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The Early Years Alliance has issued a comment in response to the launch of the government consultation on proposed changes to early years ratios.

Neil Leitch, CEO of the Early Years Alliance, said: "Given the scale of the challenges facing the early years at the moment, it is beyond frustrating that the government is wasting its time consulting on relaxing ratios, rather than just admitting that if we want to have affordable, quality, sustainable care and early education in this country, we need to invest substantially more into the sector than we are doing at the moment. 

“Our own research has clearly shown that the proposal to relax ratios for two-year-olds in nurseries and pre-schools from 1:4 to 1:5 will not only fail to lower the cost of early years places, but in any settings that do adopt the new ratios, will drive down quality and worsen the already catastrophic recruitment and retention crisis the sector is already experiencing. 

"Given that data from the parenting group Pregnant then Screwed has also shown that the vast majority of parents wouldn't want this change even if it did save them money, the question is: who exactly is this proposal supposed to benefit - other than politicians who can use the changes to claim to have done something to tackle the 'rising cost of childcare'?

“And while we know that views on the separate ratios changes proposed for childminding professionals may be more mixed in that part of our sector, it’s clear that the proposals outlined by the Department for Education in today's announcement, will do little, if anything, to address the root causes of the huge decline in childminders over recent years: more than a third since 2015. 

“The idea that any meaningful reform to the early years could be achieved without the government needing to spend a single extra penny is laughable. Our Freedom of Information request findings proved that the government has been knowingly underfunding the early years sector for years, and it is this - not “red tape” - that is driving up early years costs, and keeping pay levels in the sector so low that 40% of our workforce are actively considering leaving. 

“If the government wants to take lessons from other countries, maybe it should look at how much they invest in early years providers and how they respect and value the workforce. Watering down early years standards at a time when children need more support than ever is not, and never will be, the answer.