What is the Minister doing to tackle the postcode lottery of the childcare offer for Wales, as described by Oxfam Cymru in its report Little Steps, Big Struggles: Childcare in Wales?
Developing high quality support for children and families in the early years is a key priority for the Welsh Government. High quality early years provision supports improved child development, plays an important role in supporting school readiness and addressing the attainment gap to support the best start in life, particularly for our most disadvantaged children.
The Welsh Government is investing over £90m in childcare a year through the Childcare Offer for Wales and the Flying Start Expansion programme alone.
The Childcare Offer for Wales, which has been available across all of Wales since April 2019, provides 30 hours a week of government-funded early education and childcare for eligible parents of 3 and 4 year olds for up to 48 weeks a year. Parents must each be earning an equivalent of a minimum of 16 hours per week at the relevant National Minimum Wage (and no more than £100,000) or enrolled on a Higher or Further Education course.
Flying Start is a geographically targeted programme which uses income benefit data, a proxy indicator for poverty, to target areas with the highest proportions of children aged 0-3 living in income benefit households. This high-level approach to targeting support is transparent and is based on a robust evidence base.