Nurseries need more funding to meet a government pledge to offer free childcare to disadvantaged two-year-olds.
The Huddersfield-based National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) said extra funding was needed to enable nurseries to increase capacity to offer more places.
It follows the release of Department of Education statistics in January showing that 157,040 two-year-olds took up funded early education – equating to 58% of those eligible to take up funded early education. But the level of take-up varied widely from region to region.
Claire Schofield, director of membership, policy and communications at the Bradley-based NDNA, said: “The new statistics show a wide range of uptake of free places for disadvantaged two-year-olds in different local authority areas – from a low of 26% to a high of 85%, as at January, 2015.
“To enable more disadvantaged two-year-olds to take up their places, more work is needed to encourage nurseries to unlock capacity and also to support parents to access this quality childcare and early years education.”
She said: “The statistics show that 96% of the 157,000 two-year-olds are accessing their free places in private, voluntary and independent settings, showing that the sector is making a massive contribution to this area of provision.
“But our own research shows that many nurseries are limiting the number of free places for two-year-olds they offer, because current funding levels do not cover the cost of high-quality care.
“For nurseries to offer more such places, Government funding levels must rise to meet not only the day-to-day cost of learning and care but also the development of the sector workforce, so that the steady improvement in nursery standards we’re seeing increases and provision is successful and sustainable.”
The NDNA’s annual nursery survey, published in January, found that nurseries on average were offering 11 funded two-year-old places and only a small number planned to expand this provision.
