by Jess Gibson
The Department for Education has today announced that it plans to clarify current statutory guidance on charging additional fees to parents accessing the funded entitlement offers.
The government has said that this is in response to “reported instances of parents facing very high additional charges on top of the funded entitlement hours”, including mandatory extra charges for additional extras like nappies, lunch or other ‘consumables’, which it says “should not be made a condition of accessing a funded place”.
In the coming months, the government plans to engage with local authorities and providers to clarify statutory guidance on charging – including on ‘top up fees’ – and consider how to better support local authorities in “protecting parents from overcharging”.
The announcement comes shortly after confirmation from the Department for Education that it will refer to the early entitlement offers as ‘government-funded’, rather than ‘free’, going forward, something that sector leaders have highlighted as contradictory.
Commenting, Neil Leitch, CEO of the Early Years Alliance, said: ”We fully agree that it is important that providers are clear and transparent with parents on any additional fees and charges being issued beyond the funded hours. That said, many in the sector will be understandably frustrated at the mixed messages coming out from government: while the Department for Education recently confirmed that going forward it will refer to the early entitlements as ‘government-funded’ rather than ‘free’, under DfE guidance, providers are still not allowed to ask parents to subsidise the insufficient rates they receive from government.
“At the Alliance, we believe that every family, regardless of their income, should be able to access affordable and high-quality early years provision – and we know that nurseries, pre-schools and childminders do their best to keep costs low. The reality is, however, that years of underfunding have made it impossible for the vast majority to stay afloat without introducing some form of additional charges.
“Ultimately, the only way to ensure that early education is genuinely affordable for all is to ensure that sector funding reflects the true cost of delivering high-quality early years provision, both now and in the future. Without this, all the guidance clarity in the world won’t actually help make places more affordable for parents.”