How will early years be affected by Brexit?

Brexit will undoubtedly have an impact in some form on early years, according to commentators.

The sector is pondering several key areas, while the country waits to find out whether Article 50 will be triggered.

BUSINESS

There have been some suggested positives, such as the opportunity to secure a VAT exemption for nurseries, once the UK is outside the EU, which would be seen as a big boost to business.

NDNA’s chief executive Purnima Tanuku lamented the forthcoming uncertainty but said, ‘NDNA has long campaigned for nurseries to be VAT-exempt, but successive governments have responded that VAT is an EU issue… Brexit might trigger a longer-term opportunity for childcare to be zero-rated.’

However, she pointed out that any future tweaks to tax policy would reflect the economic climate at that time, and added, ‘There will be competing demands for concessions.’

Ms Tanuku claimed the sector ‘weathered the last downturn well’, compared with other sectors, with nurseries maintaining stability and even boosting their quality ratings. ‘Families will always need childcare and, with funded childcare expanding, there is a focus for Government investment in England, Scotland and Wales,’ she said.

Childcare minister Sam Gyimah has said that it should be ‘business as usual’, and it is of course hoped that will include proper support for the expansion to 30 hours.

CHILDCARE WORKFORCE

Immigration was central to the EU debate. Almost 6 per cent of the UK’s 300,000 childcare workers (not including managers and teachers) are EU migrants, nearly double the number from elsewhere.

Source: Office of National Statistics. Not all respondents stated their nationality

PACEY, which is proposing to carry out a survey of EU migrants among its members, said it knows anecdotally that ‘many nurseries depend on staff from the EU and elsewhere’.

The Government has not committed to protecting the status of the three million EU migrants living in the UK, and the outcome of forthcoming negotiations on the topic is an inevitable cause for concern for the sector.

Minister for immigration James Brokenshire told Parliament, ‘EU nationals can have our full and unreserved reassurance that their right to enter and to work, study and live in the UK remains unchanged, but to pre-empt future discussions at this point would risk undermining our ability to protect the interests of EU and British citizens alike, and to secure the best outcome for both.’

If childcare workers from the EU are required to leave, or have to purchase work visas, there would be obvious consequences for recruitment. Some legal experts have reportedly suggested a £65 Home Office permanent resident’s card may be an option.

PACEY chief executive Liz Bayram said challenges to recruitment were likely to be exacerbated by ‘any changes’ to free movement.

‘There are specific challenges for childcare providers working in London, the South East and other big cities, and this is also likely to worsen with any change to free movement,’ she added.

Key to the sector weathering the storm would be for the Government to progress its plans for a workforce strategy that ‘removes barriers to entry and progress in childcare so it is seen as a profession worth joining and remaining in’, she continued.

Jutta Hepworth, head of kindergarten and pre-school at the German School London in Richmond, Surrey, believes her setting could be jeopardised by a form of childcare brain-drain to other European countries.

‘As a German-language kindergarten we are reliant on hiring German staff,’ she told Nursery World. ‘So if ithey require work visas, that may put potential staff off coming to the UK and they may choose to work in another EU country instead.’

Ms Hepworth listed a number of unknowns, such as what would be the cost of a visa, and who would pay for it – the employer or practitioners.

‘As you know, salaries in early years are low at the best of times, so individual practitioners may not be able to afford it,’ she said.

She added, ‘The same goes for the many German interns who do their teaching practice with us. And what about us Germans already working here? Will we all require visas too? So for us, apart from the emotional shock of the Brexit, there is much uncertainty about the future.’

It is clear that given the Government’s pledge to support expansion of the sector, a failure to guarantee rights of childcare workers to remain would be something of an own goal.

David Wright, owner of Southampton-based Paint Pots Nurseries, suggested the end to free movement would mean fewer workers in general, including for the early years, where they are ‘already in short supply’.

Mike Thompson, owner of nursery group Childbase Partnership, distinguished between the right, and suitability, to work.

He said the company screens rigorously, requiring a five-year residence and work history. In addition, if the applicant is from outside the UK and has not lived and worked in the UK for three years, Childbase seeks an additional ‘good conduct ‘ certificate from their country of origin, in addition to a DBS check.

‘Our checks remain the same regardless of a candidate’s origins, so whether the UK is in or out of the EU makes no significant difference to our recruiting policy,’ Mr Thompson added.

RESEARCH AND EDUCATION

Over the decades since the UK joined the union, hundreds of millions of pounds worth of EU funds have been invested not only in academic research into the early years, but also in practical education-based projects.

Some current programmes enabled by EU grants are almost complete, and therefore may not be affected given the two-year-plus timescale for Brexit.

No-one knows whether the UK coffers will be willing or able to prioritise the same kinds of projects, but those involved in research and education projects dependent on grants from the European Development Fund and the European Social Fund are fearing a bleak future.

Under the ESF for 2007-13, education investments in the UK were more than ¤343m million.

In December this year, Kathy Sylva, professor of educational psychology at Oxford University, is concluding a three-year investigation into the early childhood curriculum across Europe. The funding came via CARE (the Curriculum and Quality Analysis and Impact Review of Early Childhood Education and Care), in turn supported by a grant from the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration.

Professor Sylva said, ‘In our department, we have large-ish grants from the European Union for research on early education and care. Oxford is one of the major partners [for CARE] and this kind of serious funding for educational research will not be available [after Brexit].’

Other funding streams, such as the Peace and Reconciliation Fund (known as Peace), set up in 1995 to support the burgeoning Northern Ireland peace process, are in the throes of seven-year allocations.

The Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB), which has offices across Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, allocates the funds and manages the programmes, such as the ¤35.3m Shared Education scheme currently up for grabs for the birth to 24-year-old age group.

The recipients of the latest Peace fund have yet to be decided, but past allocations have benefited early years to the tune of £1.2m. In the seven years to 2013, the International Early Childhood Network on Peace Building, and Respecting Difference in the Education Sector, were recipients.

Prior to that, 90 out-of-school clubs in Northern Ireland were kept open with a similar sum.

The projects promote peace by teaching citizenship skills and interaction between children mainly from Protestant and Catholic communities, but also those from other minority backgrounds. Money is also spent on developing sports schemes in contested areas.

A spokesman for SEUPB described as the ‘million dollar question’ whether the funding would be cut off after Brexit.

The advantage of the money coming from the EU is that it avoids historical political tension around Irish/UK relations.

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