Education and childcare minister Elizabeth Truss has confirmed that local authorities will share a £755m fund to provide early learning places for 40 per cent of two-year-olds from September 2014-15.
The Department for Education has maintained the current funding level at a national average hourly rate of £5.09 per child per hour, which the minister says in her letter to local authorities ‘compares favourably to the Daycare Trust (now Family and Childcare Trust) cost survey’, which put the average hourly rate at £4.26 for children aged two and over.
However, Anand Shukla, chief executive of the Family and Childcare Trust said it was ‘misleading’ of the Government to cite the charity’s figures because it was more expensive to provide early education for disadvantaged children than ‘typical daycare’, which is what the survey figures are based on. Parents of eligible two-year-olds are also less likely to pay for more hours, which means the hourly cost is higher. The two-year-old offer is also funded for 38 weeks of the year rather than a typical daycare place offered all year round.
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