Finding staff to back Government 30 hours childcare pledge is tough, says minister

Finding enough nursery staff to deliver the Government’s “radical” pledge to boost free childcare for working parents is a challenge, the children’s minister has admitted.

Nurseries across London have raised fears staff are fleeing the sector and can get better paid jobs at supermarkets. It comes after ministers promised to give 30 hours of free childcare a week to working parents of children from the age of nine months.

Claire Coutinho, the minister for children, families and wellbeing, admitted the workforce challenge is “very much on my mind”. She told the Standard: “The other challenge now is not just funding, it’s workforce. We are trying to look at the whole picture for nurseries and childminders to make sure we can solve as many problems as possible so we can get there.”

Claire Coutinho, the minister for children, families and wellbeing (official portrait)

Ms Coutinho added: “When I go round and talk to nurseries, the bigger challenge they talk to me about is often workforce. That’s something which is very much on my mind, and we have taken some action already.”

The Government is consulting on removing the requirement for some childcare staff to hold a GCSE in maths, and reducing the number of more qualified staff needed per child, in a bid to boost the workforce.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s “transformational” announcement in the Budget will see working parents given 30 hours of free childcare a week from when their children are nine months old by 2025. Currently only parents of three and four-year-olds who earn less than £100,000 are entitled to this.

But nurseries across London are already facing a workforce crisis, and experts fear there will not be enough staff to cope with the rise in demand.

Mike Abbott, director of operations at the London Early Years Foundation, said the group already has 140 vacancies, out of a workforce of 800. He said: “We can’t staff for the demand we have got now. At the moment you can go to Lidl and get a better paid job.”

Ms Coutinho said the childcare overhaul is a “genuinely radical reform”, adding: “Fundamentally I don’t want any parent to say childcare is a barrier to them working.”