Revealed: how academies dominate government’s new childcare places scheme

New analysis shows how schools in multi-academy trusts comprised almost two-thirds of the successful bidders for expansion of childcare scheme.

 

A flagship government initiative to offer thousands of new childcare places for parents of pre-school children will operate mainly within multi-academy trusts, new analysis seen exclusively by Education Uncovered reveals.

The academy sector dominated successful bids to operate what are billed as new school-based nurseries, comprising more than two thirds of the projects gaining funding, despite the sector making up less than half of primary schools nationally.

By contrast, the local authority school sector had only just over half the number of projects approved that would be expected, given the nationwide proportion of non-academy primaries.

Louise O’Hare and Jo Henley, of the Public Childcare Now campaign, who carried out the analysis, said the revelations raised questions about the extent to which the new childcare places, which were a pledge in the Labour Party’s manifesto, would be public, rather than private, provision.

The background

Last month, the government announced that it would be investing in “300 new school-based nurseries,” delivering on a manifesto pledge which would provide a “massive boost to early education”.

The move will provide capital funding for 300 projects, with applications invited for funding of up to £150,000 each. This will pay for the refurbishment of facilities within schools, to either open new nursery provision or expand existing facilities.

Up to 6,000 new places, for children up to reception age, are being funded in total, of which 4,000 will be on offer by this coming September. The total cost to the taxpayer is being billed as £37 million.

The scheme is already proving controversial, with local authority maintained nursery schools not allowed to apply, and amid some contested reports that private providers are being overlooked.

The new analysis

The Department for Education did publish some detailed data on organisations bidding for, and awarded, funding under the “School-based nursery capital grant” scheme. Each school which had successfully applied was listed, as well as “who will run the nursery”.

However, this seemed to underplay the involvement of multi-academy trusts. Of the 300 successful applications from schools, under “who will run the nursery,” only 46 projects stated that the answer was “the multi-academy trust”.

By contrast, 225 stated that “the school” would run the nursery provision, with the rest either to be run by “a private, voluntary and independent childcare provider” (27 places), or “a governor” (two places).

The analysis by Dr O’Hare and Ms Henley now reveals that “the school” often relates to an academy operating within a multi-academy trust.

Overall, of the 300 successful bids, 204 are for nursery provision which will operate within academies*. That is 68 per cent of the total, though academies currently make up only 47 per cent of primary schools nationally.

Of the 204, 196 are schools run within multi-academy trusts, with the remaining eight being run as single academy trusts.

By contrast, only 61 of the 300 bids – 20 per cent – will benefit community schools, though these make up 30 per cent of primary schools nationally. The remaining successful applications were from foundation schools (seven successful bids, or two per cent of the total, though they make up three per cent of all primary schools); voluntary aided schools (16 successful bids, five per cent, though they represent 13 per cent of all primaries); and voluntary controlled schools (12 successful bids, four per cent, though making up nine per cent of all primaries).

In all, then, non-academy schools made up only 96 of the successful bids, or 32 per cent, even though they comprise 53 per cent of primary schools nationally.

A total of 34 MATs had more than one school receiving funding under the scheme, with REAch2 (five schools) and LEO Academy Trust, Lift Schools, St Cuthbert's Roman Catholic Academy Trust and The Thinking Schools Academy Trust (four each) having the most. 

The analysis also shows that while part of the disproportionate success of the academies sector in winning funding was down to higher application rates, it was also the case that a higher proportion of applications from academy trusts were accepted by the DfE.

The data shows that 59 per cent of applications overall were from academies, but academies comprised 68 per cent of those applications which were successful. By contrast, community schools made up 25 per cent of the applications, but in the end only 20 per cent of successful applicants.

Media coverage

Dr O’Hare and Ms Henley are also critical of some media coverage which has suggested that the new policy will harm private (PVI or private, voluntary and independent settings).

Specifically, an article last month in the Observer had stated that “more than a dozen schools are evicting existing pre-school providers” – state schools replacing PVI tenants which had been running nurseries on their sites – amid concerns that they were doing so to access funding under the scheme to set up their own provision. This meant that “the pledge to create thousands of nursery places may be fulfilled by cannibalising some of the existing preschools,” the piece reported the Early Years Alliance umbrella group as saying.

This article, and a separate piece by Nursery World, had raised concerns about closures of existing PVI provision, the Observer stating that “just nine per cent, or 27” of the 300 schools awarded funding under the scheme “have confirmed they are working with their nursery tenants”.

However, Dr O’Hare and Ms Henley point out that the DfE transparency data does not provide details of who previously ran provision – meaning that, they argue, this statistic appears to be a misreading of the currently publicly-available figures.

What the DfE data currently shows is that, in 27 of the 300 successful applications, the nursery will be run by a PVI provider. But this does not mean that, in other cases, a PVI provider was operating in the school and will be evicted.

Overall, only 174 of the 300 are listed as already having nursery provision, and some of them will already be run by the school itself.  As for the 126 new nurseries – there would presumably be no existing provider – PVI or state – to replace.

The Observer article does quote the Early Years Alliance as saying that 15 (PVI) preschools had contacted it to say that they had been told, presumably by the school which had been hosting them, that they would have to leave by the end of the summer term.

But Dr O’Hare and Ms Henley said it was not clear whether all the schools said to be doing so had actually received funding under the scheme, with Nursery World reporting on two nurseries at schools that were identifiably part of the recent announcement, but two PVIs featured in the Observer piece appearing to have been hosted by schools not funded under the scheme.

They raise that this coverage has suggested that the government is reducing private nursery provision, when the available numbers, with 27 PVI projects funded including 13 new ones, may suggest the contrary. A freedom of information request has been submitted by the Early Years Alliance; until this is published, we will not know the full story, say Dr O’Hare and Ms Henley. 

Nonetheless, they argue, the overall picture provided by the data, so far, does not suggest that the Government is intending to shift away from subsidising privately-delivered early years education and care.

Dr O’Hare said: "In giving over 200 academies capital funding to expand or build nursery provision, the Government is funding the renovation of buildings that in many cases have been taken out of public ownership and local democratic control into the hands of private trusts.  

“The school-based nursery scheme has been presented as rolling out public nursery places, with the early years industry lobby vocal in opposition. But the detail of the plans show that it will expand the fragmentation of early years education and care services, and perhaps education more broadly – further embedding the dominance of academies – as providing nursery places is a way to get children into schools (applying for reception), amid falling rolls.

“At the same time as gifting two thirds of the funding to MATs, the DfE excluded maintained nursery schools from applying in the first round. These remaining public nurseries have early years specialist head teachers, and have been evidenced to provide the highest quality play-based early years education and care, and support the highest proportion of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND.) They are fully integrated with wider local early years services and support – something we fear new nurseries hitched to academies, running with centralised top-down management and independent from local authorities, will not be fully set up for.  

“Although the Government's Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill addresses some concerns about staff pay, terms and conditions in academies, we are worried that these will continue to be undermined, and a tendency to use less qualified staff will remain.”

She added that the “draconian discipline and behaviour practices that have been reported from some MATs also raise particular concerns regarding accessibility, in relation to this Government decision to use academies to increase available childcare places”.

Dr O’Hare and Ms Henley have written a separate piece on this for Education Uncovered, which is published here.

 

*This breaks down as 142 nurseries within academy converters, 57 within sponsored academies and five within free schools, which are a type of academy. 2 community schools have converted to academies since the application process began.