Kindergartens with Pnrr are a case in point: lack of money to run them

Mayors on the warpath over the management of crèches built with Pnrr resources, which they say risk being closed. The municipalities are also on the attack, calling for the defence of the communities 'that are being defrauded of an essential right' that would mainly affect 'the children of the South and the mothers and families of the South'.

The fears, which have become more and more pronounced as the days go by, have been triggered by a possible cut in the fund for operating expenses, which would blow up the target set by the government in the 2022 budget law to guarantee 33% coverage of the crèches by 2027. This is because one of the annexes to the Budget and Structural Plan 2025-2029 would downgrade the target to 15% coverage on a regional basis, thus making the achievement of the national level uncertain. This would affect about three quarters of the nursery schools financed with NRP funds. In fact, Table A VI.4 of the Psb for 'early childhood care services' states that it is necessary to 'ensure that childcare facilities have an availability of places, equal to at least 15 per cent of the number of children under three years of age, at a regional level'. This figure is estimated for the national level at 33%.

"The Budget Law 2022 (art. 1, paragraph 172) set the availability of places at 33% on a local basis with the aim of removing territorial imbalances in the provision of daycare services,' warns Ali vice-president and mayor of Andria Giovanna Bruno. A measure with which, for the first time in Italy, a Lep was finally defined and gradually financed over five years. Today, in one of the annexes to the structural budget plan, it is written that the right to daycare will no longer be 33 per cent at the national level, but 15 per cent at the regional level, a cut that will widen the gap between North and South. We cannot accept such a mockery'.

Rete EducAzioni is also critical, according to which the reduction in the percentage of service coverage at national level "would not only jeopardise the chances of reaching the new European target, but would accentuate the current territorial inequalities, penalising children in southern and inland areas, which already have a more limited supply of services". "The Meloni government has not yet answered any of our questions," attacks Irene Manzi, the PDD's national school manager. "In the Psb there is a clear halving of the 33% target of places in nursery schools at the local level, which has been reduced to 15% at the regional level. They are redefining the Lep downwards, saving on educational services'. Simona Malpezzi, a member of the Dem party, also agrees, recalling: "The Draghi government's budget law of 2022 progressively financed the increase in the cost of the nursery school service by providing 120 million for 2022, 175 for 2023, 230 in 2024, 300 in 2025, 450 in 2026, and 1 billion 100 from 2027. If the government says that nurseries must have 15 per cent coverage and no more than 33 per cent, where does the money go? Where do they put the savings?". For the Fp CGIL, on the other hand, 'the increasingly real risk is once again the defunding of educational services. On the contrary, we believe that it is more and more urgent to implement an extraordinary recruitment plan that will guarantee in all territories to reach 45% coverage of childcare services by 2030, as sanctioned by the European target".