A fair start? Equity in access to early years education

Access to early years education in England is not equal, with most of the country’s poorest families locked out of the government’s flagship entitlement to 30 hours of funded provision at age three to four. But these are the very children who stand to benefit most from access to high quality early education. Access for these children is more important than ever in the aftermath of the pandemic, with the poorest families suffering most from the crisis.

Access to the 30-hour entitlement for three-to-four-year-olds should be extended to families on the lowest incomes, to ensure the poorest children can have the best possible start in life. There are a number of policy options on how best to extend the entitlement to these children, from a targeted expansion to those eligible for the two-year-old offer, through to making the entitlement universal. Making the offer universal has several additional potential benefits, including simplifying access for families, providers and local authorities, which could help to improve take up, as well as giving greater levels of financial security to settings, helping them to plan into the long term and potentially improving staff retention and training.

• There should be universal access to up to 30 hours of funded early education.
• A targeted expansion of the 30 hours offer to disadvantaged families would be a cheaper alternative, but has downsides in terms of ease of administration, along with fairness to ‘just about managing’ families.

The funding provided by government for the free entitlement is not enough to meet many provider’s costs, leaving them to make up the extra in other paid for hours or through additional charges.  Many providers struggle to provide high quality provision, and those serving the poorest area are at particular risk of closure and face the harshest financial constraints. It is vital that any expansion of the 30-hour entitlement to children on the lowest incomes is accompanied by a funding uplift.

At a minimum, the government should provide additional funding for disadvantaged children, so that any additional hours provided are of a high quality and serve the poorest communities. Doing so has the added benefit of providing settings with an incentive to recruit children from families on low incomes, as well as ensuring settings serving the poorest areas, many of which have been badly hit by the pandemic, remain sustainable into the long term.

• The government should provide additional funding for disadvantaged children, either through the Early Years Pupil Premium or a ‘disadvantage supplement’ for those eligible for the two-year-old offer..
• The Early Years Pupil Premium should be reformed to make its administration easier and improve its impact, by increasing the rate, and broadening the eligibility period over a greater amount of time to capture families dipping in and out of poverty, as with the Pupil Premium in schools.

It is important that any expansion to the 30-hour entitlement, and the additional funding going to providers along with it, drives up quality in early education, which is most likely to improve children’s outcomes and school readiness. In order to offer the extended and better-funded 30-hour entitlement, providers should be required to meet certain quality criteria based in evidence.

As well as putting requirements on settings, other actions should also be taken by government to ensure quality of provision in the early years sector. Increased funding is needed to improve pay and conditions for staff, so that settings can attract and retain a well-qualified workforce. Barriers to accessing qualifications at Levels 1 to 3 should also be addressed, to encourage new recruits into the sector. A clear vision for the early years’ workforce, which is designed to deliver high quality provision for children, is the only way to ensure early education can play its full part in closing the attainment gap.

• A universal uplift to funding, such as the one introduced when the 30 hours policy was first rolled out, would have broader benefits to providers, and help to steady the sector in the aftermath of the pandemic.
• To offer the extended and better-funded 30-hour entitlement, providers should be required to meet certain evidence-based quality criteria, for example employing a graduate leader in their setting, employing a certain proportion of Level 3 qualified staff, and providing professional development opportunities to their workforce.
• The reinstatement of a ‘Leadership Quality Fund’ would help settings to attract qualified staff with enhanced pay and status, with the long-term aspiration of having a qualified teacher in every setting.