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1697889

	registered interest
	date	21/03/2024
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Pre-school Education: Finance
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding her Department plans to provide for the early years free hours entitlement to each local authority; and what guidance her Department has issued to providers on the costs that this funding should cover.
	tabling member constituency	Dulwich and West Norwood
	tabling member printed	Helen Hayes
	uin	19917
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 26/03/2024 answer text <p>The department is determined to support as many families as possible with access to high quality, affordable childcare, which is why the 2023 Spring Budget announced significant new investments to expand the free early education entitlements from April 2024. Further, at the 2024 Spring Budget the department committed to increasing the national average hourly funding rate to deliver the entitlements in line with the metric used at Spring Budget 2023, in the 2025/26 and 2026/27 financial years to reflect key cost providers face, at an estimated £500 million of additional investment over the two financial years, based on current forecast.</p><p>The department expects to provide over £4.1 billion by the 2027/28 financial year to facilitate the expansion and to be spending in excess of £8 billion every year overall on free hours and early education entitlements. This is the single biggest investment in childcare in England ever.</p><p>In 2024/25 alone, the department expects to provide over £1.7 billion to support local authorities and providers to deliver the expansion. On top of this, the department is increasing the 2024/25 hourly rates to local authorities for the existing and new entitlements by over £400 million.</p><p> </p><p>To ensure local authorities are fully supported in delivering the new entitlements, the department is funding local authorities an additional four weeks in the 2024/25 financial year, at an estimated cost of £120 million, for the under 2s working parent entitlement starting in September 2024.</p><p> </p><p>Indicative funding allocations for individual local authorities for 2024/25 were published in December 2023 and can be found at: <a href="https://skillsfunding.service.gov.uk/view-latest-funding/national-funding-allocations/DSG/2024-to-2025" target="_blank">https://skillsfunding.service.gov.uk/view-latest-funding/national-funding-allocations/DSG/2024-to-2025</a>. Funding allocations for local authorities for 2025/26 will be announced in the autumn.</p><p> </p><p>The department’s statutory guidance for local authorities sets out that government funding is intended to deliver 15 or 30 hours a week (for 38 weeks of the year) of free, high-quality, flexible childcare. The guidance can be found here: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-education-and-childcare--2" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-education-and-childcare--2</a>.</p><p>The funding should cover the cost, including core business costs, of delivering this provision. The funding is not intended to cover the costs of meals, other consumables, such as nappies and sun cream, additional hours or additional services, such as trips and specialist tuition. However, as set out in paragraph A1.33 of the guidance, such charges for consumables or additional services should not be made a condition of accessing a free place. The statutory guidance for local authorities also specifies that local authorities ensure that providers do not charge parents top-up fees or require parents to pay a registration fee as a condition of taking up their child’s place. Providers who choose to offer the free entitlements are responsible for setting their own policy on providing parents with options for alternatives to additional charges, including allowing parents to supply their own meals or nappies, or waiving or reducing the cost of meals and snacks.</p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston question first answered 26/03/2024 15:56:24 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
	tabling member	4510 label Biography information for Helen Hayes

1691434

	registered interest
	date	23/02/2024
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Pre-school Education: Finance
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has had discussions with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the steps they are taking to support the new Early Years Funding programme to ensure nurseries are viable.
	tabling member constituency	Mid Bedfordshire
	tabling member printed	Alistair Strathern
	uin	15511
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/03/2024 answer text <p>There were 15,100 childcare places in 2023 than the previous year, with 12,900 paid staff added to the same period according to 2023’s Childcare and Early Years Provider Survey.</p><p>To support providers to expand their provision further, the department is investing over £400 million of additional funding to uplift the hourly rate for the entitlements next year. This investment consists of £67 million new funding to reflect the latest National Living Wage increase, an additional £57 million to support providers in respect of teachers’ pay and pensions, and the £288 million for the existing entitlements in 2024/25 announced in the Spring Budget in March 2023. It also builds on the £204 million of additional investment to increase funding rates this year.</p><p>The department will also be providing over £4.1 billion by the 2027/28 financial year to fund 30 hours of free childcare per week (38 weeks per year) for working parents with children aged 9 months and above in England, from the term after they reach the relevant age (£1.7 billion in 2024/25, £3.3 billion in 2025/26, £4.1 billion in 2026/27, and £4.1 billion in 2027/28). Additionally, hundreds of thousands of children aged 3 and 4 are registered for a 30-hour place, saving eligible working parents up to £6,900 per child per year, helping even more working parents and making a real difference to the lives of those families.</p><p>Providers are expanding placements across the country and the department is supporting providers to deliver each stage of the entitlement expansion rollout through increases to the rate of pay, the department’s national recruitment campaign and establishing more qualification routes into the sector.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston grouped question UIN 15512 question first answered 22/03/2024 11:12:24 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
	tabling member	5000 label Biography information for Alistair Strathern

1691435

	registered interest
	date	23/02/2024
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Pre-school Education: Finance
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has had discussions with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the impact of the new Early Years Funding programme on the viability of providers where the Government’s payments do not match the nurseries current fees.
	tabling member constituency	Mid Bedfordshire
	tabling member printed	Alistair Strathern
	uin	15512
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/03/2024 answer text <p>There were 15,100 childcare places in 2023 than the previous year, with 12,900 paid staff added to the same period according to 2023’s Childcare and Early Years Provider Survey.</p><p>To support providers to expand their provision further, the department is investing over £400 million of additional funding to uplift the hourly rate for the entitlements next year. This investment consists of £67 million new funding to reflect the latest National Living Wage increase, an additional £57 million to support providers in respect of teachers’ pay and pensions, and the £288 million for the existing entitlements in 2024/25 announced in the Spring Budget in March 2023. It also builds on the £204 million of additional investment to increase funding rates this year.</p><p>The department will also be providing over £4.1 billion by the 2027/28 financial year to fund 30 hours of free childcare per week (38 weeks per year) for working parents with children aged 9 months and above in England, from the term after they reach the relevant age (£1.7 billion in 2024/25, £3.3 billion in 2025/26, £4.1 billion in 2026/27, and £4.1 billion in 2027/28). Additionally, hundreds of thousands of children aged 3 and 4 are registered for a 30-hour place, saving eligible working parents up to £6,900 per child per year, helping even more working parents and making a real difference to the lives of those families.</p><p>Providers are expanding placements across the country and the department is supporting providers to deliver each stage of the entitlement expansion rollout through increases to the rate of pay, the department’s national recruitment campaign and establishing more qualification routes into the sector.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston grouped question UIN 15511 question first answered 22/03/2024 11:12:24 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
	tabling member	5000 label Biography information for Alistair Strathern

1661441

	registered interest
	date	18/09/2023
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Pre-school Education: Finance
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of regional disparities in funding available for early years providers.
	tabling member constituency	Barnsley East
	tabling member printed	Stephanie Peacock
	uin	200158
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 20/10/2023 answer text <p>The government currently funds local authorities to deliver the government-funded entitlements through the Early Years National Funding Formula (EYNFF) for 3 and 4-year-olds and a separate formula for 2-year-olds. These have been designed to allocate the department’s record investment in early years entitlement funding fairly and transparently across the country.</p><p>The EYNFF is made up of a universal base rate, which is the same hourly funding rate for every child in a local authority, plus funding factors for additional needs, based on the measures of free school meals, disability living allowance, and English as an additional language.</p><p>The formula also includes an area cost adjustment (ACA) multiplier to reflect variations in costs across different areas of the country. This uses the General Labour Market measure to reflect staff costs and a Rates Cost Adjustment to reflect premises related costs.</p><p>Each local authority’s EYNFF rate will vary depending on their level of additional needs and their ACA values. Following a consultation in 2022, the department has updated the funding formulae to ensure the funding system remains fair, effective and responsive to changing levels of need across different local authorities.</p><p>To distribute the additional £204 million funding provided from September for the existing entitlements through the Early Years Supplementary Grant (EYSG), the department has used the existing funding formulae for 2, 3 and 4-year-olds. This allows the department to recognise cost variations between local authority areas when determining the EYSG rates for individual local authorities.</p><p>With the introduction of the new entitlements for working parents of children aged 9 months to 2 years from 2024/25, the department has recently finished consulting on its proposed funding formula for distributing funding to local authorities, along with the accompanying local rules for local authorities to follow when passing on this funding to early years providers. That consultation closed on 8 September and the department will announce its response and confirm the final hourly funding rates for 2024/25 later this year.</p><p>At a local level, local authorities are responsible for setting individual provider funding rates in consultation with their providers and schools forum, and fund providers using their local funding formula. In setting their local funding formula, all local authorities are required to use the same base rate for all providers. On top of the base rate, additional funding can be paid to providers to reflect local needs through the use of a mandatory supplement for deprivation, and other discretionary supplements. But supplements are capped at a maximum of 12% of the total funding to providers.</p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston question first answered 20/10/2023 12:25:24 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
	tabling member	4607 label Biography information for Stephanie Peacock

1661442

	registered interest
	date	18/09/2023
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Pre-school Education: Finance
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to inform early years providers about the process of accessing funding for school places before changes in the numbers of children who are eligible for nursery places from 2024/25.
	tabling member constituency	Barnsley East
	tabling member printed	Stephanie Peacock
	uin	200159
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 20/10/2023 answer text <p>Children remain eligible for an early education place until they start in reception at a state-funded school. For many children this will be the September following their 4th birthday, or the term after they turn 5 (which is when they reach compulsory school age).This applies to the process for accessing funding for school places before changes in the number of children who are eligible for nursery places from 2024/25.</p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston question first answered 20/10/2023 11:50:39 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
	tabling member	4607 label Biography information for Stephanie Peacock

1659666

	registered interest
	date	11/09/2023
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Pre-school Education: Finance
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she plans to take to ensure that early years funding for children in the north of England is at a level comparable to that made available to children in (a) London and (b) the south of England.
	tabling member constituency	York Central
	tabling member printed	Rachael Maskell
	uin	198806
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 19/09/2023 answer text <p>The government currently funds local authorities to deliver the government-funded entitlements through the Early Years National Funding Formula (EYNFF) for 3 and 4-year-olds and a separate formula for 2-year-olds. These have been designed to allocate the department’s record investment in early years entitlement funding fairly and transparently across the country.</p><p>The EYNFF is made up of a universal base rate, (which is the same hourly funding rate for every child in a local authority) plus funding factors for additional needs, using measures of free school meals, disability living allowance, and English as an additional language.</p><p>The formula also includes an Area Cost Adjustment (ACA) multiplier to reflect variations in costs across different areas of the country. This uses the general labour market measure to reflect staff costs and a Rates Cost Adjustment to reflect premises related costs.</p><p>Each local authority’s EYNFF rate will vary depending on their level of additional needs and their ACA values.</p><p>Following a consultation in 2022, the department has updated the funding formulae to ensure the funding system remains fair, effective and responsive to changing levels of need across different local authorities.</p><p>To distribute the additional £204 million funding provided from September 2023 for the existing entitlements through the Early Years Supplementary Grant (EYSG), the department has used the existing funding formulae for 2, 3 and 4-year-olds. This allows us to recognise cost variations between local authority areas when determining the EYSG rates for individual local authorities.</p><p>With the introduction of the new entitlements for working parents of children aged 9 months to 2 years from the 2024/25 financial year, the department has recently finished consulting on our proposed funding formula for distributing funding to local authorities. That consultation closed on 8 September 2023 and the department will announce our response and confirm the final hourly funding rates for the 2024/25 financial year in the autumn.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston question first answered 19/09/2023 15:51:36 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
	tabling member	4471 label Biography information for Rachael Maskell

1652542

	registered interest
	date	12/07/2023
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Pre-school Education: Finance
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to offer additional funding to areas where the Early Years Supplementary Grant results in below national average funding for early years education.
	tabling member constituency	North Shropshire
	tabling member printed	Helen Morgan
	uin	193824
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/07/2023 answer text <p>At the Spring Budget 2023, the Chancellor announced an increase to the funding for the existing early years entitlements for two, three and four-year-olds of £204 million from this September, and £288 million in 2024/25, for local authorities to increase the rates paid to childcare providers.</p><p>On 7 July 2023, the department confirmed that the £204 million for 2023/24 would be distributed via a new Early Years Supplementary Grant (EYSG), and the hourly funding rates that each local authority will receive from September 2023.</p><p>This additional funding through the EYSG, coming on top of local authorities’ existing allocations, will allow an increase to an average of 32% for the current two year old entitlement, and by an average of 6.3% for the three and four-year-old entitlements. For two-year-olds, this means that the average hourly rate received by local authorities will rise from the current £6 per hour in 2023/24, to an effective £7.95 per hour. The three and four-year-old national average hourly rate will rise from £5.29, to an effective £5.62 from September 2023.</p><p>In order to recognise cost variations between local authority areas, the existing funding formulae for two, three and four-year-olds has been used to determine the EYSG rates for individual local authorities. This means there will be variation around the average increases stated above.</p><p>For three and four-year-olds, as with the 2023/24 early years national funding formula (EYNFF) rates, the department is including protections to ensure that all local authorities see an increase in the effective combined hourly funding rate (September to March) they receive. The minimum increase that local authorities can see between their effective combined hourly rate (September to March) and their 2023/24 EYNFF hourly rate is +1%. Without this protection, some areas would see very low percentage increases, or decreases, compared to their 2023/24 rates based on the pre-protection calculation.</p><p>For two-year-olds, no protection or gains cap have been applied in calculating the effective combined hourly funding rates, because all local authorities will see a substantial increase to their hourly funding rates.</p> answering member constituency East Surrey answering member printed Claire Coutinho question first answered 17/07/2023 15:02:58 answering member 4806 label Biography information for Claire Coutinho
	tabling member	4934 label Biography information for Helen Morgan

1649896

	registered interest
	date	04/07/2023
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Pre-school Education: Finance
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will publish details of spending of early years entitlement funding by each local authority.
	tabling member constituency	Winchester
	tabling member printed	Steve Brine
	uin	192463
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 12/07/2023 answer text <p>Early years entitlement funding is one of the funding blocks of the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG). The latest information regarding early years funding is available at: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-funding-2023-to-2024" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-funding-2023-to-2024</a>.</p><p>As part of the annual Section 251 budget return, local authorities return data on their planned early years spending for the next financial year, which is then published by the department. The latest published planned expenditure data is for the 2022/23 financial year and is available at: <a href="https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/planned-la-and-school-expenditure" target="_blank">https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/planned-la-and-school-expenditure</a>.</p><p>The data collection process for planned expenditure data for the 2023/24 financial year is ongoing and will be published in the autumn of 2023. Local authorities also submit less detailed outturn data regarding spend which is published by the department. The latest available outturn data is for the 2021/22 financial year and can be found in the file named ‘LA expenditure on schools, other education and community’ at: <a href="https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-catalogue/la-and-school-expenditure/2021-22" target="_blank">https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-catalogue/la-and-school-expenditure/2021-22</a>.</p> answering member constituency East Surrey answering member printed Claire Coutinho question first answered 12/07/2023 10:11:23 answering member 4806 label Biography information for Claire Coutinho
	tabling member	4067 label Biography information for Steve Brine

1648672

	registered interest
	date	28/06/2023
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Pre-school Education: Finance
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information the Government holds on whether any underspends in childcare funding in local councils have been ringfenced for early years education as of June 2023.
	tabling member constituency	Winchester
	tabling member printed	Steve Brine
	uin	191560
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 07/07/2023 answer text <p>Early years funding is one of the funding blocks of the dedicated schools grant (DSG). Whilst the department does collect information around the total level of DSG underspend from local authorities, specific information regarding which funding blocks within the DSG the underspends have originated from is not collected.</p> answering member constituency East Surrey answering member printed Claire Coutinho question first answered 07/07/2023 11:51:43 answering member 4806 label Biography information for Claire Coutinho
	tabling member	4067 label Biography information for Steve Brine

1603456

	registered interest
	date	13/03/2023
	answering body	Department for Education
	answering dept id	60
	answering dept short name	Education
	answering dept sort name	Education
	hansard heading	Pre-school Education: Finance
	house id	1
	legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
	question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions her Department has had with HM Treasury on the below inflation rise in early years funding.
	tabling member constituency	Gosport
	tabling member printed	Dame Caroline Dinenage
	uin	163767
	answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 21/03/2023 answer text <p>Ministers and officials have regular discussions with HM Treasury on matters relating to early years funding.</p><p>On 15 March 2023, my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that the hourly rates for childcare entitlements will be substantially uplifted, on top of the additional investments announced at the 2021 Spending Review.</p><p>The department will provide £204 million of additional funding this year, increasing to £288 million by 2024/5, for local authorities to further increase hourly rates paid to childcare providers, with further uplifts to follow each year. This will include an average of 30% increase in the 2 year old rate from September 2023 and means that in 2024, the average hourly rate for 2 year olds will be more than £8 per hour and around £11 per hour for under 2s. The 3 to 4 year old rate will rise by 4% to over £5.50 per hour from September 2023, with further uplifts beyond this.</p><p>This funding is in addition to the £4.1 billion that the government will provide by 2027/28 to facilitate the expansion of the new free hours offer. This will ensure all eligible working parents in England will, by September 2025, be able to access 30 hours of free childcare per week, for 38 weeks of the year, from when their child is 9 months old to when they start school.</p><p> </p><p> </p> answering member constituency East Surrey answering member printed Claire Coutinho question first answered 21/03/2023 17:24:06 answering member 4806 label Biography information for Claire Coutinho
	tabling member	4008 label Biography information for Dame Caroline Dinenage