Pre-school Education: Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme

(asked on 29th October 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the resilience of the private, voluntary and independent nursery sector since the cessation of support under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.


Answered by
Will Quince Portrait
Will Quince
This question was answered on 3rd November 2021

The department has monitored the sufficiency of childcare and resilience of the private, voluntary and independent nursery sector throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, through regular attendance data collection and monitoring the open or closed status of providers. The department has continued this through this autumn term to monitor any change since the end of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS). Local authorities are responsible for stewardship of local childcare markets and the department also discusses sufficiency of provision in our regular conversations with them. Local authorities are not currently reporting any significant sufficiency or supply issues and the department has not seen any significant number of parents unable to secure a childcare place, either this term or since early years settings re-opened fully on 1 June 2020. Sufficient early education and childcare places continue to be accessible to those parents that want it and take up of those places is stable giving providers certainty of income.

The department has also featured questions about the use, and withdrawal of, CJRS within our most recent parent and provider polls, which are being conducted this term and may provide information about any longer-term effect. The results of these polls are expected to be published towards the end of autumn term 2021 and in early spring term 2022 respectively.

Reticulating Splines