The education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has made the comments ahead of the next phase of the expanded rollout, 15 hours for nine-month-olds, coming in from next week (Monday 2 September).
The Department for Education (DfE) has called the scale of the inherited delivery of the expanded offer, a ‘substantial challenge’ as it requires an ‘unprecedented rate of growth in childcare places and staff’.
Nationally, around 85,000 more places are needed to deliver the rollout for September 2025 (30 hours for all eligible children) compared to 2023 – over double the increase in places seen in the past five years combined.
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