Children: Day Care

(asked on 8th October 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reasons there are fewer children registered for 30 hours of free childcare in the autumn 2018 term than there were in the summer 2018 term.


Answered by
Nadhim Zahawi Portrait
Nadhim Zahawi
This question was answered on 11th October 2018

The decline in numbers in the autumn term 2018 is an expected effect driven by four-year olds entering reception and no longer being able to use their code for the 30 hours policy. In autumn term 2018, there were 254,136 codes issued which is an increase from autumn term 2017 where there were 224,885 codes issued.

For the autumn term 2018, to be eligible for 30 hours free childcare a child will have to have turned three on or before the 31st August 2018. Most children who had turned four by 31st August will be in a reception place instead which results in less children with issued codes for the autumn 2018 term compared to the summer 2018 term.

We publish termly experimental statistics showing the number of children in a place. The full publication, which shows local authority and regional level breakdowns, is available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/30-hours-free-childcare-eligibility-codes-issued-and-validated.

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