To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the findings of the Early Education, NAHT, NEU and UNISON survey on the impact of covid-19 on Maintained Nursery School funding.
Answered on
3 February 2022
Maintained nursery schools are an important part of the early years sector, and they provide support for some of our most disadvantaged children. The government provides local authorities that have maintained nursery schools with supplementary funding, to enable them to protect maintained nursery schools’ 2016-17 financial year funding levels. As local authorities individually decided the funding levels of maintained nursery schools at that time, this means that there is a range of funding levels across the country.
We have confirmed the continuation of maintained nursery school supplementary funding throughout the three year spending period, providing the sector with long-term certainty. For financial year 2022-23, we will increase the maintained nursery schools supplementary hourly funding rate by 3.5%, which is equivalent to the increase in the three and four-year-old hourly funding rates.
The survey carried out by Early Education, NAHT, National Education Union and UNISON is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the maintained nursery schools. We continue to work closely with sector representatives to understand issues affecting them.