Purpose

The
decision is to approve final hourly funding rates paid in 2023/24
to providers of the funded early entitlement for two, three and
four year olds under the early years funding formula.  These hourly rates could not be agreed at the date
of the Cabinet report because at that point insufficient data on
take up of the funded early entitlement was available to determine
affordability and the DfE had not yet published the rates at which
local authorities would be funded for early years for
2023/24.
 

Content

Decision made:
 
It
was AGREED that the hourly rates for 2023/24 should be:
For
three and four year olds, £5.14 (increase of
27p).  The total increase is equal to
the increase in the DfE hourly funding rate (of 27p like for like).
This reflects the fact that no significant underspend is now
expected in 2022/23 (as at 31 March 2023).
 
For
two year olds, £6.65/hour, an increase of 52p.  The DfE increase was 62p and the lower increase in
the hourly rate reflects previous year overspends and the need to
set a sustainable rate which contains costs of provision for two
year olds within budget going forward. The proposed rate is in line
with discussions with Schools Forum, but is likely to mean some
level of overspend in 2023/24
 
Additionally an hourly rate supplement of 27p/hr will be
implemented for state maintained providers employing qualified
nursery teachers in the teacher pension scheme (33p/hr for
maintained nursery schools).