Childcare Bill

The purpose of the new clauses and amendments is to allow for a significant improvement in the quality and accuracy of the information we collect about early years provision—that is, integrated child care and early education for children under school age. It will enable more accurate funding to follow the delivery of nursery entitlement for three and four-year-olds and provide essential support to local authorities in the fulfilment of those duties under the Bill. The provisions will enable the Secretary of State and other prescribed persons, such as local authorities, to collect individual child-level information from all registered providers of early years provision in England, in line with the reformed regulatory and inspection framework in the Bill. In Wales, the powers will apply under relevant legislation, consistent with the regulatory framework in Wales. The powers are not to demand information from parents but for local authorities to collect information that providers will hold already. A key purpose of the power is to manage better the funding of free nursery education provision. At present, the information collected by the Government from local government about free entitlement is aggregated information on all the children enrolled with each private, voluntary or independent provider, rather than individual child-level information. Holding such child-level information will reduce the risk of double counting, which we think is happening to some extent at present, where parents use more than one provider for their free nursery entitlement. We are building on the success of that entitlement, progressively increasing the number of hours and weeks, so an increasing amount of public funding is being used to support it. It is thus important that providers receive money for what they actually provide for each child. There are some other reasons for the provisions. The duty for local authorities to improve outcomes for all children and reduce inequalities is one of the cornerstones of the Bill. Local authorities need a full range of information about children in early years provision, to ensure that they are fulfilling that duty. It is also important for central Government to have that information to evaluate effectively the success of the policy. This enabling power to collect information from all early years providers will show how much provision each child receives, and where, and will supply outcome measurements, such as the foundation stage profile. We shall hold full consultations on draft regulations carrying the detail of the proposals. We shall also take careful account of the views of stakeholders, providers and local authorities on how the power is implemented. The ability to collect accurate and robust individual child-level information is essential to ensure the proper allocation of funding and to support local authorities in delivering better outcomes for all children. Amendments Nos. 26 and 27 are consequential, to ensure that the provisions on data collection can be commenced by the appropriate authority at the appropriate time. I commend the new clause to the House.