PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Pre-school Education (23 September 2020)

Maintained nursery schools are an important part of the early years sector and provide valuable services, especially in disadvantaged areas. On 24 August, the government announced that up to £23 million of supplementary funding will be provided to local authorities, to enable them to continue protecting the funding of maintained nursery schools during the summer term in 2021. This provides maintained nursery schools with certainty about funding for the 2020-21 academic year.

In addition, support has been provided for the whole early years sector during the COVID-19 outbreak, designed to help providers to remain sustainable. We have continued to fund local authorities for childcare this autumn term at the same levels as seen prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, regardless of whether fewer children are attending. If providers are open but caring for fewer children as a result of low demand, either from parents or due to public health reasons, they can continue to be funded for the autumn term at broadly the levels that they would have expected to see had there been no COVID-19 outbreak. Furthermore, along with other businesses, early years providers have also been able to access a comprehensive package of business support.

What happens to the funding of maintained nursery schools after the 2020-21 academic year will be determined by the next Comprehensive Spending Review in the context of our priorities across early years as a whole.

This government remains committed to the long-term funding of maintained nursery schools and any reform to the way they are funded will be accompanied by appropriate funding protections.