Meeting of the Parliament 11 March 2020
As I will go on to explain during the debate, I am absolutely confident that we will deliver in August 2020, and I will give my reasoning for that.
The report goes on to remark that there is
“effective national oversight of the expansion”.
It is right that Parliament debates the challenges in delivering such an ambitious transformation programme, but first let us recognise what has already been achieved. That progress is testament to the hard work and commitment of team ELC.
I want to put on record some of the results of that hard work and commitment to date: 50,000 children already benefiting from additional hours; 4,310 full-time equivalent staff in post, a year before delivery, with hundreds more having been recruited since the September data collection; around 5,000 additional college and university places in ELC over the past three academic years; year-on-year growth in ELC modern apprenticeships, with more than 2,000 new starts last year; 361 capital projects already complete; and private and third sector partners now expected to deliver 28 per cent of total places, which is up four percentage points on original forecasts. That is real progress, with real achievements, created through real partnership across the whole system.