Asked by: Edward Morello (Liberal Democrat - West Dorset)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of Ofsted qualification requirements on the sustainability of rural after-school childcare providers.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department has made no specific assessment of the impact of Ofsted qualification requirements on the sustainability of rural after school childcare providers. Before and after-school clubs can register with Ofsted on either or both the Early Years Register and the General Childcare Register, depending on the type of provision and age of the children they intend to care for. Some providers are exempt from registration if they meet the exemptions set out in legislation. Depending on their registration, they must either meet the statutory requirements of the early years foundation stage, or the general childcare register requirements. The requirements for both registers are set by the department and include qualification requirements for after-school childcare providers. Officials meet regularly with their Ofsted counterparts to ensure that the regulations that apply to Ofsted registered providers of after-school childcare, including the qualifications requirements for staff, remain fit for purpose.
Providers are responsible for considering the staff qualification and training requirements for the running of their after-school provision in line with Ofsted requirements. This means providers have the flexibility to design their own approach to staffing their provision and ensuring it remains sustainable.
Asked by: Edward Morello (Liberal Democrat - West Dorset)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to review Ofsted's qualification requirements for after-school club leaders.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department has made no specific assessment of the impact of Ofsted qualification requirements on the sustainability of rural after school childcare providers. Before and after-school clubs can register with Ofsted on either or both the Early Years Register and the General Childcare Register, depending on the type of provision and age of the children they intend to care for. Some providers are exempt from registration if they meet the exemptions set out in legislation. Depending on their registration, they must either meet the statutory requirements of the early years foundation stage, or the general childcare register requirements. The requirements for both registers are set by the department and include qualification requirements for after-school childcare providers. Officials meet regularly with their Ofsted counterparts to ensure that the regulations that apply to Ofsted registered providers of after-school childcare, including the qualifications requirements for staff, remain fit for purpose.
Providers are responsible for considering the staff qualification and training requirements for the running of their after-school provision in line with Ofsted requirements. This means providers have the flexibility to design their own approach to staffing their provision and ensuring it remains sustainable.
Asked by: Edward Morello (Liberal Democrat - West Dorset)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make it her policy to increase the flexibility of funded childcare arrangements to help increase support for parents (a) who are unable to take up work due to a lack of available nursery places and (b) with restrictive nursery session times.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
On 7 July, the department published its Best Start in Life Strategy, which sets out how we will make real change happen for families across the country.
We are delivering more support to working families than ever before with the rollout of 30 hours government-funded childcare from September 2025. This is expected to save eligible families using their full entitlement an average of £7,500 a year.
Under Section 6 of the Childcare Act 2006, local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area.
There is no requirement that childcare providers must deliver funded hours at particular times of the day or on particular days of the week. Providers are free to choose when to deliver funded hours, as long as they comply with the terms of their arrangements with the local authority.
Local authorities should actively support partnership working between providers to ensure that funded places are high-quality, flexible and accessible to give parents choice about how and where they take-up their child’s free hours. Local authorities should also support providers to establish parental declarations setting out their hours and patterns of hours during which free places are offered.
Asked by: Edward Morello (Liberal Democrat - West Dorset)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of the proportion of parents eligible for funded childcare who are unable to access childcare places due to (a) nursery waiting lists and (b) restrictions on available days in West Dorset constituency.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
It is the department’s ambition that all families have access to high quality, affordable early education and care, giving every child the best start in life and delivering on our Plan for Change. In 2025/26 alone, we plan to provide over £8 billion for the early years entitlements as we roll out the expansion of the entitlements, a 30% increase compared to 2024/25. We have made available £500 million in capital investment to expand early years provision for existing settings and to support the creation of new ones. The department is working closely with local authorities which are being supported to map provision gaps and work with new and existing providers to fill them. The government is also simplifying the registration and regulatory process to make it easier for new providers to enter the market. Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, the department works closely to address issues including through out childcare sufficiency support contract.
These actions are showing an impact with an increase of almost 6,000 providers and over 18,000 staff in the last year.
Asked by: Edward Morello (Liberal Democrat - West Dorset)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of the proportion of parents eligible for funded childcare who are unable to access places due to (a) nursery waiting lists and (b) restrictions on available days.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
It is the department’s ambition that all families have access to high quality, affordable early education and care, giving every child the best start in life and delivering on our Plan for Change. In 2025/26 alone, we plan to provide over £8 billion for the early years entitlements as we roll out the expansion of the entitlements, a 30% increase compared to 2024/25. We have made available £500 million in capital investment to expand early years provision for existing settings and to support the creation of new ones. The department is working closely with local authorities which are being supported to map provision gaps and work with new and existing providers to fill them. The government is also simplifying the registration and regulatory process to make it easier for new providers to enter the market. Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, the department works closely to address issues including through out childcare sufficiency support contract.
These actions are showing an impact with an increase of almost 6,000 providers and over 18,000 staff in the last year.
Asked by: Edward Morello (Liberal Democrat - West Dorset)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that childcare places are available to parents eligible for the extended funded hours under the new childcare scheme in West Dorset constituency.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
It is the department’s ambition that all families have access to high quality, affordable early education and care, giving every child the best start in life and delivering on our Plan for Change. In 2025/26 alone, we plan to provide over £8 billion for the early years entitlements as we roll out the expansion of the entitlements, a 30% increase compared to 2024/25. We have made available £500 million in capital investment to expand early years provision for existing settings and to support the creation of new ones. The department is working closely with local authorities which are being supported to map provision gaps and work with new and existing providers to fill them. The government is also simplifying the registration and regulatory process to make it easier for new providers to enter the market. Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, the department works closely to address issues including through out childcare sufficiency support contract.
These actions are showing an impact with an increase of almost 6,000 providers and over 18,000 staff in the last year.
Asked by: Edward Morello (Liberal Democrat - West Dorset)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has had discussions with Ofsted on allowing greater flexibility in recognising alternative qualifications for after-school childcare roles.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department has made no specific assessment of the impact of Ofsted qualification requirements on the sustainability of rural after school childcare providers. Before and after-school clubs can register with Ofsted on either or both the Early Years Register and the General Childcare Register, depending on the type of provision and age of the children they intend to care for. Some providers are exempt from registration if they meet the exemptions set out in legislation. Depending on their registration, they must either meet the statutory requirements of the early years foundation stage, or the general childcare register requirements. The requirements for both registers are set by the department and include qualification requirements for after-school childcare providers. Officials meet regularly with their Ofsted counterparts to ensure that the regulations that apply to Ofsted registered providers of after-school childcare, including the qualifications requirements for staff, remain fit for purpose.
Providers are responsible for considering the staff qualification and training requirements for the running of their after-school provision in line with Ofsted requirements. This means providers have the flexibility to design their own approach to staffing their provision and ensuring it remains sustainable.
Asked by: Edward Morello (Liberal Democrat - West Dorset)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the (a) access to, (b) waiting times for, (c) availability of specialist therapies in and (d) other provision of child and adolescent mental health services in West Dorset constituency.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Dorset Integrated Care Board is responsible for commissioning services to meet the mental health needs of children and young people in West Dorset. Nationally, the Government is investing an extra £688 million this year to transform mental health services by hiring more staff, delivering more early interventions, and getting waiting lists down.
We have confirmed that we will fulfil our commitment to recruit an additional 8,500 staff across child and adult mental health services by the end of the Parliament, and 6,700 of these extra workers have been recruited since July 2024.
We also want to intervene much earlier to support better outcomes for children and young people. That is why the 10-Year Health Plan sets out how we will work with schools and colleges to better identify and meet children's mental health needs by expanding mental health support teams in schools to cover 100% of pupils by 2029/30 and by embedding mental health support in the new Young Futures hubs.
Additionally, we are continuing to provide top-up funding of £7 million to 24 existing early support hubs, to expand their services and to take part in an ongoing evaluation of these services in 2025/26. This funding will enable the supported hubs to deliver at least 10,000 additional mental health and wellbeing interventions, so that more children and young people are supported.
Asked by: Edward Morello (Liberal Democrat - West Dorset)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to help (a) improve access and (b) reduce waiting times for children and adolescent mental health services in West Dorset constituency.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
The NHS Dorset Integrated Care Board is responsible for commissioning services to meet the mental health needs of children and young people in West Dorset. Nationally, the Government is investing an extra £688 million this year to transform mental health services by hiring more staff, delivering more early interventions, and getting waiting lists down.
We have confirmed that we will fulfil our commitment to recruit an additional 8,500 staff across child and adult mental health services by the end of the Parliament, and 6,700 of these extra workers have been recruited since July 2024.
We also want to intervene much earlier to support better outcomes for children and young people. That is why the 10-Year Health Plan sets out how we will work with schools and colleges to better identify and meet children's mental health needs by expanding mental health support teams in schools to cover 100% of pupils by 2029/30 and by embedding mental health support in the new Young Futures hubs.
Additionally, we are continuing to provide top-up funding of £7 million to 24 existing early support hubs, to expand their services and to take part in an ongoing evaluation of these services in 2025/26. This funding will enable the supported hubs to deliver at least 10,000 additional mental health and wellbeing interventions, so that more children and young people are supported.
Asked by: Edward Morello (Liberal Democrat - West Dorset)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the average (a) annual total cost and (b) cost per appointment was for the provision of child and adolescent mental health services in West Dorset constituency in each of the last five years.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Information on the annual cost of children and young people’s mental health services is not available at a constituency level. The following table shows the annual funding spent on children and young people’s mental health services for the NHS Dorset Integrated Care Board area:
Year | Funding |
2020/21 | £12,147,000,000 |
2021/22 | £15,863,000,000 |
2022/23 | £16,988,000,000 |
2023/24 | £21,972,000,000 |
2024/25 | £23,442,000,000 |
Source: NHS England.
Information on the cost per appointment is not held.