Reforming the funding for the Free Entitlement to Early
Education for 3 and 4 year olds
Following a national consultation on early years, schools and 14-16
funding, the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF)
announced the following changes to how the free entitlement to
early learning and care for three and four year olds will be funded
through local authorities (LAs).
- To support the extension to 15 hours and increasing flexibility
of the free entitlement, LAs are required to develop and introduce
a single local formula for funding early years provision in the
maintained and private, voluntary and independent (PVI) sectors
over the next two years and by 2010 - 11 at the latest.
- From 2009 - 10 all LAs will be required to introduce a
consistent method of counting children between the maintained and
PVI sectors.
More information can be found at –
http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/earlyyears/fundingreform
Progress so far in Suffolk
- Two non-maintained sector childcare providers have been elected
on to Schools Forum. They are Amanda Havers and Amanda
Goldsmith.
- An Early Years Working Group, a sub group of Schools Forum, is
working on a proposed new formula, and the extension to the free
entitlement.
- A series of meetings for providers will be held in November
2008.
- A Consultation is taking place during November and December
2008.
The extension to 15 hours free early education
DCSF have produced interim guidance for LAs on this.
Extension to the free early education entitlement
offer (pdf, 587Kb)
Implementation of a single funding formula for early
years (pdf, 904Kb)
When can 3 and 4 year olds have 15 hours?
All children in the county can have 15 hours a week from
September 2010.
The 25% most disadvantaged children in the county can have 15
hours a week from September 2009.
We have to identify the most disadvantaged children, using the
Super Output Area (SOA) data. This ranks all areas of the
country according to the levels of disadvantage. We will
identify settings which are in the 30% most disadvantaged SOAs as a
starting point.
We will take care to minimise the impact on providers just outside
the areas of disadvantage.
The Flexible Entitlement is:
- 15 hours a week over a minimum of 3 days (unless taken over
more than 38 weeks. Where the offer is made over a longer period,
parents will receive the offer for 570 hours (38 weeks x 15 hours)
divided by the number of weeks of the offer. (For example if
the offer was accessed over 50 weeks, the hours each week would be
reduced to 11).
- Length of offer - 38 weeks minimum
- Minimum hours in a day -2 hour block
- Maximum hours in one day -10 hours in one day.
If entitlement taken over two days then the total offer cannot
exceed 13 hours (i.e. parent cannot have 10 hours on one day and 5
hours on another).
Providers
The flexible entitlement can be taken with no more than 2
providers.
Providers should also consider the scope for working in partnership
to meet parents needs.
We will discuss issues with providers at local meetings and support
them to offer the extension to the free entitlement.
Parents
We will set out a clear offer of flexible provision for
parents.
The flexible offer will be based on the needs of parents in a local
area. We will achieve this by making sure there is a
diverse market of provision to create choice and allow parents to
each access the option that most closely fits their needs. We
will not, however, be able to ensure that the needs of every
individual parent can be met at every individual setting.
We will ensure that there is a balanced set of options and that
parents are clear what they can expect from flexibility.
Parental demand will be matched against practicality. The
DCSF does not expect parents to access the entitlement against
different patterns each week or to change arrangements day by
day.
A legal duty to secure free early years provision.
Section 7 Childcare Act 2006 came into force, along with the
Early Years Foundation Stage Framework on 1st September 2008.
EYFS framework
http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/eyfs
Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) have not
formally consulted on these regulations as there is no substantive
change to the age, amount and type of free provision.
- The Code of Practice on the Provision of Free Nursery Education
Places for Three and Four Year olds published in Feb 2006 is the
current statutory guidance. The principles and requirements
in the Code of Practice remain, subject to “housekeeping”
amendments related to the fact that the EYFS came into force on 1st
September 2008.
- DCSF will be consulting on revised statutory guidance in 2009,
to come into force in September 2010.
- There are no changes to the national eligibility dates of birth
(currently Suffolk funds April born children from the summer term
after their third birthday, rather than the nationally recommended
Autumn term)
- There are two types of exemption from the EYFS learning and
development requirements
-
- LAs must make EYFS provision available free of charge.
- Providers must be:
-
- Early Years providers registered on the Ofsted EY register,
or
- Maintained schools, approved non-maintained special schools or
independent
schools.