Business start-up grants available for new childminders

Under the Childcare Business Grants scheme £300 is available for new childminders who have been registered with Ofsted for less than three months.

To be eligible, providers must be registered with their local authority to offer the 30 hours funded childcare entitlement for three- and four-year-olds, or be in partnership with a childcare provider that is.

If they are a childminder agency, they must be directly encouraging and supporting their registered childminders or providers to offer the 30 hours funded childcare entitlement, either themselves or in partnership with other providers.

A locality supplement of £200 to the universal award, providing a total grant of £500, can also be paid to new childminders who work within certain local authority areas where the number of childminders is low and the area faces particular challenges around rurality and disadvantage. This funding is on offer in 30 local authority areas.

The Childcare Business Grants Scheme, funded by  the DfE, was launched in May 2017 to help new childminders and childminder agencies enter the childcare market.The scheme originally offered a £500 grant for a new early years childminder or childcare provider on domestic premises. Both the £1,000 grants announced last year will continue to be offered. They are: