School-age childcare local authority capacity funding guidance

Question 1

Purpose of this guidance

Accepted Answer

The Department for Education (DfE) is providing local authorities with £12.9 million of additional funding in the 2026 to 2027 financial year to support their capacity to deliver a sufficient and sustainable school-age childcare system.

This guidance sets out DfE’s expectations on how local authorities should use this funding to support the delivery and sustainability of school-age childcare. This includes through supporting the national rollout of free breakfast clubs and fostering links between holiday childcare and the holidays, activities and food (HAF) programme to maximise opportunities to deliver a sustainable school-age childcare market.

Together with HAF programme funding, this funding is being simplified into a single consolidated grant: the Children, Families and Youth Grant. This guidance should be read alongside the:

Holiday activities and food programme guidance
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s Funding Simplification Explanatory Note

Local authorities are required by Section 6 of the Childcare Act 2006 to ensure there are enough childcare places within their locality for working parents or for parents who are studying or training for employment, for children aged 0 to 14 (or up to 18 for disabled children). This guidance does not supersede the existing duty.

We expect to provide local authorities with additional guidance on school-age childcare, including further expectations on our approach to monitoring and support, in spring 2026.

School-age childcare

School-aged childcare refers to paid-for and free childcare provision for children from reception onwards, delivered outside of normal school hours, such as:

before and after school
during school holidays
on inset days

School-age childcare includes childcare provided by schools, PVIs and childminders, both on and off the school premises. School-age childcare includes programmes that may not have childcare as their primary focus but provide care for children outside of the school day. This includes government programmes such as free breakfast clubs and the HAF programme.

Some childcare providers may extend their offer to nursery age children. School-age childcare is distinct from pre-reception age Early Years childcare, including school-based nurseries.

Vision for school-age childcare

The need for childcare does not stop when children reach school age. We know many families continue to need childcare before and after school, and during the school holidays. In addition to wider investment in more accessible early education and childcare, we are taking a strategic approach to the future of school-age childcare which builds on the successes of existing programmes such as the National Wraparound Childcare programme, the HAF programme and the national rollout of the free breakfast clubs programme, to ensure families are supported, year round, by an outstanding school-age childcare system.

Through this investment, we want to support local authorities to deliver a sustainable, thriving childcare market that benefits children, parents, and communities. To achieve this, we expect local authorities to facilitate the delivery of sufficient childcare, in accordance with their existing duty, that responds to local need and is underpinned by strong local leadership and a well-coordinated system that promotes collaboration and efficiency.

Local authorities should use their unique position to ensure local families are empowered and informed of their childcare choices and available financial support. Together, these actions will build a resilient system that meets local needs and supports the long term sustainability of school-age childcare.

Question 2

Local authority capacity support funding 2026 to 2027

Accepted Answer

This funding is intended to support school-age childcare provision across term-time and holiday periods, including but not limited to:

ensuring the sustainability of wraparound places already created and supporting the market to deliver further places where needed
supporting the rollout of free breakfast clubs
working closely with the delivery of the HAF programme to ensure join up between HAF funded holiday activities and wider holiday childcare in the area, within a thriving childcare market

This funding forms part of the HAF programme funding, and is part of the wider Children’s, Youth and Families Grant delivered through the local government finance settlement. This will help simplify the local government funding landscape. This includes reducing the number of funding streams to local authorities and bringing together existing revenue grants that fund similar services into consolidated grants. Payments to local authorities will be made by MHCLG, who will also publish the grant determination letter for the Children, Youth and Families Grant at the final LGFS in February.

Local authorities should consider how other government programmes fit within their local childcare strategy to create a sustainable market. This fund is complementary to the HAF programme and other Department initiatives. Local authorities are encouraged to align their school-age childcare strategies with broader efforts to:

support families
reduce inequalities
improve educational outcomes

For information on local authority allocations, read the HAF grant allocations.

Purpose of the funding

The local authority capacity support fund is designed to enhance local capacity to support, monitor and drive inclusive, high quality before-school, after-school and holiday childcare in local areas which meets the needs of parents and carers, and children. In particular:

improve understanding of local school-age childcare sufficiency including supply and demand, shape of the provider market and barriers to the delivery of inclusive, high-quality places
work with parents, providers and other relevant organisations (for example Jobcentre Plus), to drive demand, supply and connect parents to childcare offers and available financial support, including supporting the sustainability of existing childcare places
support providers to deliver high-quality, inclusive childcare that meets parents’ needs and expectations
maximise school-age childcare provision through join-up of paid-for and free programmes (in particular, the HAF and free breakfast clubs programme)
support the national rollout of the free breakfast clubs programme in schools

Use of funding

Use this funding for local authority capacity costs, including staffing, administration, and other internal costs associated with supporting the delivery of sufficient school-age childcare. This may include contracting temporary external support to fulfil the conditions of the grant.

The funding should not be used to subsidise the cost of places for parents, nor should it be distributed to childcare providers.

Funding methodology

Local authority capacity funding is based on the proportion of school-age pupils attending schools in their areas and the overall budget. Additional weighting is applied for areas with higher levels of disadvantage and for local authorities with small populations. This methodology intends to strike a balance of factors which may result in varied school-age childcare demand and sufficiency challenges, such as:

deprivation levels
existing supply levels (including as a result of the national wraparound childcare programme)
the number of households with children
the employment rates of households with children, by local authority

Question 3

Expectations for local authorities

Accepted Answer

The Children, Families, and Youth Grant conditions specify that local authorities must have regard to this guidance. DfE expects local authorities to fulfil the responsibilities set out in this guidance.

Assign a school-age childcare lead

In line with the grant conditions, local authorities must have in place a nominated school-age childcare lead or a named individual who takes responsibility for school-age childcare. They will be responsible for maintaining strategic oversight of the local school-age childcare market and developing strategies to ensure that provision of school-age childcare in their local area meets the needs of parents and carers, and children.

Local authorities can use their discretion when deciding whether to create a new role or embed responsibilities into existing roles within the authority. Some of these responsibilities may overlap with existing roles, such as the local authority’s HAF coordinator. Local authorities should consider the most effective and efficient use of their staff when delegating these responsibilities, and encourage school-age childcare leads to work in collaboration with HAF coordinators where practicable. Local authorities should inform DfE who is responsible for school-age childcare through the relevant avenues and notify them if the named officer changes.

Expected responsibilities for the designated resource can be grouped by:

strategic leadership and compliance
market planning and cross-team coordination
provider engagement sustainability
programme delivery
parental engagement

Strategic leadership and compliance

This should include:

acting as a point of contact for DfE in relation to school-age childcare sufficiency
fulfilling the requirements of the grant conditions as set out in the guidance, including assurance and data returns
fulfilling the reporting requirements as set out by DfE in current and future guidance
coordinating the local school-age childcare strategy, ensuring alignment with statutory duties, grant conditions, and existing school-age childcare programmes

Market planning and cross-team coordination

This should include:

working collaboratively with other officials responsible for childcare and other parent or child-facing services to understand local need and seek opportunities to streamline services and maximise school-age childcare sufficiency
working with HAF coordinators to ensure there is a holistic, joined-up approach to funding providers that supports the sustainability of school-age childcare in the locality
working across teams within the local authority (for example, early years entitlements, pupil place planning, admissions teams) to forecast supply and demand for school-age childcare across different provider types

Provider engagement and sustainability

This should include:

working with providers to support the sustainability of places established or expanded through the national wraparound childcare programme
engaging and supporting local schools and providers to facilitate the delivery of wider inclusive, high quality before-school, after-school, and holiday childcare to meet demand
addressing gaps identified through supply and demand mapping and drive demand to support market sustainability
engaging and supporting local schools and providers in their delivery of school-age childcare

Programme delivery

This should include:

engaging with and provide support for schools delivering the government’s free breakfast clubs programme, including early adopters and national rollout preparation
working with other programme coordinators, such as the HAF coordinator and Early Years leads, to ensure a joined-up local childcare strategy

Parental engagement

This should include:

ensuring parents and carers have the information they need about the availability of school-age childcare in their areas
ensuring parents and carers are aware of the available financial support available to support them with school-age childcare costs, such as tax-free childcare and Universal Credit childcare support

School-age childcare leads should make an independent judgement on how they distribute their time across each of the programmes and responsibilities. Decisions should be made using data and evidence on local provision and need in order to best deliver on local and programme objectives.

Engage with DfE’s sufficiency support offer

DfE will be making a range of support available, which local authorities will be required to engage with as appropriate. This will include:

providing access to practical resources for local authorities to use independently
facilitating peer networks to support collaboration and share best practice
providing targeted support to those local authorities who require additional help

We will publish further information of the specifics of this support offer in spring 2026.

There are a range of resources available to local authorities through childcare works.

Support childcare providers

The local authority should engage with and support providers of school-age childcare to maximise the sufficiency and sustainability of existing and new high-quality, inclusive provision. This should include:

schools
PVIs and childminders
organisations who support the delivery of the free breakfast clubs and HAF programmes

Local authorities should support the sustainability of places delivered through the national wraparound childcare programme. Types of support local authorities should consider include:

communication and guidance
market support
monitor local provision
operational and business support
programme integration

Communication and guidance

Local authorities should consider:

publishing information on available local authority support for providers, including contact information so that providers can contact the teams responsible for school-age childcare, wraparound childcare, free breakfast clubs and HAF
providing guidance and advice for school-age childcare providers available, including promoting and signposting the guidance and best practice resources to support the sustainability of provision, including, but not limited to, all providers that received wraparound programme funding and free breakfast club funding
providing guidance and advice for providers delivering school-age childcare for children and young people with SEND and supporting parents of children with SEND to find suitable provision, including directing providers to existing resources such as the SEND toolkit to support the facilitation of more inclusive provision

Market support

Local authorities should consider:

providing business support to providers on expansion and market entry
promoting Ofsted registration to providers to enable parents to use tax-free childcare (TFC) and Universal Credit (UC) to pay for provision, and familiarise themselves with the different Ofsted requirements to support providers through the registration process
supporting providers to promote financial support to eligible parents
promoting and support schools to handle parental right to request transparently and connecting families to alternative options when on-site school-age childcare is not viable
brokering relationships between schools and PVIs to support the creation of new provision, where needed (including breakfast clubs, holiday clubs, and wraparound childcare)
networking and collaboration between local schools that would benefit from hub models

Monitor local provision

Local authorities should consider:

monitoring stability of provision, identifying opportunities for expansion, and where provision is at risk, engaging with providers early to prevent escalation of risk, including monitoring the sufficiency of SEND provision
considering collection of relevant information to help identify early indicators that providers are at risk (falling occupancy, rising cancellations, staffing churn) and establishing a clear intervention approach (advice, brokering, signposting to further support)

Operational and business support

Local authorities should consider how they can support:

schools and PVIs with finding suitable space to deliver breakfast clubs, holiday clubs, and wraparound childcare
providers in establishing sustainable models and maximising estates
providers with workforce sustainability, for example by sharing recruitment strategies, linking to local job centres, or promoting training opportunities
providers, where required, to work towards delivering high quality provision, for example by developing and promoting local quality standards, and facilitating or signposting to relevant training

Programme integration

Local authorities should consider:

working with HAF co-ordinators to explore opportunities for introducing or expanding places using mixed models (joining the delivery of free and paid for provision), in line with the HAF guidance, and co-ordinate provider support
supporting schools delivering free breakfast clubs and integrate with wider school-age childcare, including benefits of extending provision beyond free breakfast clubs itself

Local authorities should strive to deliver a provider market that meets local needs and adapts to changing demand. By identifying and removing obstacles that hinder childcare providers from expanding and supporting the integration of existing and new provision, they can support market sustainability.

Local authorities should identify challenges and work with schools and providers to develop and implement strategies to overcome these. Potential challenges could include:

staffing
premises
transport
parental demand
integration of free and paid-for provision
provision and transport for children with SEND

DfE expects the local authorities to include details of challenges faced in their annual school-age childcare assessment and other DfE data collections.

Support delivery of free breakfast clubs

Local authorities should strive to ensure that all parents of primary school-age children who need it will be able to access term-time childcare in their local area from 8am to 6pm. The free breakfast clubs programme should be utilised to contribute towards this aim by increasing school-age childcare accessibility and affordability for families through the provision of thirty minutes free before-school childcare.

Local authorities can support schools to set up and run free breakfast clubs and are expected to support the delivery of the free breakfast clubs programme from April 2026. To complement DfE’s offer, they should work with local schools and stakeholders to support successful delivery of new free breakfast clubs and support the sustainability of the wider school-age childcare provision. They should also encourage eligible schools to join the programme to help ensure successful rollout.

As a minimum, school-age childcare leads should support schools to deliver new free breakfast clubs. This includes both encouraging engagement with the free breakfast clubs programme and supporting schools to overcome barriers to delivery by:

engaging with schools to drive their understanding of how and when they can sign up to the programme, and sharing relevant information from DfE
contacting all schools engaged on the free breakfast clubs programme in set-up phase before they begin delivery and then regularly contacting them in delivery to identify any support needs
developing and delivering a package of support that builds on and complements DfE’s offer, based on needs of schools, preparing to and delivering free breakfast clubs
providing initial support to schools either individually or through local meetings or events, including those that are struggling with delivery and escalating to DfE as required
encouraging peer-to peer support between schools to share learning and best practice, including from schools already successfully delivering with those joining the programme
engaging with schools to drive pupil take up of free breakfast clubs, considering the needs of working parents, and how to encourage sustained take-up among children who are vulnerable to food poverty and hunger, or those who need extra support in areas such as attendance, behaviour, or wellbeing
raising risks as they become aware of them to either individual school or local authority delivery as appropriate

Examples of support local authorities should consider including within their offer may include:

helping with integrating the free breakfast clubs offer into current breakfast or wraparound provision, or the opportunity to build on free breakfast clubs to offer wider provision
facilitating partnerships between schools, trusts and PVI childcare providers where appropriate to support effective delivery of free breakfast clubs considering local need
supporting schools to consider different options to enable children to attend free breakfast clubs where transport is currently a barrier
guidance and support on safeguarding, food procurement, and waste disposal
practical support for implementation (including supporting with workforce and space considerations)

It is the responsibility of parents and carers to drop off children at free breakfast clubs or make alternative transport arrangements.

Local authorities are not required to make travel arrangements to enable children to attend free breakfast clubs, but should continue to consider how transport barriers impact the take-up and sustainability of school-age childcare places within specific local areas, including impacts of home to school transport arrangements provided by the authority.

Local authorities should communicate and promote DfE’s messaging on the free breakfast clubs programme to ensure that information about free breakfast clubs in their area is accessible to parents and carers, schools, and across the wider local authority.

Information should be incorporated into existing communications on early years and school-age childcare on their family information service or equivalent local authority website.

This should include a list of schools actively enrolled on the free breakfast clubs programme. DfE will inform local authorities of participating schools in their area once they have been confirmed.

Information for parents

Section 12 of the Childcare Act 2006 stipulates that local authorities must maintain a service providing information, advice and assistance to parents or prospective parents, which should cover the provision of childcare in their local area.

Raising awareness of available provision across term-time and holidays (including the HAF and free breakfast club offers), and of available financial support and assistance, is essential for supporting parents to access school-age childcare, and securing long-term sustainability of provision.

Local authorities should embed school-age childcare into existing family information services, but also proactively identify opportunities for driving demand, including raising awareness of school-age childcare services to parents. Information that should be promoted to increase parental awareness includes:

existing school-age childcare provision (including breakfast clubs, after-school provision and holiday childcare)
type of provision (school-run, PVI and childminders)
details of the childcare that is available, including opening and closing times, costs and what is provided (for example enrichment activities)
a parent’s right to request school-age childcare, local authorities should promote this and support schools to handle requests in line with DfE guidance
available childcare subsidies (including TFC and UC childcare)
contact details and information for parents requiring more tailored support (for example transport)

Examples of potential approaches for increasing awareness of available information and services include:

maintaining an up-to-date section on the Family Information Service website with details of term-time and holiday provision, and links to financial support offers
working with other partners including use of targeted campaigns (for example schools, HAF co-ordinators, EY leads, job centres, Best Start Family Hubs, housing developers) to promote locally available school-age childcare options
working with EY providers to ensure families are supported with the transition to school-age childcare and making them aware of the options and (financial) support available to them
supporting with parent’s right to request and monitoring school handling of requests.
hosting information sessions at schools or community venues to explain childcare options and financial support
distributing printed materials posters and leaflets in libraries, GP surgeries, children’s centres, local businesses and job centres

Question 4

Data and evidence collection

Accepted Answer

Local authorities must provide school-age childcare data and evidence to the DfE as required. This will include, but is not limited to, the wraparound childcare data collection process.

It is important that local authorities can demonstrate their understanding of the needs of local families and have a comprehensive knowledge of the local childcare market based on robust data to support them in making a confident assessment of school-age childcare sufficiency. This should include:

supply data, and data that supports demand mapping such as parent waiting lists
school admissions data
early years data
school capacity data

It is also important that local authorities can provide evidence of the actions they have taken, or intend to take, to support school-age childcare sufficiency and sustainability.

Annual childcare sufficiency assessment

Section B.2 of the statutory guidance on Early Education and Childcare sets the expectation that local authorities should report annually to elected council members. This report will include how they are meeting their duty to secure sufficient childcare and should be made available and accessible to parents.

DfE expects local authorities to base their childcare sufficiency assessment (CSA) reports on robust data relating to supply and demand in their local area. They should ensure that there is adequate detail and evidence to support their assessment of school-age childcare sufficiency. This is alongside their assessment of early years sufficiency, including in relation to their entitlement funding.

For the first time, DfE is requesting that local authorities provide us with their CSA. Local authorities have autonomy over when in the financial year they complete their annual CSA. However, they will be required to submit their CSA for the 2026 to 2027 financial year before the end of said financial year.

We know many local authorities already complete the school-age elements of their CSA to a high standard. To support the consistency and quality of these assessments we have compiled a list of school-age elements we expect local authorities to incorporate within their annual CSA.