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Funding for free childcare pilot saps providers' faith in scheme

6 mins read Early Years
Department for Education plans to give councils trialling the free childcare expansion different funding rates for the additional hours has "misled" the sector and damaged the scheme, say early years leaders.

In February, the Department for Education announced that eight local authorities across England will pilot 30 hours of free childcare from this September.

It said the findings would help inform the full implementation of the government’s flagship childcare policy, scheduled to start nationally in September 2017.

However, childcare experts and organisations are growing increasingly sceptical of this, and are concerned that the opportunity to learn valuable lessons will be missed, which in turn could undermine the impact of the scheme nationally.

Earlier this year, DfE officials were unable to confirm to MPs on the Commons public accounts committee whether findings from the pilots would be available before full implementation (see box, below).

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