Debate contribution: Childcare Providers: Funding

Debate contribution by Ms Diane Forsythe on 21 January 2025.

MLA

Ms Diane Forsythe

Party at the time

Democratic Unionist Party

Date

21 January 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Childcare Providers: Funding

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4749553

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. Childcare and early years education are key priorities for the Assembly and Executive. Every child deserves the best start in life. Access to quality, affordable childcare for working families is essential to our local economy. Childcare is such a priority that, in the face of extreme budgetary pressures, the Executive agreed to ring-fence some £25 million to progress it in 2024-25, the most significant enhancement of early years investment in Northern Ireland in decades. On 23 May 2024, Education Minister, Paul Givan, set out a package of measures for early learning and childcare that the Executive agreed would be implemented in the 2024-25 year. It included a portfolio approach, as so many of the objectives that were included were interconnecting. That included £7 million on measures to expand and stabilise existing early years provision and childcare; £5 million to begin the transition of all funded preschool education places to 22·5 hours; £9 million for the Northern Ireland childcare subsidy scheme; £2·5 million for the data collection exercise to evaluate measures and inform the early learning and childcare strategy; and, finally, £2 million that was earmarked for a targeted business support scheme for childcare providers to assist those in need of financial support. As detailed in the Minister's statement in May 2024, the Department for Economy and Invest NI would assist with the design of the scheme. In January 2025, eight months on, where are we with that? The Education Minister has already implemented the Northern Ireland childcare subsidy scheme, with the parents of over 14,000 children receiving a 15% reduction on their childcare bills. That was up and running in under four months, putting money back into the pockets of working families. To date, the subsidy scheme has provided over £4 million in savings for working families. When combined with savings from the tax-free childcare scheme, it is estimated that those parents will have benefited from a share of nearly £9 million to date. The Education Minister has already invested an additional £7·6 million in existing early years programmes such as Sure Start and the pathway fund and some that are administered by other Departments, such as the Department of Health's Fair Play grant scheme. He has initiated a major expansion of preschool education, so we will see an additional 2,503 children get a full-time place in preschool in September 2025, with more to follow in successive years. Furthermore, he has commissioned the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) to undertake a major household survey of parents' childcare requirements. That and the administrative data collected from the Northern Ireland childcare subsidy scheme will inform the next steps. On all measures set out in the plans for the £25 million within his control, the Minister of Education has delivered. The £2 million, however, that was allocated to the Department for the Economy to carry out an in-depth assessment of the sustainability challenges faced by many childcare providers in order to determine the support that they need and how government should respond to provide targeted business support has not been delivered. The motion calls on the Minister for the Economy to take action to unlock that funding for childcare providers in Northern Ireland. The sector needs support. When the announcement was made last May, providers looked forward to seeing something, whether a scheme like that which was rolled out during COVID, temporary rate relief or something else, and welcomed the recognition that their industry was under pressure. It is therefore incredibly disappointing that the Minister did not expedite the scoping exercise that was necessary to inform the design of the scheme. That comes at a time when many childcare providers are already facing recruitment and retention challenges, including grappling with the National Insurance cost rises that face them in April. I ask the Minister for the Economy to explain the cause of the delay and to work alongside his Executive colleagues to expedite the delivery of that financial support to providers in financial difficulty in order to give them some hope, as well as to put some effort into delivering for those areas where the demand for childcare exceeds supply, which are in pockets across Northern Ireland, as soon as possible in advance of the end of the financial year so that the funding earmarked for childcare providers for 2024-25 can be unlocked. The childcare sector is a full section of our economy in itself. If there were a crisis in any other industry in Northern Ireland, the Economy Minister would have intervened long ago. Alongside calling for him to unlock the funding allocated in the package for 2024-25, I ask him please to take urgent action to review, support and save the sector. There is little point in Members fighting to expand childcare schemes if there are no childcare provider settings or staff to deliver them. Having effective childcare in place is critical infrastructure for the Northern Ireland economy, and we need businesses to remain in place and be better supported. Staffing in the childcare sector is a huge pressure. In February 2024, I asked the Minister for the Economy in a question for written answer whether he had plans to invest in staff training and qualifications for the childcare sector. He responded that he had asked officials to carry out an audit of what the Department must offer in that area and that the audit would:

"help us determine any gaps in provision or if there is a need for additional financial assistance."

I ask the Minister for an update on the audit. A significant barrier to accessing childcare courses in further education in order to train in the field is the need for GP sign-off to enable a student to be accepted on to a childcare course. A combination of challenges, such as access to GP appointments and the reluctance of some GPs to sign off, has prevented and discouraged many from studying such a course, reducing the potential workforce. In September 2024, 30 students were unable to take up places on childcare courses at the Northern Regional College (NRC). That means that potentially 30 new childcare workers every year are blocked from taking up their place. We need to recognise the value of our childcare workers as early years practitioners and take steps to ensure that they are paid what they are worth. There is nothing more precious to parents than their children. Being able to hand over their child into the care of someone whom they trust is worth so much. I know that the childcare staff in Toddlers Cove and Little Treasures and a home-based childminder, Nicola, were worth their weight in gold to me. We need to see efforts made to keep those staff in the childcare sector. It is disappointing to see the narrative presented by some that childcare businesses have done something wrong by increasing their fees, as though they have done so to neutralise the 15% discount given by the Education Minister. That narrative is unfair. Childcare settings are businesses that, like many others, have faced significant increases in running costs — electricity, heat, food for the children, insurance — and they will take a huge hit from the increase in employers' National Insurance contributions from April.

Every business has needed to increase its costs, unfortunately, and childcare businesses should not be vilified for doing so. However, that hurts parents, because those costs are passed on to them through increased fees. We need to seek solutions to that.

Whilst I am disappointed that the Opposition have not focused on the allocated funding, which has not been distributed to providers, and on holding the Economy Minister to account, I agree with the principle of aiming to do more on childcare as a whole. The Education Minister would do more if he could and if he had the budget allocated. We welcome the £50 million that has been earmarked for early learning and childcare in the draft Budget for 2025-26. A priority in the interim will be to continue and expand the measures put in place for this year. Over the coming weeks, the Minister will consider what else he can afford to do with the £50 million of funding that has been allocated for next year and will bring forward a plan in due course. The Education Minister will bring forward a comprehensive and ambitious early learning and childcare strategy for Executive consideration and public consultation by autumn 2025, but today let us focus on delivery. We in the DUP made a commitment to deliver on childcare in our 2022 election manifesto. The DUP Education Minister took that on and has delivered with the limited budget that he was allocated. He has delivered a childcare subsidy scheme that has put £4·2 million back in the pockets of working families in Northern Ireland; 2,503 additional full-time preschool places from September 2025, which is 300 over the target; and £7·6 million to secure existing early years programmes, such as Sure Start, Pathway and the Department of Health's Fair Play small grant scheme. The DUP has delivered for working families on childcare and continues to be committed to doing more. It is time for the Economy Minister to deliver for the childcare sector, unlock the funding for this year and make sure that there continues to be a sector to deliver childcare. We need to secure the childcare infrastructure in Northern Ireland. There is no point in fighting to expand schemes if we do not have childcare settings and the workforce to deliver them.

1,599 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:47 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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