Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department has taken to assess the potential cost to local authorities of implementing new IT systems to enable the move to the monthly payment system proposed in the Government's publication, 30 hour free childcare entitlement: delivery model, Government consultation response.

The Department for Education is committed to ensuring that we do not add unnecessary workload and cost to local authorities and has committed to undertake a new burdens assessment for the extended entitlement, to which we will respond accordingly.

The department is working with an expert group of local authorities and early years providers, including childminder representatives and early years organisations, who are advising on technical aspects of local authorities introducing monthly payment systems. The department is also looking at how we can support local authorities to achieve this.

The department is clear, however, that existing payment arrangements may already meet providers’ needs and we expect local authorities to work in partnership with early years providers to determine and operate the payment process that reflect their specific local requirements and provider circumstances.