Capital grant for childcare expansion reached very few providers nine months on
An investigation into the £100 million Childcare Expansion Capital Grant has found that less than 5% of the funds have been distributed, according to National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA).
In a new investigation, NDNA discovered that 82.5% of the 114 local authorities who responded to its Freedom of Information (FOI) request had not yet distributed any of the funding they had received.
In autumn 2023 the previous government announced £100m of capital support to help providers planning to expand their premises. This was to help deliver new places as the government offered increased funded entitlements for children aged nine months to three years old.
The fund was also intended to support wraparound provision for primary school-aged children.
Out of the £100m Department for Education (DfE) fund, only one local authority, Hounslow, had fully distributed its grant and 19 local authorities have only just begun to distribute funds. Of the remaining 94 local authorities, only 31 were able to say they were accepting or processing applications to the funding.
Less than £5m of the £100m set out by DfE has been distributed to date. Distribution totals range from £658k in East Sussex to £4,478 in Wigan.
Purnima Tanuku OBE, Chief Executive of NDNA said, “The figures on the use of this fund are shocking. The National Audit Office found that we need to create 85,000 new places by September 2025 but only a tiny fraction of funding earmarked to support this has been allocated and distributed.
“Providers and parents are reporting that there are waiting lists in nurseries across the country. This may mean that people may not get a place in their first choice nursery. We know of some nurseries who have taken the financial risk to expand even before their council has decided how they want nurseries to bid for this support fund.
“Lots of nurseries told us that they would need to adapt or expand their settings to offer the places needed for funded babies and two-year olds. The £100 million fund was not even enough to deliver this but the situation is made worse by the fact that most local authorities have not even decided on their plans.
“The Government has made a commitment to supporting parents and delivering on the expansion of funded hours. This needs to be backed up with the resources providers need to ensure settings are the best possible learning environments for our youngest children.
“In September children from the age of nine months will be eligible for funded hours and a lot of parents have already registered. Local authorities have a legal duty to ensure there are sufficient places in their areas so must do all they can to help providers. The financial support to providers must be a number one priority to achieve the goals of this major expansion plan.”
In addition to the asking about amounts distributed, NDNA’s FOI also asked local authorities for the breakdown of allocation between private, voluntary and independent (PVI) providers, school-based settings and local authority infrastructure projects.
Where local authorities were able provide a breakdown in this way, NDNA found that only £2.8 million of the £4.9 million distributed to date had been for expansion of places within PVI settings. This is despite the fact that the majority of early years places are delivered by this sector.
NDNA put out an FOI question to 151 local authorities in July 2024 regarding how much of the £100m Childcare Expansion Capital Grant Scheme they had been allocated by central government and how much of this grant they had distributed to providers.
Responses included in this data were received by Friday 09 August 2024.
| Funds distributed | |
| Luton | £59,417.00 |
| Southend-on-Sea | £144,190.64 |
| Thurrock | £47,850.00 |
| Enfield | £525,000.00 |
| Haringey | £403,184.00 |
| Hounslow | £383,924.00 |
| Islington | £149,037.00 |
| Merton | £128,000.00 |
| Newham | £291,305.00 |
| Blackpool | £78,730.00 |
| Bury | £125,778.00 |
| Stockport | £362,363.00 |
| Wigan | £4,478.00 |
| East Sussex | £658,703.00 |
| Medway | £545,967.79 |
| Slough | £169,644.00 |
| Somerset | £198,000.00 |
| Wiltshire | £346,776.00 |
| Calderdale | £13,030.00 |
| Doncaster | £299,708.00 |
| Total | £4,935,085.43 |
- England
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