New Guidance on FEEE Provision

In February, the government issued new guidance to local authorities, clarifying the position on providing early education and childcare under the Free Early Education Entitlement (FEEE) that’s available to parents. This article looks at what the guidance means for childcare businesses and what they may need to do as a result.

The Department for Education (DfE) issued new statutory guidance last month, following a High Court decision in a complex legal case between a local authority and the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, published earlier in February.

The case concerned the local authority’s responsibility for ensuring that childcare provided under a FEEE scheme is not subject to additional mandatory charges.

The guidance comes into effect from 1 April 2025 and will require childcare providers to be more transparent about how they charge for services. Local authorities will have to work with childcare businesses to make sure that they are fully compliant by the start of 2026.

Specifically, providers should be itemising charges on invoices and receipts, breaking them down to clearly show the cost that is funded under the FEEE scheme, and other categories, including additional hours of childcare that have to be paid privately; charges for activities; charge for food; and charges for other consumable items, such as nappies.

There is also a requirement on childcare providers to publish information about charges on their website, and for the information to be “...clear, up-to-date and easily accessible to parents”. If a provider doesn’t have a website, the information will have to be published on the local authority’s Family Information Services.

As well as listing information about the costs for chargeable extras, providers should also set out the pattern of hours over which parents can use their entitlements. The guidance grants local authorities the power to exempt childminders and other providers that care for 10 or fewer children at a time.

The new guidance reiterates the key principle that the free 15 or 30 hour entitlements must be accessible to parents free of any charge and that parents must not face any additional mandatory charges in relation to the free hours being provided.

As well as updating the guidance, the DfE has provided new versions of the Model Agreement Template and Parental Declaration Form, which are available to download as Microsoft Word documents.