Ministers have found an 11th-hour “workaround” to address parents’ concerns about accessing new free childcare hours, in an attempt to get a grip on chaos surrounding the scheme’s introduction.
On Monday, the prime minister admitted there were “some practical issues” with his expansion of access to free childcare but insisted it would go ahead as planned in England.
Last week the Guardian revealed that the scheme had been beset with problems, such as with the allocation of funding for nurseries and staff shortages. There were also technical issues preventing parents from accessing the code they need to get the support promised by the chancellor in last spring’s budget.
The Guardian understands that after a week of frantic discussions in the Department for Education (DfE), charities and groups representing the early years were called to an emergency meeting on Monday morning to hear the department’s attempts to solve the crisis.
Parents of two-year-olds who qualify for free childcare in April are now to be given an automatic code to allow them to access funded hours. But early-years providers said it would do little to address a staffing crisis that would limit the number of places available to parents.
The government workaround comes after a flash survey from the campaign group Pregnant Then Screwed revealing that only one in 10 eligible parents had the code they needed to get the free hours.
Thousands of parents using the tax-free childcare scheme, which gives eligible working parents who do not qualify for current free hours a 20% saving on fees, reported being unable to get the new code they needed in time.
Speaking on Monday from the National Film and Television school in Buckinghamshire, Rishi Sunak said the government was committed to delivering “the biggest expansion of childcare in our country’s history”.
But he admitted the introduction of the scheme had faced difficulties.
“Many families have been able to sign up and it’s all working fine, but there are some practical issues that certain families are facing,” he said. “I just want to reassure all of those people that those issues are being resolved as we speak. All of those families will get the childcare that they are eligible for.”
From April 2024, eligible working parents of two-year-olds can apply for 15 hours of free childcare, with the 15-hour offering extended to eligible parents of children aged from nine months to three from September. From September 2025, eligible parents of under-fives will be entitled to 30 hours of childcare a week.
Early-years organisations said many nurseries were still unaware how much they would be paid by local authorities for each of the places on offer. There have also been repeated warnings about a staffing crisis in the sector, fears about the mass privatisation of nurseries and preschools and criticism that the poorest and most vulnerable children are locked out of the £4bn scheme.
The shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson MP, raised an urgent question in parliament in which she asked the government to clarify whether parents would miss out and branded the scheme a “shambles”.
David Johnston MP, the minister for children, families and wellbeing, said the government was “confident we are going to deliver rollout as planned”, with tens of thousands of families already successfully enrolled. “No parents should worry they may lose out,” he said.
Those parents whose tax-free childcare reconfirmation date falls between 15 February and 1 April – who have faced challenges proving their eligibility – would receive a letter telling them what to do, he added.
Asked about the uncertainty facing nurseries, Johnston said that most were already aware of the money they would receive from their local authorities, and that only “a small number” still had not been told. He said the government was working with these areas and was “confident they will be in the right place” by April.
Asked about the cost pressures which have led to a 5% fall this year in the number of providers, Johnston said ministers were “doing what we can to help providers meet funding pressures”, with the funding rates based on consultation with nurseries.
He acknowledged that more staff needed to be recruited, but noted that the scheme had been deliberately phased to achieve this, with a nursery recruitment drive scheduled for the coming weeks. Despite nursery closures, there were more places and 4% more childminders overall, he said.
Sarah Ronan, the director of the Early Education and Childcare Coalition welcomed the workaround but said issues persisted.
She said: “The fault doesn’t lie with civil servants in DfE who have been working hard to get this up and running. The fault lies with politicians who rush out policy that is designed to meet their own election timetable but not the needs of the families using the service or the providers delivering it.”
A spokesperson from the DfE said thousands of parents had already applied for free hours in April, but those who could not get the code they needed before late February or March would automatically get a code from HMRC before the middle of February.
They said: “A pre-existing feature in the tax-free childcare system, where parents reconfirm their eligibility every three months, is impacting a minority of parents when combined with a small number of providers who are asking for codes much earlier than April.
“Parents who can’t reconfirm online until the second half of February or March will therefore automatically receive a letter with a code from HMRC before the middle of February, without needing to take any action.”
