PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Children: Day Care (13 October 2020)

Since April 2020, we have been collecting weekly data from all English local authorities to monitor the availability of early years childcare. We collect and publish information on the number of open and closed early years providers as well as the number of children attending. This information contributes to our regular publication, ‘Attendance in education and early years settings during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak', which is available here:
https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/attendance-in-education-and-early-years-settings-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak.

Term-time attendance at early years settings has been increasing since September. On a typical day in the autumn term, we estimate attendance to be around 887,000 children, due to different and part-time patterns of childcare during the week. We estimate that 753,000 children attended early years settings on 8 October, which is approximately 85% of the usual daily level, and an increase of almost 340,000 from at the end of the summer term.

We are working hard to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 on all parts of our society, including individuals and business. Data from a poll of 1000 parents of 0-4 year old children in May 2020 showed that weekly childcare costs at the time were most commonly the same as or less than before COVID-19 for children in key worker families or where the child is vulnerable. We continue to monitor the situation and have urged all childcare providers to be reasonable and balanced in their dealings with parents, given the great uncertainty they have faced too. More details on the poll is available here:
https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/parents-0-4-year-olds-and-childcare-1st-june-2020.

We are aware that some parents may have experienced a change in working hours or income as direct result of the COVID-19 outbreak. This is why we made temporary changes to ensure parents who would normally have been eligible for, and accessing, the Tax Free Childcare and 30 hours free entitlement remain eligible and can continue to access their childcare.

This includes parents and carers who will not meet the minimum income threshold (16 hours per week at National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage) due to lower earnings as a direct result of COVID-19, who will be treated as meeting that test during the COVID-19 outbreak. This will continue to apply to parents and carers who need to apply for, or reconfirm, their 30 hours and Tax-Free Childcare place until 31 October.