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<p>The latest Statistical First Release published in June 2016 shows that 45,075 childcare
providers were delivering funded early education to three and four year olds. 93%
of three-year-olds and 97% of four-year-olds were taking up 15 hours of free childcare
per week. This information is available at: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/education-provision-children-under-5-years-of-age-january-2016"
target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/education-provision-children-under-5-years-of-age-january-2016</a></p><p>
</p><p>Working parents of three- and four-year olds will be able to access 30 hours
of free childcare from September 2017. The Government is making a record-level of
investment in early years to ensure that childcare providers receive sufficient funding
to deliver the 30 hour entitlement. This includes increasing spending on the free
entitlements by over £1 billion per year by 2019-20 and providing £300 million per
year from 2017-18 for a significant increase to the rate paid for the two, three-
and four-year- old entitlements. Alongside this, we launched a consultation on reforms
to Early Years funding on 11 August, which is available at: <a href="https://consult.education.gov.uk/early-years-funding/eynff"
target="_blank">https://consult.education.gov.uk/early-years-funding/eynff</a></p><p>
</p><p>The purpose of the funding reforms is to ensure that funding is transparently
and fairly matched to need and fairly distributed between different types of providers
and different parts of the country. We will publish the government response to this
consultation later this year.</p><p> </p><p>The Government has also run a bidding
round to allocate £40 million of capital funding to local authorities and providers
which can demonstrate that they will work in partnership to deliver the 30 hour entitlement.
The successful projects will be announced in December 2016.</p>
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