Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to increase nursery staff in Suffolk, in the context of the Government's plans to expand the number of free childcare places.

The department has launched a range of new workforce initiatives to boost early years staff numbers. The department's £6.5 million-backed recruitment campaign ‘Do something BIG. Work with small children’ is raising the status of early years to boost recruitment of talented staff. The department has also launched Skills Bootcamps for Early Years, which enables learners across the country, including in Suffolk, to progress on an accelerated Level 3 Early Years Educator Apprenticeship.

On top of this, the department has launched a pilot to test whether financial incentives help to boost recruitment, and have made it easier for managers to make the most of the skills of their existing staff through changes to the Early Years Foundation Stage, including the removal of the Level 2 maths requirement for staff to count in Level 3 child to staff ratios. A link to the statutory framework can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-foundation-stage-framework--2.

Under Section 6 of the Childcare Act 2006, local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area. The department has regular contact with each local authority in England, including Suffolk, about the sufficiency of childcare in their area, including their work to support Early Years (EY) workforce recruitment and retention.

The department will continue to monitor the recruitment of EY staff alongside the sufficiency of childcare provision and are committed to continuing to work with the sector to understand how the department can further support EY workforce recruitment and retention.