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Early Years Funding Entitlement

This survey is now closed

In the Spring Budget 2023 the Chancellor announced major changes to childcare, increasing the financial support available to working parents to help with the cost of childcare where families meet the government set criteria.

By September 2025, working parents with children from 9 months of age up to statutory school age will be eligible for 30 hours of childcare where they meet qualifying criteria.

The expansion to childcare will be rolled out in phases, with the first phase offering 15 hours childcare to working parents of 2-year-olds from April 2024. The second phase will offer 15 hours childcare to working parents of children from 9 months of age up to statutory school age. The final phase will offer 30 hours of childcare to children from 9 months of age up to statutory school age where families meet the qualifying criteria.

The government criteria for assistance for working parents is based on both parents working (or the sole parent is working in a lone parent family), each parent has a weekly minimum income equivalent to 16 hours at national minimum wage or living wage and neither parent has an income of more than £100,000 per year.

There will also be an increase to the wraparound care available to families, so that parents of primary school age children can access before and after school care from 8am to 6pm, with local authorities and schools being given funding to increase the supply of wraparound care. Work will start on increasing wraparound care in phase 2, with the intention that all schools will have wraparound care in place by September 2026.

The expansion to childcare is being staggered, to ensure that Early Education and Childcare Providers have time to prepare for the changes and increase staff, and for Local Authorities to ensure there are enough places available to meet demand.

In order to help us determine demand for the new entitlements, we want to engage with families to see how they currently use childcare, and how they will likely use childcare if they are eligible for the new entitlements.

We will be engaging with families through a number of surveys, to help us plan for each phase of the expansion and to ensure the supply of childcare available increases to meet expected demand.

Our first survey aims to understand the current usage of childcare of children who will turn two in April 2024, and the likelihood of families accessing the new 15 hours of childcare offer for working families of two-year-olds if they will qualify.

We expect the survey to take around 5 minutes to complete, and your answers will help us to determine how patterns of childcare usage may change as the new entitlements are implemented. Your feedback help us to review our current childcare supply and take steps to increase the number of places available should we need to.

This survey is now closed

In the Spring Budget 2023 the Chancellor announced major changes to childcare, increasing the financial support available to working parents to help with the cost of childcare where families meet the government set criteria.

By September 2025, working parents with children from 9 months of age up to statutory school age will be eligible for 30 hours of childcare where they meet qualifying criteria.

The expansion to childcare will be rolled out in phases, with the first phase offering 15 hours childcare to working parents of 2-year-olds from April 2024. The second phase will offer 15 hours childcare to working parents of children from 9 months of age up to statutory school age. The final phase will offer 30 hours of childcare to children from 9 months of age up to statutory school age where families meet the qualifying criteria.

The government criteria for assistance for working parents is based on both parents working (or the sole parent is working in a lone parent family), each parent has a weekly minimum income equivalent to 16 hours at national minimum wage or living wage and neither parent has an income of more than £100,000 per year.

There will also be an increase to the wraparound care available to families, so that parents of primary school age children can access before and after school care from 8am to 6pm, with local authorities and schools being given funding to increase the supply of wraparound care. Work will start on increasing wraparound care in phase 2, with the intention that all schools will have wraparound care in place by September 2026.

The expansion to childcare is being staggered, to ensure that Early Education and Childcare Providers have time to prepare for the changes and increase staff, and for Local Authorities to ensure there are enough places available to meet demand.

In order to help us determine demand for the new entitlements, we want to engage with families to see how they currently use childcare, and how they will likely use childcare if they are eligible for the new entitlements.

We will be engaging with families through a number of surveys, to help us plan for each phase of the expansion and to ensure the supply of childcare available increases to meet expected demand.

Our first survey aims to understand the current usage of childcare of children who will turn two in April 2024, and the likelihood of families accessing the new 15 hours of childcare offer for working families of two-year-olds if they will qualify.

We expect the survey to take around 5 minutes to complete, and your answers will help us to determine how patterns of childcare usage may change as the new entitlements are implemented. Your feedback help us to review our current childcare supply and take steps to increase the number of places available should we need to.

  • CLOSED: This survey has concluded.

    Early Years Funding

    Do you have a child born between 1st April 2021 and 31st March 2022? If so, we need your help.

    From April 2024 the Government are bringing in 15 hours of funded childcare for working parents with two year olds where they meet eligibility criteria.

    If you have a child who will turn two by the end of March 2024, please complete the following questions to help us ascertain the possible demand for this new funded offer.

Page last updated: 03 Oct 2023, 10:33 AM