The Childcare Offer for Wales

What is the Offer? 30 hours of free childcare for 3 and 4 year olds, in working families, for 48 weeks a year.

What are the drivers? Economic benefit – access to free childcare will remove this as a barrier to returning to employment. Tackling Poverty – enabling parents to return to or increase their employment, improving families prospects. Benefits for the child – supporting existing child development pathways.

Where are we? Started work under the previous administration First priority - scope the offer operationally: What makes up the 30 hours? How many children will be eligible? How long are they eligible for? What is a working parent? How does the 48 weeks provision break down?

Where are we? Second stage – scope the offer strategically: Reinforcing or extending early education? Delivery through maintained and non-maintained settings? Parental choice? Who do we pay the money to? How do we support the Welsh language? How do we support children with additional learning needs?

Difficult Questions - CO How do we make this easy for parents and providers to access? How do we make this as seamless as possible for parents and children to navigate? What rate do we pay to ensure providers take part, but not skew the market? Is there capacity in the sector? What about the those not getting the Offer?

Difficult Questions - FP How do we make sure that the offer fits best with and doesn't undermine the FP? How do we build on currently varied FP? Hours, start of full-time, funding rates Holiday provision Can we introduce more flexibility into FP delivery? How do we maintain or improve quality of FP provision?

Current Activity Oral Statement – 8 November Stakeholder Engagement – Providers Group Stakeholder Engagement – Parent Forums Understanding the Sector Research and Evaluation – questionnaire on FP provision and initial costs work Programme Governance Early Implementation

Timetable Autumn 2016 – Outline the Offer Spring 2017 – Work with Early Adopters Autumn 2017 – Pilots Spring 2018 – Review and Refresh Autumn 2018 – Widen pilots The expectation is the Offer will be in place towards the end of the Assembly.

Working with ADEW Need your views - and facts and figures - on current provision and options for change Detailed costings work Information from schools and settings Understanding and using the information from the pilots. How best for us to work with ADEW? 'Mini secondments', working groups, seminar with Directors.