Free nursery 'not lasting boost'

Free nursery places for pre-school children may not have a lasting impact on their education, the Government's spending watchdog has suggested.

A report by the National Audit Office (NAO) found that it is not clear whether Government moves to fund nursery education for three and four-year-olds is leading to longer-term benefits.

Although it acknowledges there have been changes to free nursery education, and its link to children's results at age seven is not "straightforward", the NAO says the Department for Education "did intend that the entitlement would have lasting effects on child development throughout primary school and beyond".

The spending watchdog says free
nursery places for pre-school children
 may not create long-term benefits

While children's development at age five has improved, results at age seven remain unchanged, the report says.

Nationally, 59% of five-year-olds achieved a good level of development in 2010/11 compared to 45% in 2005/06, it says. But it adds: "National Key Stage One results, however, have shown almost no improvement since 2007, so it is not yet clear that the entitlement is leading to longer-term educational benefits."

Children's Minister Sarah Teather said: "We are pleased that the NAO has recognised the progress made since we introduced free early education for three and four-year-olds. There is lots more to do - and the report also sets out important national and local challenges to be addressed.

"We are determined to improve the availability of quality places in disadvantaged areas, and offering free early education to around 40% of two-year-olds will help by bringing even more money into the system.

"We also want to examine in more detail how to make sure the significant improvements we are seeing at five feed through into better results at seven."

However Daniela Wachsening, education policy adviser at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: "There is absolutely no doubt that high-quality early years education makes a massive difference to children's development, and is particularly important for children from disadvantaged families.

"But the Government is jeopardising the chances of disadvantaged children by cutting the grants to local authorities, which has led to the loss of high-quality early years places and drastic reductions in children's and family services to the detriment of the most vulnerable children."

Quango bonfire 'set to cost £830m'

Ministers have underestimated the cost of implementing their "bonfire of the quangos", the Whitehall spending watchdog has warned.

The Government said it would save the taxpayer £2.6 billion by 2014/15 by axing 262 public bodies in the biggest Whitehall restructuring for decades.

However, the National Audit Office (NAO) said the transition costs would be at least £830 million - almost double the £425 million ministers estimated when they launched the plan in October 2010. As a result, the Government will now have to find total savings of £3.5 billion if they are to meet the 2014/15 target.

The Government has underestimated the costs of
axing 262 quangos, the National Audit Office said

The NAO said there was still "insufficient grasp" in departments of the continuing costs of the functions which were being transferred from bodies which had been abolished to other parts of government.

Savings will have to be found elsewhere in Whitehall in order to meet the costs of these newly acquired functions, the NAO said.

The NAO also questioned whether it would improve accountability, as the Government claimed. Of the £64 billion spent on public bodies in the programme, it said more than £43 billion was still going to arms-length organisations not directly answerable to ministers.

The head of the NAO, Amyas Morse, said: "They are not doing enough to secure value for money. I would expect departments to have a better grasp of the costs of reorganising bodies and of carrying on functions that have been transferred."

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: "Reform of the quango state has been a huge task and when our reforms are complete we will have reduced the number of public bodies by almost a third.

"As we have always acknowledged, there will be one-off costs of the transition, which will be around £600 to £900 million. Our savings are net of these costs and will continue into the future as a lasting legacy to the taxpayer."

Matthew Sinclair, director of the TaxPayers' Alliance lobby group, said: "It is quite right that the Government have cut back on the number of quangos spending huge amounts of money and making critical decisions with little or no accountability to taxpayers, but very disappointing that the financial management appears to have been poor."