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Changes to the Free Early Years Childcare Offer consultation

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This consultation has now closed.

Have your say on changes to the Free Early Years Childcare Offer for children under five and Primary School wraparound childcare.

In March 2023 the Government announced that there will be an extension of the Free Early Years Childcare Offer for children under five and Primary School wraparound care for Barnet’s young people.

To help us plan for the future and ensure that we have sufficient childcare provision, we are reaching out to residents and in particular Barnet parents, carers and families, plus early years providers to obtain your views.

Your feedback will provide valuable insight, both in terms of

Have your say on changes to the Free Early Years Childcare Offer for children under five and Primary School wraparound childcare.

In March 2023 the Government announced that there will be an extension of the Free Early Years Childcare Offer for children under five and Primary School wraparound care for Barnet’s young people.

To help us plan for the future and ensure that we have sufficient childcare provision, we are reaching out to residents and in particular Barnet parents, carers and families, plus early years providers to obtain your views.

Your feedback will provide valuable insight, both in terms of the current offer and the Governments most recent changes, and will help us ensure we can meet the future needs of our Barnet families.


What are the changes to the FREE Early Years Childcare Offer and Wraparound care?

The Government are extending childcare to support more parents returning to work after their parental leave ends. By September 2025, working parents of all children over the age of nine months will be entitled to 30 hours of childcare. So that nurseries and childminders can prepare to deliver such a major expansion, it will be rolled out in phases:

Timeline for proposed changes:

  • from April 2024, all eligible working parents of two-year-olds will be able to access funding for 15 hours per week of education and care
  • from September 2024, all eligible working parents of children aged nine months up to three-years-old will able to access funding for 15 hours per week of education and care
  • from September 2025, all eligible working parents of children aged nine months up to three-years-old will able to access funding for 30 hours per week of education and care

The Government's ambition is to provide primary school childcare provision for every family between 8am and 6pm by September 2026

To find out more about the changes please visit the Governments information page on the planned changes.


How to have your say:

If you are a parent or a carer of a child, or a family member please take the time to complete our online questionnaire for residents, parents, carers or family members.

If you are a childcare provider or a school please take the time to complete one of the following questionnaires:

If you would like to request a paper questionnaire or another format please:

  • email earlyyears@barnet.gov.uk or telephone 020 8359 3052
  • alternatively you can write to us at Barnet Early Years Team, 1 Fallows Close, East Finchley, London N2 8LG
  • if you would like someone to help you complete the survey or need more information, please contact us using one of the above methods
  • throughout the process we will also be running a series of information sessions with Barnet families, early years settings, childminders and schools. If you would like to attend one of these events please email earlyyears@barnet.ov.uk.

We will also be sending out questionnaires to childcare providers and schools in Barnet, to find out about their current childcare provision and what they think the future demand will be.


What happens after the consultation closes?

The council will use the consultation findings to inform our Childcare Sufficiency Assessment. We will publish the findings form the consultation on this web page in January 2024.

This consultation has now closed.

  • We asked, you said, we did

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    We asked

    The Government are extending childcare to support more parents returning to work after their parental leave ends. By September 2025, working parents of all children from 9 months - 5 years-old will be entitled to 30 hours of childcare. In addition, the Government's ambition is to provide primary school childcare provision for every family between 8am and 6pm by September 2026.

    Here is a timeline for the proposed early years changes:

    • from April 2024, all eligible working parents of two-year-olds will be able to access funding for 15 hours per week of education and care
    • from September 2024, all eligible working parents of children aged nine months up to three-years-old will be able to access funding for 15 hours per week of education and care
    • from September 2025, all eligible working parents of children aged nine months up to three-years-old will be able to access funding for 30 hours per week of education and care.

    To find out more about the changes, you can visit the Government’s Childcare Choices website.

    To help us plan and ensure that we have sufficient childcare provision, we asked Barnet parents, carers and families, plus early years providers and schools, for their views on the upcoming changes. Their responses are helping us to ensure we can meet the future needs of our Barnet families.


    You said

    A total of 304 questionnaires were completed. 212 completed the parents and carers questionnaire, 63 completed the childcare provider questionnaire and 24 completed the schools questionnaire.

    Summary of provider questionnaire findings:

    • 70% of providers (38 out of 54) said they currently offer FEE2 and 91% (49 out of 54) said they offer FEE3&4
    • 73% of providers (24 out of 33) are planning to offer the 30 hours for under 5’s entitlement in Sept 2025
    • over half (55%) of the providers we asked said they were not at full capacity and 38% (20 out of 52) said they had the potential to extend/increase their capacity
    • 38% (20 out of 53) of providers reported that they will be considering adjusting their 2-year-old ratios to 1:5, while 62% (33 out of 53) reported that they will not be considering this.

    Summary of parent/carer questionnaire findings:

    • the parent/carer questionnaire revealed that 19% of children (59/317) do not access a childcare provider; 6% of children (18/317) access a childminder; 37% of children (119/317) access an early years setting and 38% of children (121/317) access a school setting for childcare provision
    • of the parent/carers who responded, 41% of children accessed some kind of childcare funding
    • 56% of those who responded reported accessing at least 15 hours of childcare per week
    • 82% of parent/carers reported that they were aware of the new scheme and 59% (104/177) said that they were planning to access the newly announced scheme.

    Summary of schools’ questionnaire findings:

    • 87% (20 out of 23) of the Barnet schools who responded reported currently offering a breakfast club and 86% (19 out of 22) currently offer after school provision
    • following the Government’s announcement regarding wraparound provision, over 40% of schools anticipate that the demand for breakfast club and after school provision will increase
    • 4 out of 19 schools said they will be considering introducing/extending their breakfast club provision and 3 schools said that they will be considering introducing/extending their after-school provision in the next 12-24 months.

    You can read more detail in the full consultation results.

    We did

    We have reviewed the findings from the questionnaires and the insights have helped shape our Early Years Expansion and Wraparound Action Plans. The findings have also informed our Childcare Sufficiency Assessment and childcare supply and demand analyses for Barnet. Additionally, we will be contacting and working closely with those providers who have reported that they have capacity to expand to explore how we can support the expansion of their provision.