Agenda item

The report of Marie Taylor (Head of Finance – Children and Education) seeks to inform Schools Forum of a serious of DfE Early Years publications issued in July 2023.

Marie Taylor, Head of Finance – Children and Education, referred to the report which presented a series of Department for Education (DfE) Early Years Publications issued in July 2023. The following was highlighted:

Spring Budget 2023 Childcare Expansion

·       Paragraphs 2 to 9 of the report were detailed, the highlights of which being:

o   Funded childcare hours would be extended to children of eligible working parents in England from nine months old to support increased parental engagement in the labour market.

o   The measures would expand the existing system by offering a phased rollout by September 2025 of up to 30 funded hours per week over 38 weeks of the year to children aged nine months and over whose parents met the same income eligibility criteria as applied to the existing 30 hours entitlement for three and four-year olds.

o   The changes were aimed to increase flexibility for providers and the availability of childcare provisions for parents by changing staff-to-child ratios for 2-year-olds and allowing childminders to care for more than the specified amount of three young children, subject to conditions.

o   By the 2027/28 financial year, the national investment was due to rise to £4.1m from £1.74m for the 2024/25 financial year.

o   A new national wraparound childcare pathfinder scheme was being launched with the aim of allowing all parents of primary-aged children in England to access care in schools from 8am – 6pm. £289m in start-up funding would be invested nationally to enable schools and Local Authorities (LAs) to test options of increasing wraparound childcare, with the national rollout due over the 2024-25 and 2025-26 academic years.

Early Years Supplementary Grant 2023-24

·       Paragraphs 10 to 13 of the report were detailed, the highlights of which being:

o   As the expansion plans were to be rolled out from September 2023, a separate mechanism of funding was put in place to facilitate a timely rollout.

o   Wiltshire’s allocation of the £204m supplementary grant funding to LAs for the 2023-24 financial year was £1.642m and would provide supplementary funding for all existing early years funding streams as listed in Paragraph 11.

o   The supplementary funding was separate to the funding provided through the Early Years Block of the DSG for the existing entitlements in the 2023-24 financial year.

o   Wiltshire was one of the 42 LAs for whom there was a reduction in the 2024-25 illustrative hourly rate with a £0.26 reduction (3.4%) per hour from the effective combined rate.

Early Years Funding – Extension of the Entitlements – Government Consultation

·       Paragraphs 14 to 19 of the report were detailed, the highlights of which being:

o   The DfE launched a consultation that ran from 21 July to 8 September 2023 requesting views from LAs, early years providers, and sector representative bodies on a number of proposals regarding the approach to funding for the early years entitlements for 2-year-olds and under from 2024-25, as listed in the report.

o   Wiltshire responded to the consultation and shared the response with the Early Years Sector and Reference Group.

o   Appendix 1 of the report detailed Wiltshire’s responses.

Following which, it was:

Resolved:

The Schools Forum noted the three July 2023 publications from the Department of Education and considered the implications for Wiltshire.