Childcare: Early Years Funding

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Monday 5th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I entirely agree with the noble Baroness about the importance of ensuring high quality. Our entire focus is on that, particularly for children with SEND. An additional needs element is factored into the early years funding formula to better target funding towards local authorities with a higher relative proportion of children with additional needs, and our final funding policy confirmed last week includes a new disability access fund worth £615 per child per year to support disabled three and four year-olds, and a requirement for all local authorities to have inclusion funds to channel additional support to children with SEND.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, given that supplying appropriate childcare for children with additional needs is more expensive for the setting itself, and it is also more expensive to train people to be able to recognise children’s special needs and deliver appropriate care, what are the Government doing to make sure that sufficient early years practitioners are being trained to work with these particularly needy children whose needs have been ignored from many, many years?

[Lord Nash]

We are focused on that. As the noble Baroness will know, we have a massive investment in this area, and on improving the quality of people coming into the profession. In terms of specific details on this, I will write to her.