Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if her Department will make provision for administrative costs incurred by nurseries as a result of extending the availability of free childcare.

We are increasing our annual investment in the free early years entitlements by £1 billion per year by 2019-20. This includes over £300 million a year for a significant increase to Government funding rates. We have also legislated to ensure that local authorities pass the vast majority of Government funding onto providers.

This new investment is based on our ‘Review of Childcare Costs’, published in November 2015. The Review explicitly considered providers’ administrative costs and was described by the National Audit Office as “thorough and wide-ranging”.

In addition, we are providing £2.15m to local authorities to improve their IT systems to allow more automation of the administrative requirements on providers.