Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to para 3.11 of the National Audit Office's value for money report entitled Preparations to extend early years entitlements for working parents in England on the expansion of government funded childcare, published on 24 April 2024, what indicators she plans to use to track progress of the childcare roll-out; and what criteria would need to be met for her Department to change its assessment of the likelihood of meeting the September (a) 2024 and (b) 2025 phases of the roll-out.

Key Performance Indicators will be used to measure delivery performance against a range of objectives including:

• More families accessing government funded childcare and an increase in the numbers of staff and places in the sector.

In the lead up to the April 2024 delivery milestone the department saw these indicators improve, with over 200,000 children finding places and no reports of insufficiency from local authorities. The department would expect to see a similar results in the lead up to September 2024 and September 2025.