Zahawi: Drop in 30 hours childcare take-up 'expected'
Neil Puffett
Tuesday, October 16, 2018
A fall in the number of children having their application for 30 hours funded childcare approved was "expected", children's minister Nadhim Zahawi has said.
Statistics published last month show that there was a significant drop in the number of childcare codes being issued in September this year, compared with three months ago.
In order to use their 30 hours a week of funded childcare, parents must supply a code to their early years provider to get validated.
While 379,662 codes were issued in June for the summer term, the figure for the 2018 autumn term was 254,136.
Speaking in parliament in response to a question by shadow childcare minister Tracy Brabin, Zahawi said: "The decline in numbers in the autumn term 2018 is an expected effect driven by four-year-olds entering reception and no longer being able to use their code for the 30 hours policy.
"In autumn term 2018, there were 254,136 codes issued which is an increase from autumn term 2017 where there were 224,885 codes issued.
"For the autumn term 2018, to be eligible for 30 hours free childcare a child will have to have turned three on or before the 31 August 2018.
"Most children who had turned four by 31 August will be in a reception place instead which results in less children with issued codes for the autumn 2018 term compared to the summer 2018 term."
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Zahawi was separately asked by former shadow childcare minister Tulip Siddiq when he plans to respond to the evaluation of the first year of the national rollout of 30 hours free childcare published last month.
He said the DfE will use evidence from the evaluation report to "inform and support" the future delivery of 30 hours free childcare.
"More than 340,000 children benefitted from a 30 hours place throughout the first year of delivery," he said.
"The year one evaluation found that 30 hours is making a real difference to family finances, with 78 per cent of parents reporting they had more money to spend since taking up the offer.
He added that the DfE has signed off a one-year extension to its contract with Childcare Works, which works with providers and local authorities on the implementation of the extended entitlement to 30 hours.
"We will continue to work with them to disseminate the learning from the evaluation report to local authorities and childcare providers," Zahawi said.
