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One in six local authorities in England are ignoring government guidance instructing them to fund childcare providers as if coronavirus wasn’t happening until the end of the year, a new Freedom of Information (FoI) Act investigation from leading early years organisation the Early Years Alliance has found.

The Department for Education (DfE) is providing early years funding to all councils in England based on the number of children who were attending childcare settings in their areas last year, rather than the number attending this year, until at least the end of 2020. The government has described the move as “‘block-buying’ childcare places for the rest of this year at the level we would have funded before coronavirus, regardless of how many children are attending”.

Under current DfE guidance, councils are expected to take the same approach and fund nurseries, pre-schools and childminders “broadly the levels they would have expected to see in the 2020 autumn term had there been no coronavirus outbreak”. However, over recent weeks, the Alliance has received a number of reports from childcare providers of councils not adhering to this guidance.

In response, the Alliance filed a FoI request to every local authority in England, asking if they were basing the funding being given to early years providers this term on child attendance numbers from last year, as stated in the DfE guidance.

Of the 120 councils who responded, 20 (17%) stated that the were not following this guidance. A further seven (6%) stated that they were only following the guidance in some circumstances, such as funding nurseries and pre-schools based on last year’s childcare attendance numbers, but not childminders, while three (3%) were still yet to decide.

The Alliance has provided details of its investigation findings to the Department for Education.

Commenting, Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Alliance, said:

“It is simply unacceptable that so many local authorities have disregarded the DfE guidance on early years funding during this critical time – and more importantly, that they have been allowed to do so.

“The government has said that it is ‘block-buying’ funded early years places until the end of the year but as our investigation shows, in many areas, this simply isn’t true as the money isn’t making it to the frontline.

“We have been contacted by many providers who had budgeted and planned on the basis of the government’s reassurances that their funding for the autumn term wouldn’t be affected by the pandemic, only to find out at the last minute that this isn’t the case. For many, this could be the difference between surviving the next few months, and being forced to close their doors.

“It cannot be that councils can simply choose to disregard government guidance, when that guidance has been issued to ensure the sustainability of the early years sector at such a difficult time. As such, we urge the Department to tackle this issue as a matter of urgency and make it clear that it is a requirement, and not an option, for all councils to fund all providers fully and fairly. 

“The next few months are going to be difficult enough for the sector – neither central government or local authorities should be making it any harder.”