Pre-school Education: Finance

(asked on 14th January 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will issue guidance to local authorities to continue funding early years providers based on the January 2020 census count so a provider's funding is not reduced as a result of children not attending due to the covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
Vicky Ford Portrait
Vicky Ford
This question was answered on 19th January 2021

We recognise that childcare attendance has been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. However, we saw attendance rise over the autumn term from 482,000 on 10 September to 759,000 on 17 December. On 17 December, the government therefore announced a return to funding early years settings on the basis of attendance. Under these arrangements, local authorities should ensure that providers are not penalised for short-term absences of children (for example sickness, arriving late or leaving early, or a family emergency through withdrawing funding), but use their discretion where absence is recurring or for extended periods, taking into account the reason for the absence and the impact on the provider.

While early years settings remain open for all children, we know that attendance was lower in the first week of January than it was before Christmas. We are looking at the attendance data and will continue to keep the funding position under review.

The early years census count will go ahead this week as expected and the census guidance is unchanged. We have issued some technical advice on how that guidance can be applied this year.

In summary, we have taken the view that where a child is reasonably expected to attend early years provision, and that provision is made available to them by the provider, their expected hours should be recorded in the early years census. This means children who, were it not for the impact of COVID-19 on either their own personal circumstances or on the operation of their early years setting, would be attending early years provision. This includes children who have previously attended the provision and children who were expected to start attending the provision in January.

Where the provider is temporarily closed due to circumstances such as staff infections or isolation periods, they should return their expected levels of provision for census week. Where the provider chooses not to offer the entitlements – i.e., to close, or only offer a limited provision to children of key workers - then then they should not make a return for a child who is not being offered a place.

We stay in regular contact with the early years sector and have heard from them already on this subject. We publish regular official statistics on attendance in early years settings, available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/attendance-in-education-and-early-years-settings-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak-23-march-2020-to-14-january-2021. We will be closely monitoring both parental take-up of places and the capacity and responses of providers and will keep under constant review whether further action is needed.

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