Education Minister warns: Parents may not get preferred kindergarten place

According to the Education Minister, parents may still not be able to choose their preferred kindergarten place until September 2025.

Bridget Phillipson vowed not to sugarcoat the state of the childcare sector as she set out to dampen expectations about the government’s expansion plans.

Experts warn of a chronic shortage of childcare places across the country.

Only 35 percent of English local authorities have enough places for children under two (compared to 50 percent last year), according to a recent survey by daycare provider Coram Family and Childcare.

The Education Minister reiterated that Labour would remain committed to the expansion of childcare provided by the previous government, the first phase of which came into force in April.

This means that working parents of two-year-olds are now entitled to 15 hours of state-funded childcare per week during school time.

From September, this will be extended to working parents of all children over nine months of age, before full unemployment leave of 30 hours per week is introduced for all eligible families a year later.

“Great shortage of staff and places”

However, she said ministers would need to triple capacity in some parts of the country as the sector faces a “major shortage of staff and places”.

“The introduction will not bring the sunny highs that the Tories promised. Some parents may get the hours promised but may not get their preferred nursery,” she wrote in The Sun on Sunday.

“That’s not what parents want to hear. But this government will always be honest… Parents should be in no doubt who is to blame if they don’t get their first choice – the irresponsible Conservative government that failed to plan for this expansion.”

The Labour Party’s election manifesto set out plans to create an additional 3,000 nurseries by “increasing places” in existing primary schools to support the expansion of childcare.

The law is part of a wider package of reforms for the childcare sector, with ministers accusing their predecessors of pumping money into the system without a proper plan to deal with demand.

The previous government assumed that 85,000 additional childcare places and 40,000 additional staff would be needed for the expansion by September 2025.

This comes as the total number of childcare providers registered with Ofsted fell by 1,400 to 61,800 between March 2023 and March this year – a 2 per cent drop, the latest statistics show.

Funded by raid on private school

The number of childminders registered with Ofsted also fell by 1,340 to 26,500 during the same period – a decrease of 5 percent.

Labour is proposing to spend around £135 million to convert primary school classrooms into nurseries, with the plans to be funded by the VAT increase on private schools due to come into force in January.

Although opening new kindergartens in schools could save on rent and mortgages, personnel costs make up the largest part of the budget of childcare facilities.

According to official figures, staff costs accounted for 85 percent of the budget of non-school kindergartens last year, compared to 75 percent of private institutions. Rent and mortgage payments, on the other hand, accounted for just two percent of costs for school kindergartens and seven percent for private providers.

According to the Telegraph, the government has contrasted this with the increasing number of childcare facilities closing in some parts of the country, creating “childcare deserts”.

Recent Department for Education statistics show that school-based nurseries are most popular in the poorest parts of England. In 2023, they accounted for 26 percent of childcare providers in the poorest regions, compared with 13 percent in the least poor regions.

Ms Phillipson said: “Parents across the country have their own experiences of having to drive miles to the nearest available place or paying for nursery bills that are higher than their rent. This problem is historic and in some places it is far worse than others.”

“I promise parents that I will do everything in my power to close these gaps as we reform the child care system so that all families – wherever they live – have equal access to excellent early education. However, I must be honest with parents in some areas that they may not get their preferred child care place in September 2025.”