Lucy Powell – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lucy Powell on 2016-10-13.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the amount and proportion of funding for the free childcare entitlement which is currently retained by local authorities to support wider early years work.

Caroline Dinenage

Data from local authority planned spend for 2016-17 shows that nationally local authorities plan to centrally retain 7% (£149 million) of their delegated budget for three and four year olds and 7% (£36m) for the two year old entitlement. The total local authority delegated budget for three and four year olds is £2.3 billion and £523 million for two year olds. This excludes the planned budget for the early years pupil premium.

This data is as reported by the local authorities.

Our recent consultation on changes to funding for three- and four-year-olds proposed that all local authorities must pass 93% in 2017-18 then 95% in 2018-19 of early years funding to providers. This would maximise funding to the frontline.