22 January 2024 , 09:07
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Families face being forced to remove their children from nursery as the Tories' flagship childcare plan was plunged in chaos.
Rishi Sunak admitted there are "some practical issues" with the massive expansion of free childcare promised in the Budget. Working parents of two-year-olds should be able to get 15 hours a week of funded childcare from April, which is due to be extended to children who are nine-months-old from September. But the pledge is now in doubt due to funding, staffing and IT problems.
Cash-strapped nurseries are still in the dark over how much they will be paid for the places - with many warning parents they won't be able to immediately honour the Government's free hours pledge. Insiders have warned that lights are "flashing red across the board" as officials desperately try to get the scheme up and running by April.
A Treasury source told The Times: "The strategy is flashing red all over the board. No one at the Treasury trusts the Department for Education to deliver it and there's fear they're going to miss all the timelines set out for delivery." A Whitehall source said that September is "going to be an absolute s***show" with parents not getting their places.
The Department for Education (DfE) has been accused of initially miscalculating the cost of the scheme - leaving it with a £120million shortfall.
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Speaking on a visit to a film studio in Buckinghamshire, the PM said: "Many families have been able to sign up and it's all working fine but there are some practical issues that certain families are facing. I just want to reassure all of those people that those issues are being resolved as we speak." He added: "Our plan is to deliver the plan exactly as we said we would."
But Labour said the childcare pledge is in "tatters" because of Conservative "bungling". Speaking in the Commons, Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said: "Crumbling school buildings, botched school budgets, and now the hat-trick - a childcare pledge in tatters because of Conservative bungling, and it's not ministers opposite but families across this country paying the price for Tory incompetence."
She added: "Families are facing a rolling wave of Conservative chaos which wrecks all before it. Providers, an utter fiasco, where their income after April still a state secret." Children and families minister David Johnston insisted no families would lose out, adding: "As she knows we have made significant increases to funding rates."
Meghan Meek-O'Connor, senior policy advisor at Save the Children UK, said: "Childcare bills are already sky-high, and this means some families are going to have to make drastic decisions, like taking their children out of nursery altogether. Not only are we furious that the roll-out is in jeopardy but all along we have said that the UK Government simply hasn't put enough money into this scheme."
Neil Leitch, Chief Executive of the Early Years Alliance, accused the Government of being in "total denial" over the problems facing the scheme. He said: "The Government continues to reassure parents that all children who are eligible for the new funded early years offers will be able to access places – but the harsh reality is that, for many families, this simply won’t be the case."
A DfE spokesman said: "We are pleased that thousands of parents have already applied for the expansion starting in April. However, a pre-existing feature in the system, where parents re-confirm their eligibility every three months, is impacting a minority of parents when combined with a small number of providers who are asking for codes much earlier than April. Parents who can't re-confirm online until the second half of February or March will therefore automatically receive a letter with a code from HMRC before the middle of February, without needing to take any action."