Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the Early Years Alliance Minds Matter survey, published 2018; and what steps his Department is taking to reduce the stress and workload burden in the childcare sector.

Following the publication of the Minds Matter survey, the department awarded a Voluntary and Community Sector grant to the Early Years Alliance, to undertake further work to identify specific causes of paperwork and administration burdens in the sector. This was the main source of stress reported in the survey. Early Years Alliance have conducted a series of focus groups and an online survey. An advisory group comprising sector representatives, membership organisations, Ofsted and department officials is now considering the feedback from the project and next steps.