What is working parents entitlement?
Most working parents of three and four year olds are currently eligible for an extra 15 hours of funded childcare a week, term time. Added to their current universal entitlement of 15 hours Funded Early Education for 3 and 4 year olds , this means that their entitlement will increase to a total of 30 hours a week, term time (or 1,140 hours over a year).
From April 2024 early education and childcare for working parents is being extended to support more families.
Eligible working parents of children will be able to get up to 30 hours a week (term time) of funded early education and childcare. This entitlement will be rolled out in phases starting from April 2024.
- April 2024 - working parents of children aged 2 years can get up to 15 hours a week of funded education and childcare, from the term after the child is 2 years old.
- September 2024 - working parents of children aged from 9 months to 3 years old can get up to 15 hours a week funded early education and childcare, from the term after their child turns 9 months.
- September 2025 - working parents of children aged from 9 months to 3 years old can get up to 30 hours a week funded early education and childcare, from the term after their child turns 9 months.
For more information and to find out if they are eligible parents should visit the Childcare Choices website.
Parents eligible from April 2024 will be able to apply for their eligibility code from January 2024. Parents must receive their eligibility code before the 31 March to be able to access this entitlement.
Parents should visit the Childcare Choices website to find out what they may be eligible for and to sign up to the newsletter to get the latest updates about the early education and childcare support expansion.
You can offer this entitlement as 15 to 30 hours a week for 38 weeks a year (called a term time offer) or you may want to spread the total number of funded hours over term time and school holidays by offering fewer hours each week (called a stretched offer).
You don't have to offer the full 15 to 30 hours, a few extra may be all that's needed by parents. Or you might choose to make informal links with another childcare provider to offer a joined-up, stretched service.
Who can offer the working parents entitlement?
To be able to offer the working parents entitlement, your setting must be one of the following:
- a childcare provider registered on the Ofsted Early Years Register
- an independent school registered with the Department for Education (DfE)
- an academy
- a childminder with an outstanding, good or satisfactory/requires improvement Ofsted outcome.
Childminders cannot claim for children they are related to.
Your setting must also be registered on the Surrey County Council Directory of Providers to offer Funded Early Education. Find out how to become a funded early education provider.
Your setting must also complete a Surrey County Council Provider Agreement April to August 2024 in order to offer the funded entitlements from 1 April, this includes those who may not be planning to offer the new entitlements.
How can I offer the working parents entitlement?
The government's Statutory Guidance for Local Authorities sets out how childcare providers can offer the working parents entitlement.
The main features include:
- Only HMRC can decide if a family is eligible so parents must apply for the additional hours through their Childcare Choices website.
- Childcare can be delivered between 6am and 8pm (but for no more than 10 hours each session).
- Childcare can be taken at up to two sites each day and with up to three providers in a year.
- The funding is available over 38 weeks per year. It can also be stretched across a full year if the provider offers this but the number of hours per week would be reduced (for example, 1,140 hours per annum is 30 hours per week for 38 weeks and 22.8 hours per week over 50 weeks).
- Childcare providers will not be restricted to a minimum session length.
- Childcare providers may charge a deposit to secure a funded place but must refund this to parents within a reasonable time, please refer to the Surrey Provider Agreement for what is deemed a reasonable timescale in Surrey. Providers should consult the Statutory Guidance for situations where it may be appropriate for a deposit not to be refunded and are responsible for setting their own notice periods in which the deposit will or will not be returned prior to a child taking up their funded place.
- Childcare providers must publish their admissions criteria and show clearly which hours or sessions can be taken as funded provision and any fees charged for additional time.
- Invoices should show clearly which periods are funded and which additional services or hours taken are being charged for.
- Childcare providers will be able to ask for contributions for meals and snacks as part of a funded place as well as consumables such as nappies and sun cream and for trips and services such as languages or yoga. Providers are responsible for setting their own alternative policy to prevent additional charges from being a barrier to children accessing a funded place.
- Parents that qualify for the working parents entitlement should also qualify for Tax-Free Childcare to help pay for any additional costs.
How can I check parents are eligible?
Parents must apply to make sure they're eligible for the working parents entitlement through the government's Childcare Choices website. There is guidance available to help parents understand if they will qualify Get funded childcare if you're working (GOV.UK). If a parent's application is successful, they'll get given an 11 digit eligibility code.
A child can only take up their working parents entitlement from the term following the date of issue of their eligibility code (this is usually their Validity Start Date).
Checking eligibility codes
If a parent wants to use any of their working parents entitlement hours with you, they need to give you their eligibility code to check. We recommend you do this before you offer the parent a funded childcare place, just to make sure there aren't any problems with the code.
Please note that parents of 2 year olds who are currently using Tax Free Childcare will only be able to apply for the new working parents entitlement from April 2024 once their re-confirmation window is open. This will be before 31 March.
Please note that parents of children aged 9 months who are currently using Tax Free Childcare will only be able to apply for the new working parents entitlement from September 2024 once their re-confirmation window is open. This will be before 31 August.
You may need to check eligibility again before a child starts with you as some time may have passed since you first checked the code.
Childcare settings and schools that claim funding through the portal
If you claim funding through the Funded Early Education Portal, you can check the validity of a code using the online eligibility checker.
You must ask the parents to complete an eligibility form for childcare settings (PDF) which has all the consent information the parent needs to sign before you check the code.
Once this form is completed you can then check a code in the portal by:
- going to 'search for a child' on the blue menu bar
- selecting 'eligibility checker' from the drop down box
- the portal will give you an immediate result.
When making a claim for the working parents entitlement hours the parent should complete a Surrey Funded Early Education - Declaration form. You can then claim for the hours in the usual way through the portal and it will ask you to check eligibility again as some time may have passed since you first checked the code.
Maintained schools that claim funding through schools education
If you are a maintained school who only claims funding for children aged 3 and 4 years old, and you get your funding through schools education you will need to complete an eligibility form for schools (PDF) and send it to the Funded Early Education Team to check the parent's eligibility code is valid.
Contact the Funded Early Education Team by:
- scanning and securely emailing the eligibility forms using Egress Switch to fundedearlyeducation@surreycc.gov.uk
The Funded Early Education Team will run the codes through the government's Eligibility Checking Service and let you know the results.
A child can only take up their working parents entitlement hours from the term following the date of issue of their eligibility code (this is usually their Validity Start Date).
Eligibility code results
Whether you check the code in the portal or if you are a maintained school through the Finance Team, if the code is eligible you will get three pieces of information:
- Validity start date
- Validity end date
- Grace period end date.
Validity start date
The validity start date is the date that a parent makes their first successful application for the working parents entitlement. This date does not change unless the parent falls out of eligibility and then due to their circumstances changing, successfully reapplies giving them a new validity start date.
Validity end date
This is the date when the parent's working parents entitlement will end and the grace period will start. When the parent reconfirms their eligibility, the validity end date moves forward about three months.
Grace period end date
This is the date when the working parents entitlement will end if the parent has not successfully reconfirmed their eligibility. This date changes when the parent reconfirms their eligibility.
Reconfirming eligibility codes
Parents need to reconfirm that they're still eligible every three months. The Department for Education will send parents a text message and/or email to remind them to reconfirm four weeks before their validity end date and again two weeks before if they still haven't reconfirmed. Please note, the Department for Education will not include a link in their text message or email for parents to click on to reconfirm their code (if parents are sent an email asking them to click on a link to reconfirm it is likely phishing). There should also be a secure message in their Childcare Service Account.
Parents will not get a new eligibility code, they'll just get a new validity end date and grace period end date. You do not need to tell us if a parent has re-confirmed their eligibility code.
The Funded Early Education Portal rechecks eligibility codes automatically and will let you know if a parent is no longer eligible for the working parents entitlement along with the date their grace period ends and funding will stop.
If the family's circumstances have changed and they are no longer eligible for the working parents entitlement or they have not reconfirmed their eligibility, they can still get the universal 15 hours of Funded Early Education for 3 and 4 year olds, or they may be eligible to apply for 15 hours Funded Early Education for 2 year olds (FEET).
How do I claim the working parents entitlement?
Surrey Family Services' Funding Team pays the funding for the working parents entitlement childcare directly to childcare providers. Once you've applied to become a funded early education provider and are registered on Surrey County Council's Directory of Providers, you'll be able to make claims through our online Funded Early Education Portal.
Providers are only able to claim funding on a term time basis (over 38 weeks per year). However, providers may choose to offer these stretched across the year if they wish to rather than just over 38 weeks.
Please note that when delivering funded entitlement on a stretched basis you should make parents aware that at certain points of the year, it may be that you have offered more funded hours than you have been able to claim. In this situation, you may need to invoice parents for these additional hours. This would be at your standard charge and you would need to make this clear in your terms and conditions.
Please see the Stretched Funding Guidance, Information slides, and frequently asked questions available on the Providing Funded Early Education web page for further details.
The Provider Agreement explains how to make claims. You can download most of the forms you'll need from the Providing funded early education web page.
How much will I be paid?
The current 3 and 4 year old working entitlement rate is £6.05 per hour.
From summer 2024, the new 2 year old working entitlement rate is £8.54 per hour.
You may also be able to claim the Disability Access Fund or Early Years Pupil Premium for eligible children.
What can I do to prepare?
You might like to consider the following:
- Designing a questionnaire (PDF) to identify how many parents will be entitled to the working parents entitlements and how they would want to access them.
- How you could stretch the extended hours across more than 38 weeks a year and how many hours per week would be available to parents.
- How to decide how many of your places should be allocated to working parents, 15 hour children (universal hours) and those children eligible for Funded Early Education for Two year olds (FEET). Introducing a mixed model can create a positive impact on your sustainability by balancing your intake this year and in future years.
- What you can do if you can't open for 30 hours a week.
- Working with other providers to offer more hours.
- Ideas for extending your current opening hours.
- Providing lunches, early drop-offs and late pick-ups.
- Checking your capacity for child places.
- Extending or adapting the premises.
- Revising your admissions policy to show how you will allocate your places.
- Revising your application forms so parents can show if they're eligible for funded early education and including a space for the working parents entitlements childcare eligibility codes.
- Having an appeals process if parents are unable to access all the time they want.
- How you will promote and market (PDF) your childcare provision. This could include displaying a funded childcare poster to parents or using your website and social media (PDF).
- Considering the effect of these changes on your staff working hours, wages, qualifications and training.
Contact us
If you have any questions about the working parents entitlements please email the Funded Early Education Team at fundedearlyeducation@surreycc.gov.uk
If you need to post us anything please send it to Funded Early Education Team, Surrey County Council, Woodhatch Place, 11 Cockshot Hill, Reigate, RH2 8EF
We will share more information as and when we have it through our Childcare professionals update e-bulletins so make sure you're signed up for these.
Files available to download
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Working parents entitlement eligibility consent form – Childcare (PDF)
Form for childcare settings to use to collect parent's consent to share their information with the local authority.
