Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to manage increases in demand for nursery places.
Answered by David Johnston
Concerning the number of new spaces that will need to be made available for pre-school childcare providers, the department used the results from the 2021 Childcare and early years survey as a guide. The results of this survey are accessible at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/childcare-and-early-years-survey-of-parents/2021. The data tables at 1.6 and 1.7 show the proportion of children at the relevant ages using formal childcare, and for how long per week. This data was used to estimate, of the children using the offer, how many need new places compared to how many already would pay for childcare under the pre-existing system.
The department is providing £204 million this year, increasing to £288 million by 2024/25, for local authorities to increase the hourly funding rate to providers. As a result of this additional funding, funding rates to local authorities will rise by an average of 32% for the current 2-year-old entitlement, and by an average of 6.3% for 3-4-year-old entitlements from September 2023, compared to their current 2023/24 rates.
The department is ensuring a phased implementation of the expansion to the 30 hours offer to allow the market to develop the necessary capacity. The department is also launching a new national recruitment campaign to support the recruitment and retention of talented staff to support the expansion of the 30 hours offer.
We are also consulting on changes to the early years foundation stage framework that aim to reduce known burdens on providers and offer them more flexibility. The department is continuing to explore how the sector can be supported to deliver the additional places that will be required.
We will also continue to monitor the sufficiency of childcare places. The department’s childcare and early years provider survey shows that the number of places available has remained broadly stable since 2019.
The key measure of sufficiency is whether the supply of available places is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents and children.
Under Section 6 of the Childcare Act 2006, local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area. Part B of the early education and childcare statutory guidance for local authorities highlights that local authorities are required to report annually to elected council members on how they are meeting their duty to secure sufficient childcare, and to make this report available and accessible to parents.
The department has 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, the department discusses what action the local authority is taking to address those issues and, where needed, supports the local authority with any specific requirements through our childcare sufficiency support contract.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the implications for her policies of regional disparities in funding available for early years providers.
Answered by David Johnston
The government currently funds local authorities to deliver the government-funded entitlements through the Early Years National Funding Formula (EYNFF) for 3 and 4-year-olds and a separate formula for 2-year-olds. These have been designed to allocate the department’s record investment in early years entitlement funding fairly and transparently across the country.
The EYNFF is made up of a universal base rate, which is the same hourly funding rate for every child in a local authority, plus funding factors for additional needs, based on the measures of free school meals, disability living allowance, and English as an additional language.
The formula also includes an area cost adjustment (ACA) multiplier to reflect variations in costs across different areas of the country. This uses the General Labour Market measure to reflect staff costs and a Rates Cost Adjustment to reflect premises related costs.
Each local authority’s EYNFF rate will vary depending on their level of additional needs and their ACA values. Following a consultation in 2022, the department has updated the funding formulae to ensure the funding system remains fair, effective and responsive to changing levels of need across different local authorities.
To distribute the additional £204 million funding provided from September for the existing entitlements through the Early Years Supplementary Grant (EYSG), the department has used the existing funding formulae for 2, 3 and 4-year-olds. This allows the department to recognise cost variations between local authority areas when determining the EYSG rates for individual local authorities.
With the introduction of the new entitlements for working parents of children aged 9 months to 2 years from 2024/25, the department has recently finished consulting on its proposed funding formula for distributing funding to local authorities, along with the accompanying local rules for local authorities to follow when passing on this funding to early years providers. That consultation closed on 8 September and the department will announce its response and confirm the final hourly funding rates for 2024/25 later this year.
At a local level, local authorities are responsible for setting individual provider funding rates in consultation with their providers and schools forum, and fund providers using their local funding formula. In setting their local funding formula, all local authorities are required to use the same base rate for all providers. On top of the base rate, additional funding can be paid to providers to reflect local needs through the use of a mandatory supplement for deprivation, and other discretionary supplements. But supplements are capped at a maximum of 12% of the total funding to providers.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to inform early years providers about the process of accessing funding for school places before changes in the numbers of children who are eligible for nursery places from 2024/25.
Answered by David Johnston
Children remain eligible for an early education place until they start in reception at a state-funded school. For many children this will be the September following their 4th birthday, or the term after they turn 5 (which is when they reach compulsory school age).This applies to the process for accessing funding for school places before changes in the number of children who are eligible for nursery places from 2024/25.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to help ensure that differences in regional needs are taken into account in early years provision.
Answered by David Johnston
Under Section 6 of the Childcare Act 2006, local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area. Part B of the ‘Early education and childcare’ statutory guidance for local authorities highlights that local authorities should report annually to elected council members on how they are meeting their duty to secure sufficient childcare, and to make this report available and accessible to parents. The ‘Early education and childcare’ statutory guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-education-and-childcare--2.
The department has 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, the department discusses what action the local authority is taking to address those issues and where needed supports the local authority with any specific requirements through its childcare sufficiency support contract.
The department knows that the sector is facing economic challenges, similar to the challenges being faced across the economy. The department continues to engage with sector stakeholders and local authorities to monitor dynamics with local markets, parents’ access to the government’s entitlements and the childcare they require, and the sustainability of the sector.
The government is providing £204 million this year, and £288 million in 2024/25, for local authorities to increase hourly rates paid to childcare providers, with funding uplifting year on year to meet rising cost pressures.
The additional £204m is being distributed to local authorities via a new standalone Early years Supplementary Grant (EYSG) in 2023/24.
As a result of this additional funding, funding rates to local authorities have risen by an average of 32% for the current 2-year-old entitlement, and by an average of 6.3% for the 3 to 4-year-old entitlements from September 2023, compared to their current 2023/24 rates.
The EYSG rate for 2-year-olds is, on average, £1.95 per hour. This means that the national average hourly rate that local authorities will receive has risen from the current £6 per hour to £7.95.
The EYSG rate for 3 and 4-year-olds is, on average, 33 pence per hour. Similarly, the national average hourly rate received by local authorities has risen from £5.29 to £5.62.
This funding is in addition to £4.1 billion by 2027/28 to deliver the new offers.
As part of the consultation published on 21 July, the department has published illustrative local authority hourly funding rates for those 2 years old and under for 2024/25. The department currently anticipates that, in 2024/25, the national average rates would be £8.17 for the 2-year-old entitlements and £11.06 for younger children. These illustrative rates are likely to change following the outcome of the consultation and when the latest data becomes available. The department will confirm final 2024/25 hourly funding rates for local authorities in the autumn.
The department will ensure a phased implementation of the free hours offers, to allow the market to develop the necessary capacity.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to issue guidance to early years providers on (a) term planning and (b) staff resources in advance of changes to eligibility requirements for free childcare.
Answered by David Johnston
The ‘early education and childcare’ statutory guidance for local authorities will be updated to reflect the expanded entitlements announced in the Spring Budget and will be published in early spring alongside the amended regulations coming into force.
The department is ensuring a phased implementation of the expansion to the 30 hours offer to allow the market to develop the necessary capacity, and is working closely with the sector on the implementation of these reforms.
The department understands that the recruitment and retention of qualified staff is a key issue for the early years sector. The department is continuing to work with the sector to understand how it might support workforce recruitment and retention, including through data collection, user research, and feedback from an expert advisory group.
In May 2023, the department launched a consultation on proposals to provide more flexibility and remove burdens within the statutory framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). The consultation will inform changes to the EYFS to offer providers more choice over how they operate and make it easier for them to deliver the EYFS. The consultation closed on 26 July, and the department will be publishing a response in due course. It is our intention that any changes to the EYFS that result from this consultation will come into force for all providers across England in early 2024, giving the sector time to make use of the proposed flexibilities and ensuring they are ready to deliver the new entitlements announced at the Spring Budget.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department are taking to support parents and guardians whose children have not been in a formal education environment for over six months due to special educational needs requirements.
Answered by David Johnston
In the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Improvement Plan, published in March 2023, the department outlined its commitment to build a consistent national SEND and AP system that parents and carers can trust, easily navigate, and have confidence in.
The department understands that barriers to attendance are wide and complex, particularly for pupils with SEND. The attendance guidance for schools and local authorities expects schools, trusts and local authorities to provide joined up support for children and their families facing special educational needs, health or disability related barriers to attendance.
Through the AP Specialist Taskforce Pilots, the department is also working directly with young people and their families who are at risk of disengaging with education to offer intensive support. The pilot has supported more than 2,500 children so far, 77% of whom have SEND.
Where parents have elected to home educate their child, some local authorities will provide support at their discretion. The department is committed to introducing statutory local authority registers for children not in school, and a duty for local authorities to provide support to home-educating families. We continue to work with local authorities to ensure all children are receiving a suitable education.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department has taken to consult with (a) children and (b) the families of children with SEND who are not in formal education as part of the SEND Review.
Answered by David Johnston
The consultation on the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Green Paper ran from 10 March to 22 July, during this time the department received around 6,000 responses to the online consultation and delivered 175 consultation events hearing from over 4,500 people.
The department designed specific consultation questions for children and young people, proactively engaged with seldom heard groups. Consultation events were also delivered with stakeholders such as the Council for Disabled Children’s Friendship, Learning, Achieve, Reach and Empower (FLARE) children and young people’s group and the National Network of Parent Carer Forums that amplified the voices of children, young people and their families, to ensure their views were captured in the consultation feedback.
The department continues to engage with children, young people and their families as we design and test reforms through the Change Programme. This will ensure a wide range of perspectives are considered to improve the outcomes and experiences of children and young people with SEND and in AP.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department took to ensure that responses to the SEND consultation were received from all regions in England.
Answered by David Johnston
During the 16-week consultation on the Special Educational Needs (SEND) and Alternative Provision (AP) Green Paper, the department received around 6,000 online responses from the sector including children, young people, families, schools and local government. In addition, 175 online and in person consultation events were delivered, receiving responses from a further 4,500 people. To support receiving responses from people across the country, these events were promoted through a wide range of communication channels, including working in partnership with the Council for Disabled Children and the regional parent carer forums via the National Network of Parent Carer Forums who represent families from each English region.
The department also allowed organisations to submit consultation responses. Annex 4 of the independent analysis of the consultation responses shows the wide range of responses received from across the country.
The department continues to engage with the SEND and AP sector as reforms are designed and tested through the Change Programme. This will ensure a wide range of perspectives are considered to improve the outcomes and experiences of children and young people with SEND and in AP.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of the availability of school places for children with SEND.
Answered by David Johnston
The statutory duty to provide sufficient school places for children with Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) sits with local authorities. The department supports local authorities by providing annual funding and monitors local authorities financial performance through meetings with officials, the department’s SEND advisors and through programmes such as the Safety Valve programme.
The department has published over £1.5 billion of High Needs Provision Capital Allocations (HNPCA) for the 2022/23 and 2023/24 financial years. This funding is allocated to local authorities to support them deliver new places and improve existing provision for children and young people with SEND or who require alternative provision (AP). Barnsley are receiving £7.1 million.
This funding forms part of the department’s transformational investment of £2.6 billion in new high needs provision between 2022 and 2025. This funding is on top of the department’s ongoing delivery of new special and AP free schools.
Starting from Summer 2023 the department has, for the first time, collected data from local authorities on available capacity in special schools, SEND units and resourced provision, along with corresponding forecasts of demand for these places. This data will help the department to more effectively support local authorities to fulfil their statutory duty to provide sufficient specialist places.
Asked by: Stephanie Peacock (Labour - Barnsley South)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department holds regional data on the number of children with SEND who are not in formal education.
Answered by David Johnston
The department holds data on the number of children and young people with an Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan, including the setting in which the child or young person is typically educated or where they are not in education or training for any reason. The information is available in the National Statistics publication at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-health-and-care-plans. The data can be broken down by region and local authority.