Freedom of information response
Early years funding
1. How does your local authority (LA) fund its childcare and early years services?
Please supply this information broken down by funding stream ie. government funding, LA budget, parent fees etc and what percentage of funding each element makes up.
2. How much Department for Education funding has your LA received each year, over the last five years, for early years entitlement for three-and four-year olds?
Please provide this information in £s for:
2018-2019
2019-2020
2020-2021
2021-2022
2022-2023
3. Local authorities are allowed to retain a maximum of 5% of government funding for the universal and extended three-and four-year old entitlements to account for administration costs related to LA functions.
How much of this available 5% does your local authority currently retain?
4.What is this retained funding spent on by your local authority? Please include as much detail as possible.
5. How has the proportion of the allowed 5% of funding retained by your local authority changed over the last five years?
Please provide the following information:
Year £total funding £retained funding %age of total budget
2018-2019
2019-2020
2020-2021
2021-2022
2022-2023
6. Given the future extended entitlement implementation, will the retained percentage of funding reduce, remain the same, or increase? If there is an expected change, what will that be (i.e. the total percentage retained)?
1. How does your local authority (LA) fund its childcare and early years services?
Please supply this information broken down by funding stream i.e. government funding, LA budget, parent fees etc and what percentage of funding each element makes up.
Response:
Dedicated Schools Grant provides funding to settings and supports early years team.
The LA has no direct childcare provision.
2. How much Department for Education funding has your LA received each year, over the last five years, for early years entitlement for three-and four-year olds?
Response:
2018-2019 £9.535m
2019-2020 £10.046m
2020-2021 £10.413m
2021-2022 £10.623m
2022-2023 £11.082m
3. Local authorities are allowed to retain a maximum of 5% of government funding for the universal and extended three-and four-year old entitlements to account for administration costs related to LA functions.
How much of this available 5% does your local authority currently retain?
Response:
For the financial year 2023/24 the retained funding is 3.6% of the DSG Early Years Budget of £13.678m. The centrally retained allocation is agreed with the Schools Forum annually.
4.What is this retained funding spent on by your local authority?
Response:
The retained funding supports the Early Years Central Team. This is used to improve the quantity and quality of early years education and childcare.
5. How has the proportion of the allowed 5% of funding retained by your local authority changed over the last five years?
Response:
Year Total EY Funding Retained funding %age of total budget.
2018-2019 £11.780m £0.472m 4%
2019-2020 £12.427m £0.469m 3.78%
2020-2021 £12.395m £0.519m 4.19%
2021-2022 £12.699m £0.548m 4.32%
2022-2023 £12.832m £0.474m 3.7%
6. Given the future extended entitlement implementation, will the retained percentage of funding reduce, remain the same, or increase? If there is an expected change, what will that be (i.e. the total percentage retained)?
Response:
At this stage, no discussions have taken place on the requirements and impact of the extended entitlement on the central early years team.