Funded Childcare Hours from April 2024
During last year’s spring budget, the Chancellor announced a long-awaited series of reforms to childcare. The reforms include funding towards free hours and early education costs in order to allow working parents to progress their careers and support their families.
The childcare reforms are due to be introduced in phases from April 2024, with all eligible working parents of 2-year-olds being the first to access 15 hours of free childcare per week. Two further reforms will follow, with working parents of children aged 9 months up to 3 years being able to access 15 hours of free childcare from September 2024. This is then expected to increase to 30 hours of free childcare per week for children 9 months old and over from September 2025. This operates in addition to the current funding for 3- and 4-year-olds with the ultimate result that from September 2025, 30 free hours will be available for eligible working parents for their children from the age of 9 months right up to starting school.
As we are now in February, there is mounting pressure on the Government to confirm if they are expecting to provide access to free childcare as planned in April 2024. As part of a recent interview with the BBC, Gillian Keegan (Education Secretary) confirmed that she was confident that she would be able to deliver the first of the reforms as planned in April 2024, although she was unable to provide any guarantees.
Eligibility for the funded hours is considered on the same basis as the eligibility for tax free childcare and the same system is used to apply for a code to provide to a nursery to confirm eligibility for funded hours. There have been issues with the roll out of this system as the codes are generated at the point a parent is asked to reconfirm their eligibility status (typically every three months), but certain parents’ reconfirmation dates will fall too close to the April 2024 commencement date which places them at risk of not having the relevant code in time and losing out on a term of funded hours.
In these instances, HMRC will write directly to all impacted parents with written details of how to claim their funded hours ahead of being able to reconfirm their eligibility as usual, this is a workaround that has just been announced in the last week or so which will hopefully go towards alleviating some of the concerns about overall roll out.
Although it is hopeful, it is therefore not clear if the childcare reforms will be introduced as planned in April 2024, or the remaining childcare reforms will follow in September 2024 and September 2025. Recruitment of nursery staff to keep up with the demand for additional nursery places from April and the technical issues referred to above have been cited as hurdles that will need to be overcome before the scheme can be rolled out. Many nurseries are still waiting for specific funding information to be shared with them from their local authorities so that they can confirm exactly how the ‘free’ hours will work in practice for parents, some nurseries for example still charge for food or nappies to assist in the shortfall between the funding received and the actual running cost of the nursery.
Whilst the education secretary confirmed that she was confident that the scheme would be introduced as planned in April 2024, the lack of clarity will no doubt be concerning for working parents who welcomed the Government’s decision to provide funding towards free childcare hours.
If you have a query regarding any of the points raised in this article, or if you have a query on another area of employment law, our friendly and professional team are here to help. Please speak with one of our Employment Law team on 01246 555 111 or contact:
Amy Hallam
Head of Employment
t: 0114 3496989
e: amy.hallam@brmlaw.co.uk
Ellie Leatherday
Associate
t: 01246 564002
e: ellie.leatherday@brmlaw.co.uk
Jade Taylor
Trainee Solicitor
t: 01246 560587
e: jade.taylor@brmlaw.co.uk
