Although details of the review are not expected to be announced by the Chancellor until later this month, the education budget has already been set. The Department for Education and Skills said that Sure Start funding levels between now and 2007/08 are to rise by 669m - an average rise of 17.3 per cent in real terms, from 1.167bn in 2005/06, rising to 1.483bn in 2006/07 and 1.567bn in 2007/08.
The Sure Start programme now incorporates projects such as the planned 1,700 children's centres and Neighbourhood Nurseries, as well as the original 524 Sure Start local programmes.
Margaret Hodge, minister for children, who is now also overseeing the early years sector, said, 'The headline figures are terrific - it's an over 17 per cent real terms increase averaged over the three years of this settlement.'
She also spoke of the Government's intention to introduce a pilot scheme that will give 6,000 two-year-olds in deprived areas of England access to early years education. 'Research evidence demonstrates that if you can provide that integrated education support to children at two, particularly those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, you can make a real difference. So we want to start piloting that to see how that works, and whether it gives us the real better outcomes we're seeking for every child.'
Early years organisations have welcomed the extra funding for the sector, but questioned how the Government had allocated it. Rosemary Murphy, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, said that while she recognised the 'unprecedented investment in early years and childcare', there needed to be a 'brave Government that has the political will to set childcare and early years alongside health and education as the responsibility of the state, not individuals, and fund it accordingly'.
Until this happened, she said, childcare workers would continue to subsidise parents' costs by working for low salaries.
The Pre-school Learning Alliance called for better co-operation between local authorities and voluntary and private providers to ensure there was no duplication of childcare places, as had happened in some areas since Labour came to power in 1997. Judith Thompson, the Alliance's chair of trustees, said, 'We welcome the extra money that is being put into this area of work, for it will help to meet the shortfall. But we are concerned about what will happen with the creation of more childcare places in primary schools.
'The National Audit Office report on the early years sector published in February highlighted how, although 600,000 childcare places had been created, there had also been a loss of 300,000 places during the same period of time.
Margaret Hodge now says that more than 900,000 places have been created since 1997, but this masks the fact that this is not a net gain of places.
'There needs to be greater consultation with existing providers to ensure that there is no loss of places. It is wasteful, especially when we are so short of childcare places at present.
'We also find troubling the Government's targeting of disadvantaged areas. Not all families in poverty live in these 20 per cent more disadvantaged areas. The Government needs to also support those families who live outside the reach of these childcare places and primary schools in areas of disadvantage.'
Pauline Trudell, a spokeswoman for Early Education, called on the Government to find new ways to finance its Early Excellence Centres programme. She said, 'Their funding stream disappears in 2006, so we have to find a way of continuing to finance them. They will be very costly because of the need for a number of senior staff and their salaries, and the complex services that they offer.'
