New childcare staff offered £1,000 amid concerns about free hours rollout
The government is offering £1,000 to new childcare staff amid concerns about the rollout of free childcare hours in just two months’ time.
Nurseries and childminders say they are experiencing a recruitment and funding crisis which could derail plans to offer 15 subsidised hours a week to all two-year-olds in England.
Thousands of parents who have applied for the funding are thought to be in limbo as their provider hasn’t been told what rate they will get for each of these hours from the local authority.
Research suggests as many as 50,000 more staff may be needed to cope with increased demand when the 15 free hours are offered to babies from the age of nine months later this year.
It rises to 30 free hours for all under-fives from September 2025.
A £5m advertising campaign starts today offering tax-free cash payments for the first 3,000 people who qualify to work with pre-school children under a pilot scheme.
Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, told Sky News: “This is massive, it’s the biggest expansion of childcare in our history.
“We’re doing it because we know working families are struggling and childcare is a big component of their household budget.
Ms Keegan said the government is ‘doing everything we can’ to make sure the places are available
“But there’s no doubt it’s a big delivery project. We are working on it; we are doing everything we can to make sure all those places are available.
“As of this morning there’s over 100,000 people who’ve got their code, so many, many people have. We issued the rates to local authorities in November, so every local authority has the funding rates that we are providing, which are much increased.
“So everybody can be comfortable that we are putting in the investment that’s required to grow this market.”
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‘Some issues’ ahead of free childcare, PM admits
Ms Keegan denied parents were being given false hope, but said: “There have been some challenges, we’ve had to put some workarounds in place.”
She could not yet confirm how many extra staff the government believes will be needed.
The education secretary said the figure of 50,000 staff, from the Early Education and Childcare Coalition, was “misleading” as there is a high turnover of staff in the sector.
Nurseries still waiting to hear
A survey of local authorities by children’s charity Coram last week found 40% did not expect to have enough places in April, despite a £204m injection of Treasury funding.
Ministers will order councils – which have until 31 March to confirm their funding allocations for April – that they must provide their rates earlier as the scheme expands.
Bhumika Patel, from Stockwell Gardens Nursery, says 10 families have already applied
Stockwell Gardens Nursery in south London is among those waiting to hear about funding
Ten families already attending have applied for the free hours.
The manager, Bhumika Patel, said: “At the moment we are just waiting and telling them we’ll be in touch when we have more information. We don’t have anything to share yet.”
She said the nursery already has a waiting list, but parents with babies – or who are expecting – are already asking about the extension of free hours to babies.
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‘Big panic’
June O’Sullivan OBE, who runs the London Early Years Foundation, a social enterprise of 39 nurseries which offers funded places to low-income families, predicted the later stages of the rollout would need to be slowed down.
“There’s a big panic, which is not very good for parents who think that they’re going to come on 1 April and we’re going to have all these places, which isn’t going to be the case,” she said.
“That’s been the real problem, and everyone is trying to scramble to fix it. There are simply not enough places because there are simply not enough places.
“I would say the government will have to slow it down, especially for babies who need specialist care. You can’t just throw babies in a room and say that’ll be fine.”
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Bridget Phillipson, Labour’s shadow education secretary, said: “This is a startling reminder that the Conservatives have offered a childcare pledge without a plan.
“Childcare staff are leaving in their droves, leading to nursery closures right across the country.
“Cheap bungs to new staff when existing workers are turning their back on this key industry will not magic up new places for parents.”
Councillor Louise Gittins, chair of the Local Government Association’s Children and Young People Board, said: “This announcement is a positive step towards addressing the capacity and workforce issues facing childcare providers.
“Councils have been working hard to support providers to increase their workforce, but many feel constrained by their inability [to] determine where new providers can be established.”
Sky News can reveal that the government has rowed back on a national compensation scheme for victims of child sexual abuse, despite it being promised under the previous Conservative administration.
Warning – this story contains references to sexual and physical abuse
A National Redress Scheme was one of 20 key recommendations made by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), but a Home Office report reveals the government has scrapped it because of the cost.
Marie, who is 71, suffered alleged sexual, physical, and emotional abuse at Greenfield House Convent in St Helens, Merseyside, between 1959 and 1962, and is still fighting for compensation.
Greenfield House Convent, where Marie says she was abused
As soon as she arrived as a six-year-old, Marie says her hair was cut off, her name changed, and she experienced regular beatings from the nuns and students.
She claims a nun instigated the violence, including when Marie was held down so that her legs were “spread-eagled” as she was sexually abused with a coat hanger.
Merseyside Police investigated claims of abuse at the convent, but in 2016, a suspect died before charges could be brought.
Marie has received an apology from the Catholic body that ran the home; she tried to sue them, but her claim was rejected because it was filed too long after the alleged abuse.
Marie, 71, is still fighting for compensation for the abuse she says she suffered as a child
In February, ministers said the law would change for victims of sexual abuse trying to sue institutions for damages, which was a recommendation from the IICSA.
Previously, people had to make a civil claim before they were 21, unless the victim could prove a fair trial could proceed despite the time lapse.
Campaigners argued for the time limit to be removed as, on average, victims wait 26 years to come forward. Changes to the 1980 Limitation Act could lead to more people making claims.
Peter Garsden, President of The Association of Child Abuse Lawyers
Civil cases ‘can take three to five years’
But Peter Garsden, president of the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers, worries that when it comes to historical abuse where the defendant is dead, institutions will still argue that it is impossible to have a fair trial and will fight to have the case thrown out of court.
Mr Garsden said it takes “between three and five years” for a civil case to get to trial.
He warned that claimants “can end up losing if you go through that process. Whereas the Redress Scheme would be quicker, much more straightforward, and much more likely to give justice to the victims”.
Victim awarded £10 compensation
Jimbo, who was a victim of abuse at St Aidan’s children’s home in Cheshire, took his case to the High Court twice and the Court of Appeal three times, but, after 13 years, all he ended up with was £10 for his bus fare to court.
Despite the Lord Justice of Appeal saying he believed that the abuse had occurred, Jimbo lost his claim because of the time limit for child sexual abuse claims to be made.
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Neither Marie nor Jimbo is likely to benefit from the removal of the time limit for personal injury claims, which is why Mr Garsden is calling on the government to implement a National Redress Scheme for victims of sexual abuse, as recommended by the IICSA.
Hundreds of millions paid to victims
The governments in Scotland and Northern Ireland have set up compensation schemes and paid hundreds of millions of pounds to victims.
In 2023, the then Conservative government said a similar scheme would be organised for England and Wales.
But the Home Office admitted in its Tackling Child Sexual Abuse: Progress Update that it “is not currently taking forward any further steps on the IICSA proposal for a separate, national financial redress scheme for all survivors of child sexual abuse”.
“In the current fiscal environment, this recommendation is very difficult to take forward,” it added.
For victims, the scheme was the last chance of compensation for a lifetime blighted by abuse.
“The money is about justice and about all the other people who have had to suffer this abuse,” Marie said.
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