Best nurseries will receive more funding for providing free entitlement for three-and four-year-olds
Nurseries offering flexible, high quality childcare could receive bonuses from local authorities for delivering the free early years entitlement.
Government guidance for local authorities sets out how local authorities should design and implement the Early Years Single Funding Formula (EYSFF) in their area, with examples from 11 pilot areas.
Local authorities are advised to come up with ‘a quality supplement' as an incentive to providers who have taken steps to improve the quality of their provision, for example by increasing the hourly rate for providers attending training.
The guide also recommends aligning the Graduate Leader Fund with money from the EYSFF as a supplement to train or recruit graduates in private and voluntary settings.
Similarly providers could be given an incentive to offer more flexible provision, which in the pilots included offering longer hours and allowing parents to ‘stretch' their entitlement, so that nurseries who offered free places over 40 weeks (rather than 38) were given an additional lump sum per hour per child.
Providers could also be given a supplement to cover the cost of a meal so that offering lunch would not prove a barrier to offering childcare over lunch times.
Further information
Implementing an Early Years Single Funding Formula: Practice guidance
