Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:41 pm on 24 September 2019.
I'd like to thank Janet Finch-Saunders for her statements and questions. I suppose when I say it's very successful, I'm basing it on the fact that it's a year early and 16,000 children are benefiting from it. And I don't think we can query the fact that is a great success.
I absolutely agree with her that nurseries are central to the offer. When I've been going around the country visiting nurseries and seeing what the effect has been on them, they have been invariably positive because they see it as a great opportunity for them, and they said they've been able to increase the numbers and increase the staff. But, obviously, I think she makes a very important point about the workforce, and one of the things we want to do is to encourage the workforce to professionalise the workshop. As I said, we are encouraging qualifications and we are working very hard to make sure that this sort of work is seen as an attractive job and as an important job, because what could be more important than looking after very small children and bringing them up?
So, that's what we want to do, and we have had a campaign—a successful campaign, a campaign called the We Care campaign—which has been run by the Government, which has been very successful. And in fact, when I visited Scotland a couple of weeks ago, they are actually using that campaign to help inform themselves. So, we are looking at that.
In terms of the amount of money paid for the childcare offer, the £4.50 per hour, on our latest evaluation, the childcare providers have not expressed any great concern about that; in fact, I think they've been generally accepting. I am aware that in England, the offer is regionalised and does change, but what we will be doing next year is we will be reviewing that and we will be looking at the amount.
In terms of when the eligibility will be expanded, we are planning to have this review report next year, and then we hope we'll be able to expand it then. Thank you.