The Early Years Alliance has called for schools evicting private, voluntary and independent (PVI) settings from their premises to be banned from the government’s school-based nursery scheme.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed that the government is pushing ahead with plans to invest £370m in delivering 3,000 new or expanded school-based nurseries, during last week’s Spending Review. This follows an initial phase in which 300 school-based nurseries received £37m in government funding to repurpose spare space for new or expanded nursery provision.

Although the government’s criteria for school-based nurseries includes “a need for additional childcare places in your area and no competing alternative need for the space”, the Early Years Alliance said it had received reports of primary schools terminating leases with PVI providers previously operating on their premises to open their own provision and apply for funding under the government scheme.

The Early Years Alliance filed a Freedom of Information request to the Department for Education (DfE), asking how many of the primary schools awarded school-based nursery funding have had PVI providers operating on their premises over the past two years, and how many had served notice on PVI providers operating on their premises over the same period. The DfE has confirmed that it does not hold that information.

Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, said: “The government has said time and time again that school-based nurseries are intended to work alongside, and not replace or displace, private and voluntary settings – and yet, as the response to our Freedom of Information request shows, this simply isn’t being monitored.”

He added: “We have heard far too many reports of high-quality PVI providers, many of whom have previously enjoyed positive relationships with their local school, being told at very little notice that they must find new premises because the school in question now wants to apply for government funding to open their own provision.

“With the full rollout of the school-based nursery scheme now confirmed by government, it is absolutely critical that safeguards are put in place to ensure that any new school-based provision is not at the expense of existing PVI provision. This means ensuring primary schools who have served or intend to serve notice on PVI providers in order to apply for school-based nursery funding are not eligible to do so.”

Alison Wilkinson, manager of Hatchell Wood Pre-School in Doncaster, said: “We’ve been operating in Doncaster for the last 32 years, but as soon as the new government legislation to create new school-based nurseries was announced, we were asked to leave our premises so that the school might build their own nursery. We were initially asked to help run their facility until September 2026. This changed to 2024 and then to 2025 as the school ran behind schedule.” 

She added: “After spending a lot of time and money – bearing in mind we are a charity – we have finally found an alternative location in an area with great childcare need, but the building is in disrepair and requires a considerable amount of funding and skilled work before it is fit to be open.”