Maintained Nursery Schools Funding

Debate between Helen Jones and Lord Benyon

Wednesday 1st February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Helen Jones]

I agree with my hon. Friend. The real problem is demonstrated in the foreword by the Secretary of State to the Government’s consultation response. It displays astonishing ignorance for someone holding her office, because she talks continually about childcare. Childcare is not the same thing as early years education, and Ministers must stop confusing and conflating the two. Maintained nursery schools provide early years education. They are schools and must employ qualified teachers. They must have a qualified head. Indeed, many of the headteachers in the sector are highly qualified. More than 80% are qualified at master’s degree level or above, because their job is highly skilled.

[Richard Benyon (Newbury) (Con)]

Unlike schools, they are not allowed to academise, for example, or to form unions of different schools that would allow them a centre of gravity that might just enable them to get through the difficulty.

[Helen Jones]

That is an interesting point, but not one that I have heard from maintained nurseries, which value their independence and their different way of working, and want to keep that special atmosphere. The problem, of course, is that they are funded not as schools but through the early years formula, which has been consistently cut by the Government. Its various incarnations have had various names, but the Library has produced figures showing that the predecessor grants that were originally rolled up into it would have been worth £2.79 billion in 2010. There was an immediate cut to £2.48 billion and continued decreases and, based on our indicative figures, the sum will be £1 billion by 2019-20.

The problem is that at the same time, the Government have changed the way they fund local authorities. Those authorities have the power to fund nursery schools on a different basis from other providers, but they do not have an obligation to do so. They face a double whammy, because most maintained nursery places—65% of them—are in the most deprived areas. It is councils in those areas that have faced enormous cuts in their budgets, so that some are struggling even to fund statutory services. It is no surprise that there is pressure on maintained nurseries to close or amalgamate.

Maintained nursery schools provide outreach to families, support to other providers, and initial teacher training places. Nowhere else in the sector does all that. Yet they achieve enormous success with children from the most deprived families in the country. Sandy Lane Nursery and Forest School in my constituency serves, mostly, two wards, Orford and Poplars and Hulme, although it takes children from a wider area too. Those wards are among the most deprived 30% in the country. In Orford 33.7% of children are growing up in workless families. In Poplars and Hulme the figure is 32.9%. The fact that the nursery is rated outstanding in those circumstances is a tribute to the skill and expertise of the staff, but that is by no means unusual. The Government should pay heed to the words of a former chief inspector of schools, who said:

“The only early education provision that is at least as strong, or even stronger, in deprived areas compared with wealthier areas is nursery schools”.