Labour revealed that a 'refresh' for the Ten-Year Childcare Strategy would be released later this month. This will hopefully shed more light on some of the small print in the Pre-Budget Report, which said that the planned roll-out of free nursery places to all two-year-olds would be scaled down to only those in the most deprived areas. This also indicated that the proposal for an extension of three- and four-year-olds nursery education entitlement to 20 hours a week would be placed on hold (see News, page 4).
This is one instance where trimming back will be met with muted relief by most providers. Any extension to the free entitlement will only add to the severe cost pressures being felt by the early years sector at the moment. There is too much to sort out with the existing scheme and general problems with sustainability to ramp it up now.
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