CEY1265

Written evidence submitted by the London Early Years Foundation (LEYF)

The London Early Years Foundation (LEYF) ambition is to change the world one child at a time. LEYF is a charitable social enterprise and its social purpose is to give London’s children – especially those most in need - the best start in life by transforming Early Years Education in England in a way that tackles poverty and inequality and enables children to access to high quality, affordable early childhood education. LEYF supports over 4,200 children and families and employs over 800 staff, through our 40 nurseries across 12 London boroughs.

LEYF’s nurseries are disproportionately located in areas of London with high levels of need, with over 75% of LEYF’s nurseries in the ‘most deprived’ and ‘deprived’ areas, meanwhile we consistently achieve the highest levels of quality standards – supporting our ambition to tackle the education inequalities that exist in Early Years. It is important to highlight that Early Years settings do not simply provide ‘childcare’, but vital Early Years education and care. This is important because ‘childcare’ fails to capture the significant positive impact that quality education can have on children’s future outcomes.

We are continuously at the forefront of innovation in the Early Years sector. We have a unique social enterprise model whereby we cross-subsidise places for children in need through some of higher fee-paying nurseries, which enables us to operate sustainably. For example, to support children struggling with obesity and poor nutrition we developed the first Early Years Chef Academy where chefs are trained to provide balanced meals to young children, train the staff and support the families to make healthier and more informed choices. We also  developed our pioneering  Sustainability qualification and lead the sector in how to build a sustainable strategy across the organisation and deliver it at every level. The Apprentice Academy was established to recruit young people to work in the Early Years sector including creative programmes designed to increase men into childcare and recruit those who were unsuccessful at school but want to learn to become great Early Years teachers.  The apprentices can start with a Level 2 qualification and continue right through to a full honours degree.

During Covid, we launched our ‘Doubling Down’ research to support a project where we fund children from disadvantaged families who can only access 15 hours to double their hours at nursery. Emerging evidence suggests positive impact on their development and learning especially language and personal and social development. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are currently locked out of 30 hours of Government-funded early education (as evidenced by Sutton Trust).

How affordable and easy to understand is the current provision of childcare in England and what steps, if any, could be taken to improve it, especially in relation to families living within the most deprived areas in England?

The current Early Years system has been developed incrementally and has resulted in a complex system that is inefficient, unsustainable, and inequitable. The current system fails to deliver for parents, who find prices too high, or for providers, who are closing at record rates. The Early Years sector needs a bold and ambitious national strategy to chart its future to deliver the best outcomes for all children. This requires moving beyond short-term political cycles that have guided recent Government decision making, to a model that maximises for the long-term benefits that high quality Early Years education can have – both for the children and for the broader social mobility of their families.

The issue of quality can be contested but the general agreement is that it has three elements, structural, process and development.

Structural Element

1. Qualified and well-trained staff
2. Knowledgeable and capable teachers who can translate the LEYF pedagogy with confidence and competence. 
3. A stable staff team with a low turnover and staff continuity.
4. Effective staff deployment including favourable ratios.
5. Secure yet stimulating and enabling physical environments.
6. Engaged and involved families through a strong Home Learning approach.

Process Element

7. Stable and harmonious relationships and interactions from sensitive and responsive adults
8. A focus on play-based activities and routines which allow children to take the lead in their own learning.
9. Support for enriching and extending communication and language
10. Opportunities to move and be physically active.

Development Element

11. Pedagogical leadership that drives and reinforces a culture of continuous improvement and reflective practice.
12. Skilled and knowledgeable pedagogical leaders no matter what role they play in the organisation. They need to be able to shape, sustain and create environments which support them in their practice.
13. Learning and Development Team and Pedagogy coaches supporting quality in action by identifying examples of quality teaching and learning, extending staff confidence through pedagogical conversation, modelling, coaching and training, driving quality through action research and reflective practice and assessing quality across the organisation.

Childcare Entitlements

How easy are entitlements to understand?

The current provision is overly complex for parents and carers to understand – which is mostly driven by the fact that funding can come from multiple different Government departments, so there isn’t one source of truth that is easily accessible (i.e., hourly entitlements through DfE, childcare vouchers and tax credits from DWP, etc.). The disconnect between the DoH and the DfE is one to consider. There is unambiguous evidence that the current budgets are not being fully utilised – there was £2.4bn underspend on Tax-Free Childcare between 2017 and 2021, only 72% of eligible 2-year-olds were registered for their entitlement in 2022, and only 80% of eligible 3- and 4-year olds were registered for their 30-hour entitlement.

To simplify the process and better support the provision of childcare – especially in relation to families living within the most deprived areas – the spend from different Departments could be consolidated to reduce the work required for families and make it easier for them to understand their entitlements. 

Providing consistent and accessible information for parents would help.  This may include rethinking the Family Information Services and encouraging Health Visitors to work closely with nursery settings to provide a space where parents find out about their entitlements. The regular health and development reviews (health visitor checks) are also useful places where parents are offered information.

How affordable is provision?

The current entitlements do not provide parents and carers with sufficient childcare to affordably return to work full-time – especially before the child turns 3. Most parents receive no support until their child turns 3 years old – and only some on very low incomes receive support from 2. Then, once they do receive some support, they are only able to access 15 hours (or 30 if they are in certain income brackets). For under twos, this means parents who want to work full time can spend up to 65% of their salary on childcare. Even if a parent was entitled to 30 hours childcare for their three- or four-year-old, and wanted to work full-time, they would still need to pay for roughly 20 additional hours of childcare out of pocket, which would cost approximately £105.76 per child per week, the equivalent of 17% of the median UK salary.

In Coram’s latest Childcare Survey, they found that costs have continued to rise for parents since 2001 – for under 2’s in nursery full time, they found that on average it would be £14,000 per year in England, which rises to as high as £18,500 in inner London.

Moreover, the Sutton Trust’s A Fair Start report evidenced that 70% of the 30-hour entitlement was benefitting the top 50% of earners – which means that given how incomes are distributed across the country that families living in the most deprived areas of England, who would most benefit from the additional hours, are not able to access them. Additionally, because the Government is knowingly underfunding the rate of the hourly entitlements by two-thirds, the nursery providers make a significant loss on all children funded through the entitlements and are therefore incentivized not to offer them at all. For those who do offer places funded through entitlements, operating sustainably requires charging much higher fees for babies and toddlers under 3, or overly inflated fees for consumables, to offset the underfunding by the DfE. This unfortunately compounds the problem and makes it unaffordable for many parents to return full-time to work.

Because they would be more reliant on the Government hours (which as highlight above only covers two-thirds of the costs to operate), current regulatory and funding structures disincentivizes providers from operating in the most deprived areas, which severely impedes access and affordability. The result of this is that there are fewer places for children and more closures of settings in the most deprived areas of England compared to the least deprived, and this trend is only getting starker. In London, this problem is particularly acute: only 1 in 4.5 children in the most deprived areas have access to an Early Years place, while 1 in 2.6 children have access in the least deprived areas.

To improve access and affordability in the most deprived areas, differential funding rates that recognise the additional cost of operating in less affluent areas beyond the systemic under-funding should be introduced. To ensure settings can sustainably operate in the most deprived areas, the Government must adequately fund them to cover the true costs of “funded only” places (places for families making use of entitlements but not purchasing any additional hours, typically because they cannot afford them). Of course, proper costed funding would serve as the best solution but some adjustments to the rates and access of the EYPP and increased deprivation funding as well as a fund to train staff or provide a salary uplift may incentivise more sustainable operations in these areas.

Workforce

The Early Years sector is facing significant recruitment and retention challenges, which have been exacerbated in recent years – in part due to the challenging environment throughout covid, however mostly due to the widening gap between minimum / living wage rates and the insufficient DfE funding rate. There is a shortage of Level 3 qualified staff and an unclear career pathway which is unhelpful as many staff want to have a clear career.

Children with SEND

There is an increase in children with SEND. We are not always clear about how we are defining SEND, whether children who are exhibiting development delays or those with an EHCP. However, the numbers have increased and put more pressure on staff, a higher proportion of whom are less qualified and experienced and not able to cope with the demands of the children, negatively impacting on retention and staff turnover.

Transition to primary education

Without access to high quality Early Years Education and Care, children start school over 4.5 months behind their more advantaged peers, a learning gap that is not closed by the school system, and typically gets worse over time (growing to over 18 months by secondary school).

Impact of Sure Start reduction

According to the London Mayors, Health Inequalities strategy, children from disadvantaged backgrounds were significantly impacted in Covid lockdown of community children's services as they tend to use them more. There is scant evidence that the introduction of Family Hubs is making a difference and anecdotally, we have seen little sign of the Family Hubs engaging with us.

January 2023