about this as well, so actually I might just not engage at all and therefore leave the workforce to look after my children.” What we see in our data—this is specific to the type of organisation we are and the issues we focus on—is that it is layering on top of those other frustrations and concerns that parents have about the system as a whole.
Q188 Jess Asato: Justine, have you seen issues of concern around safeguarding increasing among your members?
Justine Roberts: Not particularly. The discussion really comes out when there is a particular high-profile incident. It is not an ongoing thing that is raised regularly in the forum, so I cannot suggest that there is a huge concern when there is not.
Q189 Jess Asato: Obviously, the Government updated the EYFS framework on strengthening safeguarding in September last year. Have you seen any impact from that yet among your members, Sarah?
Sarah Ronan: It is a bit too soon to say at the moment. We have not noticed that. When we talk to parents about safeguarding, complaints processes and things like that, which I know were part of some changes, they are still confused about who they should speak to if they have a concern.
Q190 Jess Asato: In similar territory, I guess, to what extent do parents and carers feel confident that early years settings have effective safeguarding policies and practices in place to protect their children? Do you have any evidence or have you done any work on safeguarding?
Justine Roberts: From the fact that it is not coming up all the time, parents are probably quite confident until the next incident happens.
Sarah Ronan: As part of our workforce research, we have just done quite a lot of focus groups with parents to understand how they perceive the workforce, and safeguarding is one thing that we covered. What we notice is that parents’ nervousness about using a setting and the safety of a setting dissipates with proximity. The minute they start using the setting, they build that relationship and trust with the early years practitioner or their child’s key worker, and that tells you that so much of early years is really about relationships, people and feeling confident in the person that your child is spending their day with. It only comes up in that regard. Generally, otherwise we know that the experience of staff is the No. 1 driving motivator in choosing a setting when we speak to parents.
Q191 Jess Asato: Have you picked up any demand for CCTV to enhance safeguarding in early years settings?
Sarah Ronan: It has not come up.
Q192 Jess Asato: Finally, some have suggested that two staff members should be present for private intimate care tasks. Is this something you agree with? If so, should this be mandatory?
Sarah Ronan: It makes sense on the face of it. We are talking about parents’ perspective today but the one thing that parents, early educators—all of us—have in common is the child that is at the heart of this and doing everything we can to make sure they are safe and having a high-quality experience. Having two adults present during intimate care makes sense, but earlier you mentioned the operational gap, and sometimes that is really down to staffing. If you have two adults involved in that, what is happening in the room? Are you still meeting ratios in the room? It needs to be funded if that is going to happen.
Justine Roberts: What has been raised, again in response to high-profile incidents, is some concern about one male being involved in intimate care. I am just reporting what we have seen on the site. Some users would be concerned about that.
Q193 Chair: Acknowledging that it is not a major concern relative to some concerns for your members, we heard concerns earlier in this inquiry—sometimes from parents who have sadly been involved in horrific cases that have reached the headlines, and in response to cases as well—that parents often feel concerned that their voices are not heard when they raise safeguarding concerns about a particular setting. There is some evidence of that in relation to cases where parents were saying over a period of time, “Something’s not right here,” and it took too long for the concerns to be identified. They say sometimes there is a lack of transparency.
There is currently no formal registration for early years workers. Again, this has led to some high-profile cases that we have seen where horrendous things have been done to children. We see examples of individuals who have been able to get jobs in multiple settings where they have access to children, and that has not been able to be stopped by the system. I just wondered if you have any thoughts at all on the experience of your members in that regard, but also whether there is a need for strengthening complaints, accountability, traceability and processes within the early years.
We broadened the terms of reference for this inquiry to have a stronger focus on safeguarding, because we are concerned about the number of high-profile cases that we have seen. We are perhaps concerned about things that may not reach the point of prosecution but where there may be a need for strengthening in this area. We are keen to get our recommendations to the Government right in this area, so we just wondered whether you have any thoughts about that.
Justine Roberts: I guess most of our parents would be surprised to hear that someone who had a conviction or had been dismissed for poor behaviour could easily be hired.
Q194 Chair: Just to clarify, it is the job of the DBS check to stop somebody who has a conviction from getting another job, and we do not have evidence that that happens and that the process is failing, nor do we have evidence of people who have been dismissed from a role. It is more about the warning signs, the concerns that something does not sit right, or people perhaps not giving frank references about concerns that may have been raised, and that kind of thing. It is looking at whether anything more needs to be done to strengthen the existing system to add further layers, rather than any particular evidence that those layers are failing in their own right.
Justine Roberts: I would probably point to Sarah’s point about making it very easy, clear and obvious how you raise an issue, and making procedures for whistleblowing among staff. I would probably be a little worried about putting too much bureaucracy into the system, given what we are already seeing in terms of provision and affordability. It seems to me that transparency and the ability to be able to complain and listen to parents’ initial concerns would be a key area to act on.
Rachel Grocott: There is something here about the overall system that we are seeing, and that we have described across multiple questions: stress, providers on the brink, constantly having to make budgets work with insufficient funding, and funding gaps especially for children with SEND. Of course, none of that is an excuse for not listening to safeguarding concerns. That quote that Sarah read out earlier about that desperation of parents trying to find a space and providers trying to meet that just paints a real picture through everything we have talked about today of a system very much on the brink without the capacity to take those concerns seriously. I have evidence or data points to show that. It is not something we have done specific research on, but all these things feel interconnected. What we have heard today across questions and across all our answers is that this system is in crisis and that is then showing up in these issues that we are looking at in safeguarding.
Sarah Ronan: As I mentioned, parents sometimes do not know who they should raise a complaint to, so maybe there is something there around how we make that clear at the point of enrolment, or really early on, and embed that in the relationship. Something that we have heard from parents in focus groups has been that they are worried about upsetting things and losing their place if they are seen to be making perhaps an unfounded or malicious complaint or anything like that. Again, that just speaks to the scarcity and stretch across the system, that parents do not want to lose the infrastructure that they rely on.
The flip side of this is just trying to manage it in a way that we want to take parents seriously and make it easy for them to raise concerns. We do not want a system or practice that gaslights parents when they are concerned about their children, but we need to balance that with not instilling panic either. I do not know how we get that balance right, but we are certainly seeing, for example, male early educators coming in for a lot of abuse lately as a result of some high-profile cases. We are in a really tricky place with that, and we all need to be really sensitive and responsible about how we talk about some things, encouraging and supporting transparency but also trying to manage that alongside a system under strain.
Q195 Chair: Finally, is there anything that we have not covered today that you think the Committee should be aware of and be considering as we progress this inquiry?
Justine Roberts: I suppose in terms of readiness, we went through that quite quickly and I would just reiterate some things that have come up that are very interconnected. Poverty and housing, as well as SEND support, are all really material in kids’ school readiness, and housing particularly comes up quite a lot. Poor-quality housing, overcrowding and the amount of time people are spending on housing is not leaving much time for them to think about their child’s school readiness.
Rachel Grocott: We have already talked a lot about inequalities and the role of childcare costs within that. Just to reinforce those points, our data shows that 28% of ABC1 mothers return to full-time work compared with just 9.9% of C2DE mothers. The households in that latter group are also more likely to reduce their working hours due to childcare costs and almost twice as likely to be unable to return to full-time work because of costs. It is making the inequalities that we see in our society even more stark, and it is continuing to play a role in driving gender inequality, which I have touched on a number of times.
We are seeing that play out in the way households are absorbing the economic costs of childcare and the impact of that on reduced participation in the workforce. We have talked about women using credit cards, but they are also stopping or reducing their pension contributions. Those, of course, have long-term financial implications for that woman, but potentially also for the next generation of the family that she is raising. These things are not isolated to one decision or to get through one period in time; they have long-term consequences.
I will close with a quote that illustrates all those things very powerfully. “Each time I go to the office, I am reminded that I worked so incredibly hard to stay in work while raising a young family, paid thousands in childcare fees, balanced and juggled to the best of my ability, and still ended up with precarious and reduced employment.”
Sarah Ronan: There is one thing I had not previously included in my answers that feels relevant. In the work we are doing around universal credit, childcare support and tax-free childcare, we spoke to lots of parents about how their behaviour has changed as a result of the 30 hours. Bearing in mind that the intention of that policy back in March 2023 was to increase maternal employment specifically, what we are seeing consistently across parents using the offer is that they are trying to fit work into the 30 hours, as opposed to increasing the number of hours that they are working, and some IFS work backs that up.
At some point, I am sure the Government will plan to evaluate the impact of this policy anyway, but we know that Government intervention makes a difference in bringing down the cost of childcare. To go to my point at the very start, there is a question about whether that support is being directed at the families that need it the most to get back into work. What we are seeing is that parents are trying to stay within those 30 hours.
My final point is that this points to the fact that what parents really want is to be able to be parents. They have children because they want them, like them, would like to spend some time with them and they do not want to have to work 50 hours a week each to keep their heads above water. The behaviour that we are seeing around people trying to fit work into those 30-hour entitlements is because they also want to be able to be the parent that they had hoped to be when they first started a family. That ultimately brings us back to the whole point of early years, which is about children’s life chances. We need to support parents to support their children in having the best outcome.
Chair: If there is anything that occurs to you after the session or that you were not able to get across today, please write to the Committee afterwards. We would very much welcome that. That brings our evidence session for today to a close. Thank you very much indeed for being with us.