Childcare reforms will bring England in line with others

YOUR readers may have heard that the Government is proposing reforms to the number of children that nurseries and childminders will be allowed to care for. I know some people are worried about whether this will lead to children not being looked after properly, or that staff will have too much to do. I want to allay these concerns.

As chairman of the Education Select Committee, I welcome these reforms which are much needed. Parents in England face the highest childcare costs anywhere in the world except Switzerland, and the Government itself tops this up by spending another £5bn on childcare every year.

Despite this, quality can be variable and nursery staff may lack basic literacy and numeracy skills. The Government wants to do all it can to reduce the cost of childcare for families and improve its quality.

At the moment, restrictive ratios on the number of staff to children put a cap on quality.

Whereas in England nursery staff may look after no more than four two year-olds, in France they can be responsible for eight and in Denmark, Germany and Sweden there are no limits at all. In these countries, the emphasis is on the quality of the staff, not the number of children.

England’s relatively tight staffing ratios have two main effects: higher costs for parents and lower pay for staff. Nursery staff below supervisor level are paid an average of £6.60 an hour - scarcely more than the minimum wage.

This low pay drags down the quality of the workforce. In other countries, providers can use the extra income they get from taking on more children to reduce fees for parents and pay staff more, but this is not possible in England.

The Government therefore plans to free high quality providers to offer more places, so long as they employ well-qualified staff.

New childcare workers will need to have achieved C grades in GCSE English and Maths as a minimum requirement. Nurseries will be led by graduate level Early Years Teachers, who will be required to meet the same entry standards and pass the same skills tests as classroom teacher trainees.

The Government proposes to allow ratios for two-year-olds to rise from four children to six children per adult.

For one-year-old children or younger, the ratio will rise from three children per adult to four children per adult.

These new maximum ratios will bring England into line with standard practice in other countries where high quality childcare is both more available and more affordable.

A number of other measures will help deliver high quality childcare. The Ofsted regime will be improved. Councils will no longer duplicate Ofsted’s inspection work, making sure more of the £160m of early education funding they currently receive reaches the frontline. The Government will also help schools open nurseries on site, giving more parents the choice of traditional nursery classes led by teachers.

The introduction of childminder agencies will make it easier to become a childminder, relieve bureaucratic burdens on childminders, and provide training and quality assurance.

My Committee will scrutinise the development of these proposals and their implementation to ensure they deliver stronger, more flexible and higher quality childcare.