The government estimates that around 85,000 places will need to be created by September 2025 to expand subsidized childcare services, but campaigners have warned the plans are a “really ambitious charade”.
It also released forecasts of how many staff and premises would be needed to meet government plans. Extend childcare time, The Department for Education (DfE) also estimates that 40,000 extra staff will have to be hired by September 2025 compared with 2023.
The Department for Education said it would launch a pilot in the summer to explore how unused spaces in schools could be used as childcare spaces.
The planned childcare policy would give working families in England 30 hours of free childcare a week for children aged nine months to four years, with all adults in the household working at least 16 hours.
The policy previously only applied to parents of three- and four-year-olds.
Working parents of a two-year-old will be able to access 15 hours of subsidized childcare this month as part of a phased rollout of childcare.
Shannon Pite, director of communications and external affairs at the Early Years Alliance, described the government’s phased expansion of free childcare as a “really ambitious play” that would only add to a sector that is already “severely underfunded” brings more pressure.
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“In the next phase of the rollout we will see the need for more newly created venues and that’s when we will hit the real critical point where we don’t have the capacity that the industry needs,” she told Sky News.
Ms Pitt said hiring and retaining staff was a “key issue”, particularly for educators working with children under two who need “special experience working with babies”.
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“It’s not as simple as magically transforming the place, it’s not as simple as magically transforming the staff, there’s a lot of work to be done and we’re still very far away from where we need to be”.
From September this year, the program will be expanded to all working parents of children over nine months old, with the 30-hour course being fully rolled out to all eligible families a year later.
The Department for Education estimates that 15,000 new nursery places will be needed in September this year, and a further 70,000 new nursery places may be needed by September 2025.
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said: “We are transforming childcare in this country and giving hard-working parents the support they deserve.
“As today’s data shows, our plans are working. Thousands of parents are returning to work, and tens of thousands more will be able to return to work later this year and next.
“Expansion of childcare services on this scale is unprecedented in this country and we will continue to provide maximum support to nurseries and all providers to make it a reality.”
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