Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate his Department has made of the number of staff leaving roles in Early Years Foundation service providers.

The Department for Education has published figures on the total number of paid staff working in childcare and early years provision in a representative, national survey of providers, available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/childcare-and-early-years-providers-survey-2021. This report shows that the total number of paid staff working in childcare and early years provision in 2021 was estimated at 328,500. This figure is somewhat lower than in 2019 (344,100) but in line with the estimates for 2019 (331,400). 2019 is the earliest year for which comparable data are available. No comparable data was collected in 2020 because of reprioritisation for COVID-19 reasons.

The average (mean) number of paid staff per early years setting remained similar in 2021 compared with 2019 for all provider types.

In spring 2022, we will publish a report on the theme of early years workforce, which will include new data on the number of staff leaving roles in early years providers.