Pre-School Learning Alliance calls for in-depth Government response to ratios petition

Any e-petition on the Direct Gov website that secures 10,000 signatures or more is guaranteed a response from the relevant Government department. Once a petition attracts more than 100,000 signatures it is considered for a debate in the House of Commons.

In the letter, Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Pre-School learning Alliance, asks the DfE to fully address the concerns of parents and practitioners and not to issue a ‘standard pre-packaged statement’, given the level of opposition to the proposals.

‘Given the strength of feeling on the plans to relax childcare ratios, of which I am sure the Department is well aware, such a standard response would not be well received by thousands of parents who have voiced their opposition to the ratio proposals, and would serve to reinforce the already widespread perception that the Government is not listening to, or addressing, their serious concerns on this matter.’

In the letter, Mr Leitch asks the DfE to provide detailed comment on a number of points in the response, including: identifying what academic evidence states that higher qualifications will lead to positive early years outcomes if childcare ratios are relaxed, and confirming what research the Department has undertaken on the outcomes of lower staff: child ratios used in other OECD countries.

He goes on to ask the Department to outline the exact calculations used to conclude that nursery providers that relax their ratios will be able to afford to pay staff up to £3,000 a year more,  and also to clarify what qualification requirements childminders will have to meet in order to operate under the proposed ratios.

The petition, part of the Alliance’s Rewind on Ratios campaign, reached the 10,000 milestone yesterday, after securing support from the UK’s parenting networks, Mumsnet and Netmums. A further 16,000 parents have also signed the Alliance's paper petition against the proposals.

A Department for Education spokesperson said, 'All the evidence shows standards and safety in nurseries and other early years settings are linked to high quality staff. Only high quality providers will be able to take advantage of the flexibility that our reforms on ratios offer - which countries like France and Denmark already use successfully. The OECD has said that staff qualifications are the best predictor of the quality of early childhood education and care.Indeed, many of the largest childcare providers in England already operate higher ratios in Ireland and Scotland, but no one is suggesting quality has suffered there as a result. Of course, it will ultimately be up to professionals to decide what is best for the children they look after and up to parents which settings they choose.'