Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much her Department has spent on its scheme to offer £1000 sign-on incentives to help recruit early years professionals.

The early years workforce is at the heart of this government’s mission to give every child the best start in life and deliver the Plan for Change. We have set a milestone of a record proportion of children starting school ready to learn in the classroom. We will measure our progress through 75% of children at the end of reception reaching a good level of development in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile assessment by 2028.

Early education is delivered by a mixed market of providers who recruit staff depending on business need. The department is supporting providers by creating conditions for improved recruitment. Funding breakdowns by region are not held.

• In 2025/26 alone, the department plans to provide over £8 billion for the early years entitlements – a more than 30% increase compared to 2024/25. This ensures funding reflects forecasts of average earnings and inflation, as well as the National Living Wage announced at the 2024 Autumn Budget.

• The ‘Do something BIG. Work with small children’ recruitment campaign had a budget of £6.5 million for the 2023/24 financial year. Subsequent years’ budgets are being reconciled and the department will publish spend once confirmed.

• In 20 local authorities between April 2024 and March 2025, we piloted whether £1,000 financial incentives boost recruitment in early years. The demand-led programme totalled £2.64 million, comprising £2.47 million in 2023/24 and £173,000 in 2024/25.

• A Childminder Start-up Grant Scheme has supported childminders with the costs associated with setting up their new business. The demand-led scheme ran for a 2 year period and is worth up to £7.2 million.

• Our delivery support contract, Childcare Works, supports local authorities and providers on early years and wraparound delivery. Given the breadth of remit, we cannot isolate spend to early years recruitment activity only.