Report: Evidence from providers’ finances from survey of childcare and early years 2018
Several important changes in childcare policy in England in recent years have had financial implications for providers of Early Years education and childcare.
These include the introduction of 30 hours free childcare for children of working parents and Tax Free Childcare, as well as ongoing expansion of support for childcare expenses in the rollout of Universal Credit to parents.
In addition, the introduction of the Early Years National Funding Formula for the free early education entitlement for three and four year olds in 2017 brought notable changes to the funding of the free provision.
This report presents an analysis of Early Years providers’ finances using data from the Survey of Childcare and Early Years Providers (SCEYP) for 2018.
The objectives of this work are:
- To present the total cost of delivering childcare for all ages of children in the setting and the total income received by the setting, together with their constituent parts , for different types of providers.
- To analyse how the ratio of total income to total cost relates to setting characteristics such as child profile and geographic location.
- To explore providers’ costs by describing the patterns in the unit cost and staff hourly pay and analysing how these patterns relate to provider type, setting characteristics and individual staff characteristics.
- To explore providers’ income by describing the patterns in the underlying parent-paid hourly fees and additional charges for parents and analysing how these patterns relate to provider type and setting characteristics.
- To combine the evidence to develop an understanding of the financial models of different types of settings.
