Councils receive funding to promote early years premium

From April, early years providers delivering free hours to disadvantaged three- and four-year-olds will be able to share £50m in EYPP funding.

In announcing the extra funding the Department for Education says it expects councils to use the money on work such as telling local providers about the premium and upgrading IT systems.

It follows the announcement earlier this year of a trial of the EYPP in seven council areas: Blackpool, Bristol, Cambridgeshire, North Yorkshire, Northamptonshire, Hackney and Stoke-on-Trent.

Pre-school Learning Alliance chief executive Neil Leitch said that he hoped councils would use the money to help providers identify eligible parents.

He said: “Many providers involved in the pilots have fed back that the process of identifying eligible parents can be lengthy and complex, and so we would urge local authorities to consider using at least some of this additional funding to support providers in tackling this problem, as this will be vital to the long-term success of the scheme.”

Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, said: “We welcome this extra support for councils. We urge them to work as closely as they can with their local nurseries to help them to get parents to sign up to the premium so that as many children as possible can benefit from the new funding from day one.

"Longer term, we need the level of the premium and the overall rate of funding for free places getting to nurseries to be improved, as most of our members tell us the funding falls short of the real cost of delivering the high-quality care and learning that we know has such a positive impact for all children.”

The funding covers three- or four-year-olds whose parents are claiming benefits or tax credits. It also applies to children who are in or have been in care.