G20 DEVELOPMENT WORKING GROUP

Early Childhood Development KNOWLEDGE GATHERING TEMPLATE

In the “G20 Initiative for Early Childhood Development”, G20 countries committed to share best practices and lessons learned through a platform that will be developed by ECDAN and will be operative by 2019.

G20 countries are invited to voluntarily submit projects, programs, policies, or similar initiatives implemented domestically, internationally or through official development assistance that are aimed Early Childhood Development, prioritizing those which address the issue in a multidimensional manner.

Countries are invited to share as many projects, programs, policies or initiatives as they wish to showcase, submitting one form per best practice.

Country Information

(1) Country

England

(2) Project, Program, Policy, or Initiative name/title:

30 hour free childcare entitlement

(3) Project, Program, Policy, or Initiative location

(3a) City: all locations (3b) Country: England

General information

(4) Brief Description

30 hours free childcare was rolled out across England from September 2017 and provides an additional 570 hours per year over and above the existing universal free entitlement (based on 15 hours/per week for 38 weeks). The support starts the term after the child turns three and they receive a positive eligibility determination from HM Revenue and Customs and is estimated to save families using the full 30 hours up to £5,000 per year in total.

(5) What are the expected results/impacts/beneficiaries of the project/program/policy/initiative?

G20 DEVELOPMENT WORKING GROUP

This is intended to provide help to families with childcare costs in order to improve take up of work and/or to increase working hours. There are many people who face unfair or distorting barriers to work, including women whose high levels of skill are too often underused. The government has set out stretching ambitions to increase employment and doubling the free entitlement to childcare to 30 hours a week for working parents of three- and four-year-olds is a significant contribution to this.

Legal framework

(6) (Does the Project/Program/Initiative/Policy have an associated regulatory or legal framework?)

Existing provisions in S7 of the Childcare Act 2006, which places a duty on English local authorities to secure early years provision free of charge for 3 and 4 year old children were extended by the Childcare Act 2016 to provide additional hours for children of qualifying working parents.

Implementation

(7) Implementation level (Is the Project/Program/Policy/Initiative implemented within the country’s national territory or in support of other countries?)

(8) Geographical impact (more than one answer possible)

ü Domestic q Sub-national / Community

q Support of developing and low-income countries

ü National

q Regional

q Global

(9) Nº of countries involved (if Project/Program/Initiative/Policy is Regional/Global)

(9a) City, Country, Region 1: The scheme covers England only. As education is a devolved power, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland set their own childcare and early education policies.

(9b) City, Country, Region 2:

(9c) City, Country, Region 3:

(9d) City, Country, Region 4:

(9e) City, Country, Region 5:

(10) Status (11) Start date

q Under design MM/YYYY

q In progress (12) End date

G20 DEVELOPMENT WORKING GROUP

ü Completed Launched nationally 09/2017

(13) Action area/s (more than one answer possible )

q Health q Responsive caregiving

q Food Security and Nutrition ü Early learning and stimulation

q Security and safety q Gender policies with impact on ECD

q Other: ___________

Funding

(14) Origin (more than one answer possible)

ü National budget

q Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) or Development Financial Institutions (DFI)

q International Organizations (IOs)

q Global Partnerships or Initiatives

q Other: ___________

(15) Brief description of funding (e.g. name of funding institution or partnership, etc.)

Funded by central government (Department for Education) and distributed to 152 local authorities in England as part of the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG). Local authorities meet their legal duty to secure sufficient provision by purchasing places from private sector childcare providers and schools.

(16) Available funds (optional)

Allocated spend for 2018/19 was £695m

Monitoring and Evaluation

(17) Does the Project/Program/Initiative/Policy involve a monitoring / evaluation process?

ü Yes

q No

(18) Brief description If “Yes”, briefly describe monitoring & evaluation process

G20 DEVELOPMENT WORKING GROUP

Annual monitoring of take up is in official statistics: Provision for Children under 5 years of age. Statistics on eligibility and take-up were collected termly for the first year of operation and are scheduled to continue up to 2019.

(19) Are there any research studies completed, evaluation reports, or other reviews?

ü Yes

q No

q Under development

(20) If “Yes” please provide links to relevant reports and studies

Between January - June 2018 the independent evaluators (Frontier Economics) undertook a mixed methods evaluation of 12 local authorities (LAs) with surveys of providers and registered parents, analysis of data and qualitative interviews with LAs, stakeholders, providers and parents.

(21) If “Under development”, when will they be available?

(22) Lessons Learned (specific of the initiative and for general ECD application)

No formal lessons learned documents have been published, but internal reviews have identified five key steps to successful delivery of the offer:

1) Build strong and trusted relationships within the team and with delivery partners 2) Ensure proportionate but useful programme management processes are in place 3) Use all available data to forensically analyse risk and target interventions appropriately 4) Test the policy ahead of national go-live and evaluate this early delivery 5) Prioritise user insight and maintain a focus on the operational impacts of the policy

Contact Information

(23) Is there a Project/Program/Initiative/Policy website? Or a website where it is profiled?

ü Yes

q No

q Under development

(24) If “Yes”, please provide link to the website

General information on all programmes is on Gov.uk: https://www.gov.uk/30-hours-free-childcare?step-by-step-nav=f517cd57-3c18-4bb9-aa8b-1b907e279bf9

G20 DEVELOPMENT WORKING GROUP

(25) Contact Information

Department for Education: https://form.education.gov.uk/en/AchieveForms/?form_uri=sandbox-publish://AF-Process-f1453496-7d8a-463f-9f33-1da2ac47ed76/AF-Stage-1e64d4cc-25fb-499a-a8d7-74e98203ac00/definition.json&redirectlink=%2Fen&cancelRedirectLink=%2Fen

Supporting material

(26) Please provide links to or upload any further supporting materials, including: case studies, toolkits, photographs1, and any other relevant materials to help illustrate the project Resource materials from our contractor, Childcare Works, available on: http://childcareworks.co.uk/resources

1 Please bear in mind that individual members/countries are responsible for obtaining photographic permissions from the subject/s and from the photographer/owner.