30 October 2025

Alliance comments as DfE evaluation finds early years recruitment bonus scheme failed to boost sector applications

Please find below a comment from the Early Years Alliance in response to the newly-published evaluation of the Department for Education’s Early Years Financial Incentives pilot scheme, which saw a £1,000 recruitment bonus offered to eligible new and returning early years staff across 40 local authorities as part of efforts to increase workforce numbers to support the rollout of the expanded entitlement offers.

The evaluation found that the scheme had “no measurable increase in … the number of applicants per vacancy”.

Commenting, Neil Leitch, CEO of the Early Years Alliance, said:

“Given that the incentive scheme did absolutely nothing to address the fundamental issues facing the early years workforce – not least the consistently low rates of pay that have resulted from chronic government underfunding – it is unsurprising that this policy has had such limited success in improving recruitment rates in the sector.

“What’s more, it is telling that the modest increase in applications as a result of the scheme came from candidates who ‘lacked the qualifications, soft skills, or interest in the work necessary for early years roles’. Being an early educator is a vocation, and until it is treated as such, ad hoc quick fixes like incentive schemes will do little, if anything, to tackle the sector’s long-running staffing issues..

“In light of publication of the Best Start in Life strategy, we hope that the government is now ready and willing to move away from ad hoc, short-term measures and start thinking about how best to make a career in the early years sustainable in the long run.”

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