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Councils launch innovative ways to trial expanded free childcare offer

Matching childcare to local employers' needs, offering more care at weekends and funding provision all year round are the focus of some of the areas testing delivery of 30 hours per week of free childcare.

All working parents of threeand four-year-olds are to be offered 15 hours of free childcare from September 2017, on top of the 15 hours of free early education all parents are entitled to receive.

The expanded entitlement, a key manifesto pledge of the Conservative government, has been backed with £350m of government funding to pay for a 50p rise in the hourly rate paid to early years providers for delivering free childcare and investment in improved facilities.

The government hopes the scheme will help parents access work by offering 30 hours a week of care during school term times.

However, some early years experts say it would be better to focus resources on improving the quality of free childcare offered to the poorest families (see box).

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