Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, following on from the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, we also wish to raise some points on the single funding formula. In February 2006, the Government introduced the code of practice which meant that there would be provision of free nursery education places for three- and four-year-olds. At the moment, maintained sector early years education providers are funded by the local authority through the individual school’s budget. Most local authorities base funding for maintained early years education provision on the number of places offered, not on the take-up of places. In contrast, funding for PVI authorities is nearly always based on participation rates. In 2009, this was true for participation in all but one local authority. This leads to unreasonable disparities. In June 2007, the Government announced that local authorities would finally have to use a single funding formula for funding early years provision in the maintained and PVI sectors from 2010-11. This would mean that funding across maintained and PVI providers would be transparent and based on the same factors. We believe this is an important transition to make. What progress has been made with these changes? As will be obvious, ours is a probing amendment at this time. We look forward to the Minister’s response.