Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has provided guidance to local authorities on (a) forecasting and (b) meeting childcare demand in areas of rapid population growth.

It is the department’s ambition that all families have access to high quality, affordable and flexible early education and care, giving every child the best start in life and delivering on our Plan for Change. The government is boosting availability and increasing access to childcare for families through the school-based nurseries programme, including school-led provision and private, voluntary and independent providers operating from school sites.

The key measure of sufficiency is whether the supply of available places is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents and children. We have 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 and, where needed, support the local authority with any specific requirements through our childcare sufficiency support contract.

Childcare Works, a government-supported initiative designed to help local authorities, schools, and early years providers deliver our childcare reforms, additionally provides one-to-one targeted support for local authorities who need it, alongside a wider package of support for all local authorities to support them to deliver the childcare expansion programme.