Children: Day Care

(asked on 12th July 2017) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she plans take between now and the August 2017 deadline for applications to promote the 30 free hours of childcare policy, encourage eligible parents to apply and make parents aware of that application process.


Answered by
Robert Goodwill Portrait
Robert Goodwill
This question was answered on 18th July 2017

In March 2017 the Childcare Choices website was launched, which is dedicated to helping parents understand the various government childcare offers available, including 30 hours free childcare and signposting them to register for email alerts when they can apply. As part of our launch activity, the Department for Education and HMRC promoted Childcare Choices via their social media channels. To date, Childcare Choices has had 812,000 total unique visits.

As part of the launch all local authorities were emailed a partnership toolkit, which provides communications assets, for local providers to promote the 30 hours and Tax Free Childcare to parents, including example social media messages and a leaflet illustrating how parents should apply. The Childcare Choices provider page also contains a link to this toolkit, so that providers access it directly to promote the offers to their parents.

When the Childcare Service opened to 3 year old applications in April, the Department issued a press notice on gov.uk, which received a high amount of coverage by parent-facing consumer press.

Last week the Department wrote to all local authority Directors of Children’s Services highlighting the importance of good communications with parents in this run up to September 2017. This letter reminds local authorities to encourage parents to visit the Childcare Choices website and apply online through the online Childcare Service. Parents who have registered their interest via Childcare Choices will receive direct alerts when they can apply.

I hope the Urgent Question on 18 July 2017 gives rise to further publicity in the media.

The Department for Education continues to work closely with local authorities through our contractor Childcare Works to ensure parents in local areas are aware of the offer and the application process through the Childcare Service.

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