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1698371

registered interest
date	25/03/2024
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Childcare: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to paragraph 3.15 of the Spring Budget 2024, HC 560, how much and what proportion of the estimated £500 million of additional funding she plans to allocate in the (a) 2025-26 and (b) 2026-27 financial year.
tabling member constituency	Walthamstow
tabling member printed	Stella Creasy
uin	20305
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 17/04/2024 answer text <p>The last economic data available at the time funding rates are set will be used to determine the proportions allocated in the 2025/6 and 2026/7 financial years.</p><p> </p><p>The department estimates the changing costs to providers by using the annual results of the Survey of Childcare and Early Years Providers and the department’s cost pressures model, which also takes account of the different ages of children, as both reported staff-child ratios and the relative proportion of entitlement hours delivered by different provider types vary by child age. Separate calculations are therefore performed in respect of the different entitlements.</p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston grouped question UIN 20306 question first answered 17/04/2024 12:10:31 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
tabling member	4088 label Biography information for Stella Creasy

1694507

registered interest
date	07/03/2024
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Childcare: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to paragraph 3.15 of the Spring Budget 2024, HC 560, whether the estimated additional £500 million of funding for childcare support is the same funding included within the funding envelope in Table 4.1 of the Spring Budget 2023, HC 1183.
tabling member constituency	Walthamstow
tabling member printed	Stella Creasy
uin	17553
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 12/03/2024 answer text <p>The Spring Budget announcement confirms how the department will uplift costs in future years. The department will use average earnings growth and National Living Wage to forecast how staff costs are changing for providers and CPI (a general measure of inflation) to forecast how non-staff costs will change.</p><p>By the 2027/28 financial year, this government will expect to be spending in excess of £8 billion every year on free hours and early education, helping working families with their childcare costs. This represents the single biggest investment in childcare in England ever.</p><p>The estimated £500 million for 2025/26 and 2026/27, represents the additional cost of increasing funding rates, in line with these metrics and based on current forecasts, compared to if funding rates were kept at 2024/25 levels. A portion of this funding is reflected in the totals announced for the new entitlements at Spring Budget 2023 (and in table 4.1 referenced), which applied the same approach to uplifting funding rates as has been confirmed for 2025/26 and 2026/27 this week. Access to table 4.1 can be found here: <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6419c87d8fa8f547c267efca/Web_accessible_Budget_2023.pdf" target="_blank">https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6419c87d8fa8f547c267efca/Web_accessible_Budget_2023.pdf</a>.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston grouped question UIN 17552 question first answered 12/03/2024 18:05:10 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
tabling member	4088 label Biography information for Stella Creasy

1670373

registered interest
date	15/11/2023
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Childcare: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding she has allocated to (a) rolling out 15 hours of free childcare for working parents of two-year-olds from April 2024 and (b) extending 15 hours of free childcare to all children from the age of nine months from September 2024; and how much the devolved nations will each receive in Barnett Formula consequential funding.
tabling member constituency	Arfon
tabling member printed	Hywel Williams
uin	2098
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 20/11/2023 answer text <p>In the Spring Budget 2023, the Chancellor announced a transformative set of childcare reforms aimed at increasing labour market participation. This included the largest ever investment in childcare, including expansions of early years entitlements and wraparound childcare.</p><p>The department expects to provide over £4.1 billion by the 2027/28 financial year to fund the new entitlements (on top of increases also announced for the existing entitlements): £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. These figures are for England only.</p><p>At the Spring Budget, the government provided the devolved administrations with additional funding through the Barnett consequentials in the usual way. Details of the quantum of this funding are not held by the department.</p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston question first answered 20/11/2023 17:16:09 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
tabling member	1397 label Biography information for Hywel Williams

1668896

registered interest
date	09/11/2023
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Childcare: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the adequacy of funding for childcare providers; and what steps she is taking to help ensure such funding takes account of high facility costs.
tabling member constituency	York Central
tabling member printed	Rachael Maskell
uin	1184
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 30/11/2023 answer text <p>The department has substantially uplifted the hourly rates paid to local authorities for childcare providers to deliver existing free entitlements offers. The department is also providing £204 million of additional funding in 2023/24 financial year, and a further £288 million in 2024/25 financial year.</p><p>The additional £204 million, coming on top of local authorities’ existing allocations, allows an average increase of 32% for the current 2-year-old entitlement, and an average increase of 6.3% for the 3-and 4-year-old entitlements, compared to original 2023/24 financial year rates.</p><p>For 2-year-olds, this means that the average hourly rate for local authorities has risen from the original £6 per hour in the 2023/24 financial year to an effective £7.95 per hour. The 3-and 4-year-old national average hourly rate has increased from £5.29 to an effective £5.62 from September 2023.</p><p>The Spring Budget also announced an additional £288 million for the 2024/25 financial year to allow for further uplifts next year. This will be rolled in within the early years funding streams via the dedicated schools grant as normal. Funding rates for 2024/25 will be confirmed shortly.</p><p>This funding is on top of the £4.1 billion that the government expects to provide by the 2027/28 financial year to facilitate the expansion of the new free hours.</p><p>The government funds local authorities to deliver the government-funded entitlements through the Early Years National Funding Formula (EYNFF) and the separate 2-year-old formula. These have been designed to allocate the record investment in early years entitlement funding fairly and transparently across the country.</p><p>The formula includes an area cost adjustment (ACA) multiplier to reflect variations in local costs. This uses the General Labour Market measure to reflect staff costs and a Rates Cost Adjustment to reflect premises related costs. Each local authority’s EYNFF rate will vary depending on their level of additional needs and their ACA values.</p><p>The department regularly surveys a representative sample of over 10,000 providers to gain insights into how they run their provision and the challenges they face. The department also regularly surveys over 6,000 parents to understand their usage of childcare. This data has informed departmental methodology and the uplift required to meet the pressures providers faced.</p><p>The government recently announced £100 million of capital funding for local authorities, to support the delivery of the expansion of the 30-hours early years entitlement for working families and of wraparound provision in maintained primary schools. More detail, including allocation amounts to local authorities and accompanying guidance will be published in the coming weeks.</p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston question first answered 30/11/2023 16:37:14 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
tabling member	4471 label Biography information for Rachael Maskell

1666204

registered interest
date	19/10/2023
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Childcare: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to page 55 of the Spring Budget 2023, what the planned timescales are for spending the £289 million in start-up funding for childcare; and how much and what proportion of that funding will be allocated to childcare school-aged children.
tabling member constituency	Stroud
tabling member printed	Siobhan Baillie
uin	203621
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 26/10/2023 answer text <p>In the Spring Budget 2023, my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced a transformative set of childcare reforms. This included the largest ever investment in childcare including expansions of early years entitlements and wraparound childcare.</p><p> </p><p>The department is investing £289 million in a new wraparound childcare programme to support local authorities to work with primary schools and providers, including childminders, to set up and deliver more wraparound childcare before and after school in the term time. The department’s ambition is for all parents of primary school children who need it to access childcare in their local area from 8am to 6pm.</p><p> </p><p>Parents should expect to see an expansion in the availability of wraparound care from September 2024, with every parent who needs it able to access term-time wraparound childcare by September 2026. Programme funding allocations will be announced at the necessary points to support local authorities and schools to meet these timescales.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston question first answered 26/10/2023 10:19:55 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
tabling member	4847 label Biography information for Siobhan Baillie

1661753

registered interest
date	19/09/2023
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Childcare: Finance
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reason her Department plans to provide higher funding per hour for childcare in London than in Barnsley.
tabling member constituency	Barnsley East
tabling member printed	Stephanie Peacock
uin	200333
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 our 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. 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. 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 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>On 7 July the department announced that the additional £204 million funding for early years in 2023/24, announced at the Spring Budget in March, will be distributed to local authorities via a standalone Early Years Supplementary Grant (EYSG) from September 2023.</p><p>To recognise cost variations between local authority areas, we have used the existing funding formulae for 2, 3 and 4-year-olds (and using the same underlying weightings and data that were used to calculate the 2023/24 hourly funding rates) to determine the EYSG rates for each individual local authority.</p><p>With the introduction of the new entitlements for working parents of children aged 9 months to 2 years from 2024/25, we have recently finished consulting on our 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 we will announce our response and confirm the final hourly funding rates for 2024/25 in the autumn.</p><p>We will ensure a phased implementation of the free hours offers, to allow the market to develop the necessary capacity as well as continuing to explore how we can support the sector to deliver the additional places that will be required.</p><p>We will work closely with local authorities and providers to identify what needs to be in place to support this significant expansion in childcare provision including capital requirements as well as workforce.</p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston grouped question UIN 200334 question first answered 20/10/2023 09:14:14 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
tabling member	4607 label Biography information for Stephanie Peacock

1661754

registered interest
date	19/09/2023
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Childcare: 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 provide additional funding to early years childcare providers to help increase their capacity ahead of the implementation of Government plans to broaden eligibility for state-funded places.
tabling member constituency	Barnsley East
tabling member printed	Stephanie Peacock
uin	200334
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 our 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. 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. 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 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>On 7 July the department announced that the additional £204 million funding for early years in 2023/24, announced at the Spring Budget in March, will be distributed to local authorities via a standalone Early Years Supplementary Grant (EYSG) from September 2023.</p><p>To recognise cost variations between local authority areas, we have used the existing funding formulae for 2, 3 and 4-year-olds (and using the same underlying weightings and data that were used to calculate the 2023/24 hourly funding rates) to determine the EYSG rates for each individual local authority.</p><p>With the introduction of the new entitlements for working parents of children aged 9 months to 2 years from 2024/25, we have recently finished consulting on our 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 we will announce our response and confirm the final hourly funding rates for 2024/25 in the autumn.</p><p>We will ensure a phased implementation of the free hours offers, to allow the market to develop the necessary capacity as well as continuing to explore how we can support the sector to deliver the additional places that will be required.</p><p>We will work closely with local authorities and providers to identify what needs to be in place to support this significant expansion in childcare provision including capital requirements as well as workforce.</p> answering member constituency Wantage answering member printed David Johnston grouped question UIN 200333 question first answered 20/10/2023 09:14:14 answering member 4761 label Biography information for David Johnston
tabling member	4607 label Biography information for Stephanie Peacock

1662199

registered interest
date	19/09/2023
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Childcare: Finance
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Barran on 30 March (HL6589), whether the expenditure outlined is additional expenditure to that already previously committed and budgeted.
tabling member printed	Lord Weir of Ballyholme
uin	HL10334
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 27/09/2023 answer text <p>Further to the response of 30 March, the department will substantially uplift the hourly rate paid to local authorities to increase hourly rates paid to childcare providers to deliver existing free entitlements offers. The department is providing £204 million of additional funding in 2023/24 and £288 million in 2024/25.</p><p>This funding is in addition to the £4.1 billion that the government expects to provide by 2027/28 to facilitate the expansion of the new free hours, and also sits on top of funding already announced for 2023/24.</p><p>This is new money, on top of the 2021 Spending Review announcement of additional funding of £180 million in 2023/24 and £170 million in 2024/25, compared to the 2021/22 financial year, and the further £20 million for 2023/24 announced on 16 December 2022.</p><p>The department is continuing to explore how we can support the sector to deliver the additional places that will be required. We will work closely with local authorities and providers to identify what needs to be in place to support this significant expansion in childcare provision, including capital requirements as well as workforce.</p> answering member printed Baroness Barran question first answered 27/09/2023 09:26:22 answering member 4703 label Biography information for Baroness Barran
tabling member	4970 label Biography information for Lord Weir of Ballyholme

1653573

registered interest
date	17/07/2023
answering body	Department for Education
answering dept id	60
answering dept short name	Education
answering dept sort name	Education
hansard heading	Childcare: 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 potential merits of introducing an individual childcare budget to support parents with informal childcare arrangements such as that provided by (a) parents and (b) grandparents.
tabling member constituency	Penistone and Stocksbridge
tabling member printed	Miriam Cates
uin	194606
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 25/07/2023 answer text <p>The reporting year 2021 ‘Childcare and early years survey of parents’ has findings on parents’ views on ideal working arrangements. The results of this survey are available at: <a href="https://www.explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/childcare-and-early-years-survey-of-parents/2021" target="_blank">https://www.explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/childcare-and-early-years-survey-of-parents/2021</a>, including table 8.12. In 2021, 39% of working mothers of 0-14 year olds stated they would give up work to look after their children, and 58% would work fewer hours, if they could afford it.</p><p>The department recognises the valuable role that informal and family childcare arrangements play in supporting working parents, giving them additional flexibilities. The department is determined to support as many families as possible with access to high-quality, affordable childcare, which is why the Spring Budget 2023 announced the single largest investment in childcare ever. There are no current plans to look at the potential merits of introducing an individual childcare budget to support parents with informal childcare arrangements.</p><p>In 2021 children under one spent a median of 17.4 hours per week (note very small sample sizes) and one-year-olds a median of 18 hours per week in formal childcare. This data is not published broken down by household income. Table 1.7, also taken from reporting year 2021 ‘Childcare and early years survey of parents’, contains further information. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there are no figures available for 2020. Data for 2022 is due to be published on 27 July 2023.</p> answering member constituency East Surrey answering member printed Claire Coutinho grouped question UIN 194604 194607 question first answered 25/07/2023 12:22:10 answering member 4806 label Biography information for Claire Coutinho
tabling member	4865 label Biography information for Miriam Cates