Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has any guidance around restrictions being placed by nurseries on hours during which government funded childcare hours can be accessed, such as limiting provision to specific times of the day.

The ‘Early Education and Childcare’ statutory guidance states that local authorities should encourage providers to offer flexible packages of free hours, which will enable children to access regular, high-quality provision, while maximising flexibility for parents and ensuring a degree of stability for providers.

Local authorities should enable parents to take up their child’s free place in patterns of hours that stretch their child’s entitlement by taking fewer hours a week over more weeks of the year, where there is provider capacity and parental demand.

Additionally, local authorities should ensure that parents and providers are aware that there is no requirement that free places must be taken on, or delivered on, particular days of the week or at particular times of the day.