EYPP pilot scheme gets underway

The local authority areas chosen to take part in the pilot ahead of its nationwide roll out across England in April are: Blackpool, Bristol, Cambridgeshire, Hackney, Northamptonshire, North Yorkshire and Stoke-on-Trent.

A total of £1m of funding is being split between the local authorities, based on the number of three- and four-year-olds eligible (see box) for the EYPP in their area. Northamptonshire County Council is to receive the largest share at £201,655, followed by Bristol City Council at £197, 591.

North Yorkshire County Council is to receive £100,567, Hackney Council £191,543, Stoke-on-Trent City Council £137,198, Cambridgeshire County Council £132,979, and Blackpool Council £76,745.

Under the scheme, local authorities will distribute the funding to early years settings and schools delivering the free entitlement for three- and four-year-olds with eligible children.

Nurseries, schools and childminders will receive an additional £300 a year per eligible child, and be able to choose how best to use the funding to help narrow the gap in attainment between the most and least advantaged children.

The seven local authorities taking part in the pilot will report back to the Department for Education (DfE) with feedback before the full £50m EYPP is rolled out nationally.

To mark the start of the pilot, the childcare minister Sam Gyimah visited Little Fishes Pre-School in Northamptonshire.

Progress so far

In Hackney, the Hackney Learning Trust, part of the council and responsible for children's centres, schools and early years, has begun working with providers to help them identify children eligible for the premium.

Angela Scattergood, head of early years at Hackney Learning Trust, said, 'We have done a lot of preliminary work so far as we wanted to start as early as possible. This has included setting up systems and supporting early years settings to identify children eligible for the funding.

'We have been working with providers to identify where the priorities lie in terms of what they plan to spend the additional money on to best support disadvantaged children.

'Providers will receive the EYPP as a separate payment next month following the January school census.

'As part of the pilot we will be evaluating how the scheme is administered, how providers are using the funding and how effective their approaches have been.'

Bristol City Council told Nursery World that as the funding was announced fairly recently, it is still at the planning stage of the process.

A spokesperson for the council said it had briefed childcare providers on the scheme and given them posters and fliers to promote the funding to parents and carers. Nurseries, schools and childminders have been given application forms and envelopes to distribute to all parents and carers, so as not to stigmatise anyone.

The council says that it is also encouraging providers to work collaboratively with other settings in their local area to allow them to take a 'strategic approach' across Bristol, and achieve the best value for money.

Kate Jones, Bristol City Council's early years and primary childcare sufficiency and sustainability manager, confirmed that providers will receive their EYPP payment at the same time as the free entitlement funding at the end of next month.

Blackpool City Council has written to providers across the city to ask them to start with the registration process and with suggestions as to how the EYPP could be spent.

Councillor Ivan Taylor, cabinet member for children's services at Blackpool City Council, said, 'We plan to take a co-ordinated approach as to how settings across Blackpool spend the EYPP funding. We want all providers to be singing from the same song sheet.

'Where possible we want to influence how providers use the money to make sure it is used most effectively.'

He added, 'The EYPP links with the Big Lottery Fund's Better Start programme that we are taking part in, a project to test what methods are best for laying foundations in children's first three years to improve their future outcomes.'

A spokesperson for Cambridgeshire County Council said, 'Cambridgeshire is working with early years providers on the processes to ensure they get the most they can from the funding available. We hope to be in a position to hand out funds in late February or early March.'

In Northamptonshire, the county council has begun publicising the EYPP on its website and has given early years providers information to show parents.

Councillor Heather Smith, deputy leader of Northamptonshire County Council, said the council already has the systems in place to identify eligible children and carry out an audit of the outcome of the pilot, having been involved in other trials, including the two-year-old pilot.

She told Nursery World that the council plans to release the EYPP funding to settings in batches.

North Yorkshire County Council has no further updates on how it is progressing with the scheme since being contacted by Nursery World two months ago.

In November, the county council had started to work with early years providers to look at how to identify eligible children and explore ways to use the EYPP.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council said the reaction it has had from providers has been very positive.

According to the council's early years sufficiency, access and information manager Jane Fallows, the city council began looking at how to start implementing the EYPP at the end of November when a series of briefings were held for nurseries, pre-schools, schools and childminders to inform them what the EYPP will mean for them and eligible children.

'Last month we finalised the process of identifying eligible children. We are now carrying out checks', explained Ms Fallows.

'This week we will be contacting providers who have sent in details of the number of children in their care who they believe will be entitled to the premium, about how much funding they will receive.

'We intend to distribute the funding to settings by the beginning of next month.'

CASE STUDY: MAMA BEAR'S DAY NURSERY

Mama Bear's Day Nursery, a group of 19 settings, has 13 nurseries in Bristol, eight of which are located within the city.

According to director Tony Driffield, about 100 children across three of the group's nurseries within the city of Bristol - which are in areas of high deprivation - will be eligible for the EYPP.

'Our three- and four-year-olds eligible for the premium include boys in particular and those from vulnerable families and ethnic minorities,' said Mr Driffield.

'The funding will be useful to address specific issues. Previously, we took money from our own budget to pay for additional support for these children.'

The director of Mama Bear's said the group plans to use the funding for staff training, to bring in additional practitioners and to pay for tablets for staff to use for planning.

However, he raises a concern that the settings are seeing a reduction in new practitioners to provide care and meet the needs of disadvantaged three- and four-year-olds, as well as two-year-olds, which he said he fears could also lead to the inflation of salaries.

He said he attributes this to recent changes in the rules for apprenticeships about GCSE requirements.

ELIGIBILITY FOR EYPP

Children will be eligible for the Early Years Pupil Premium if they are three or four, taking up a free childcare place at a maintained, private, voluntary or independent setting and their parents are in receipt of one or more of the following benefits:

• Income support
• Income-Based Jobseekers Allowance
• Income-Related Employment and Support Allowance;
• Support under Part VI of the immigration and Asylum Act 1999;
• The guarantee element of State Pension Credit
• Universal Credit
• Child Tax Credit (provided parents are not entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual gross income of no more than £16,190)

Alternatively, if a child has:

• been looked after by the local authority for at least one day
• been adopted from care
• has left care through special guardianship; and
• subject to a child arrangement order setting out with whom the child is to live.