Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies on free childcare of the Childcare and early years survey of parents, published on 27 July 2023.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The 2021 Childcare and Early Years Survey of Parents survey findings, particularly around existing use of childcare and the availability of childcare as a barrier to work, were a key input into modelling that informed the policy decision to expand funded early education childcare entitlements for working parents.
The 2022 survey statistics provide a robust baseline and future surveys will be used to monitor and evaluate impacts following the Spring Budget 2023 announcements.
The survey is nationally representative, representing the views of around 6,000 parents with children aged 0-14 in England. It collects detailed information on parents' changing use of childcare, on their awareness of government support for childcare, on their opinions of the availability, affordability and quality of childcare in their local area, and how childcare affects their likelihood of working.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department is taking steps to help ensure that early year providers have sufficient capacity to maintain provision for previously-enrolled children following the extension of eligibility for free childcare.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
In the Government’s Spring Budget, my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced transformative reforms to childcare for parents, children and the economy. By 2027/28, this Government will expect to be spending in excess of £8 billion every year on free hours and early education to help working families with their childcare costs. This represents the single biggest investment in childcare in England ever.
The Government is providing £204 million in 2023/24, increasing to £288 million by 2024/25 for local authorities to increase the hourly funding rate to providers, increasing year on year to meet rising cost pressures. This substantial uplift is for local authorities to increase the hourly rates paid to providers for delivering the existing entitlements.
The additional £204 million in 2023/24 allows an increase by an average of 32% for the current 2-year-old entitlement, and by an average of 6.3% for the 3-and 4-year-old entitlements. For 2-year-olds, this means that the average hourly rate has risen from the current £6 per hour in 2023-24 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.
The Spring Budget also announced an additional £288 million for 2024/25 to allow for further uplifts next year. Funding rates for 2024/25 will be confirmed in the autumn. This is in addition to £4.1 billion of funding provision by 2027/28 to deliver the new offers.
The department is ensuring a phased implementation of the expansion to the 30 hours offer to allow the market to develop the necessary capacity. The sufficiency of childcare places is also continuously being monitored. The key measure of sufficiency is whether the supply of available places is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents and children.
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. Part B of the Early education and childcare statutory guidance for local authorities highlights that local authorities should report annually to elected council members on how they are meeting their duty to secure sufficient childcare, and to make this report available and accessible to parents. More information can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-education-and-childcare--2.
The Department has regular contact with each local authority in England about their sufficiency of childcare and any issues they are facing. Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, we discuss what action the local authority is taking to address those issues and where needed support the local authority with any specific requirements through our childcare sufficiency support contract.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate her Department has made of the number of school buildings impacted by reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC) in each region of England.
Answered by Nick Gibb
An updated list of schools and colleges with confirmed cases of RAAC was published on 19 October, which is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reinforced-autoclaved-aerated-concrete-raac-management-information. This will be updated on a regular basis as new buildings are identified and surveying and remediation are carried out.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to support parents with changes to nursery funding.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
In the government’s Spring Budget, the Chancellor announced transformative reforms to childcare for parents, children, the economy and women. By 2027/28, this government expects to be spending in excess of £8 billion every year on free childcare hours and early education, helping families with pre-school children with their childcare costs. This represents the single biggest investment in childcare in England ever.
Our reforms include:
The department will continue to work closely with the sector on the implementation of these reforms and will set out further details in due course. This is a massive expansion in the offer and will take some time to implement and rollout. The department wants to make sure that taxpayers’ money is used efficiently and that the new offer is delivered in the best way.
The government’s Childcare Choices communications campaign aims to ensure every parent knows about the government funded support they are eligible for. Further information on Childcare Choices is available at: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk/. Further information on the full range of support available to parents can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/help-with-childcare-costs/.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Education:
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.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Education:
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.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to manage increases in demand for nursery places.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
Concerning the number of new spaces that will need to be made available for pre-school childcare providers, the department used the results from the 2021 Childcare and early years survey as a guide. The results of this survey are accessible at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/childcare-and-early-years-survey-of-parents/2021. The data tables at 1.6 and 1.7 show the proportion of children at the relevant ages using formal childcare, and for how long per week. This data was used to estimate, of the children using the offer, how many need new places compared to how many already would pay for childcare under the pre-existing system.
The department is providing £204 million this year, increasing to £288 million by 2024/25, for local authorities to increase the hourly funding rate to providers. As a result of this additional funding, funding rates to local authorities will rise by an average of 32% for the current 2-year-old entitlement, and by an average of 6.3% for 3-4-year-old entitlements from September 2023, compared to their current 2023/24 rates.
The department is ensuring a phased implementation of the expansion to the 30 hours offer to allow the market to develop the necessary capacity. The department is also launching a new national recruitment campaign to support the recruitment and retention of talented staff to support the expansion of the 30 hours offer.
We are also consulting on changes to the early years foundation stage framework that aim to reduce known burdens on providers and offer them more flexibility. The department is continuing to explore how the sector can be supported to deliver the additional places that will be required.
We will also continue to monitor the sufficiency of childcare places. The department’s childcare and early years provider survey shows that the number of places available has remained broadly stable since 2019.
The key measure of sufficiency is whether the supply of available places is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents and children.
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. Part B of the early education and childcare statutory guidance for local authorities highlights that local authorities are required to report annually to elected council members on how they are meeting their duty to secure sufficient childcare, and to make this report available and accessible to parents.
The department has regular contact with each local authority in England about their sufficiency of childcare and any issues they are facing.
Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, the department discusses what action the local authority is taking to address those issues and, where needed, supports the local authority with any specific requirements through our childcare sufficiency support contract.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Education:
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.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
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.
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.
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. 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.
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.
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.
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.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Education:
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.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
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.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley East)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that differences in regional needs are taken into account in early years provision.
Answered by David Johnston - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
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. Part B of the ‘Early education and childcare’ statutory guidance for local authorities highlights that local authorities should report annually to elected council members on how they are meeting their duty to secure sufficient childcare, and to make this report available and accessible to parents. The ‘Early education and childcare’ statutory guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-education-and-childcare--2.
The department has regular contact with each local authority in England about their sufficiency of childcare and any issues they are facing.
Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, the department discusses what action the local authority is taking to address those issues and where needed supports the local authority with any specific requirements through its childcare sufficiency support contract.
The department knows that the sector is facing economic challenges, similar to the challenges being faced across the economy. The department continues to engage with sector stakeholders and local authorities to monitor dynamics with local markets, parents’ access to the government’s entitlements and the childcare they require, and the sustainability of the sector.
The government is providing £204 million this year, and £288 million in 2024/25, for local authorities to increase hourly rates paid to childcare providers, with funding uplifting year on year to meet rising cost pressures.
The additional £204m is being distributed to local authorities via a new standalone Early years Supplementary Grant (EYSG) in 2023/24.
As a result of this additional funding, funding rates to local authorities have risen by an average of 32% for the current 2-year-old entitlement, and by an average of 6.3% for the 3 to 4-year-old entitlements from September 2023, compared to their current 2023/24 rates.
The EYSG rate for 2-year-olds is, on average, £1.95 per hour. This means that the national average hourly rate that local authorities will receive has risen from the current £6 per hour to £7.95.
The EYSG rate for 3 and 4-year-olds is, on average, 33 pence per hour. Similarly, the national average hourly rate received by local authorities has risen from £5.29 to £5.62.
This funding is in addition to £4.1 billion by 2027/28 to deliver the new offers.
As part of the consultation published on 21 July, the department has published illustrative local authority hourly funding rates for those 2 years old and under for 2024/25. The department currently anticipates that, in 2024/25, the national average rates would be £8.17 for the 2-year-old entitlements and £11.06 for younger children. These illustrative rates are likely to change following the outcome of the consultation and when the latest data becomes available. The department will confirm final 2024/25 hourly funding rates for local authorities in the autumn.
The department will ensure a phased implementation of the free hours offers, to allow the market to develop the necessary capacity.