Consultation on early years funding in England focuses on SEND and disadvantage
The Department for Education (DfE) have today launched a consultation on proposed changes to the early years funding system. It runs until 14 September 2026.
We welcome the announcement from the Department for Education confirming details of the grant being made available to local authorities to cover the cost of free school meals (FSM) for nursery children in schools from September 2026.
We will seek feedback from members in due course on the adequacy of the funding, which is not being calculated on the same basis as FSM for older children in schools. For 2026-27, the average annual base rate per FSM weighted part-time equivalent (PTE) is £281 or £75 per PTE. The calculations presumably are an attempt to estimate the number of eligible children for whom funding is needed. Local authorities are required to pass on the funding in full and the guidance suggests it is distributed as follows:
“The approach DfE recommends for local authorities is to distribute the funding using the same criteria applied in their local early years funding formula deprivation supplement, restricting it to eligible settings only. This is to ensure this funding is distributed in a way that more accurately reflects relative deprivation. Local authorities should use data covering all age groups, not just 3 and 4-year-old PTEs, and as this reflects the ages of pupils within scope of the FSM expansion. However, local authorities may choose a different approach such as early years pupil premium (EYPP) data for example, where it better meets local needs or incorporates more up-to-date information.”
We have been advocating for some time for government to fund children’s entitlement to early years free school meals. It has long been the case that nursery children were eligible for free schools if they were full-time or attended before and after lunch on the day in question, and met FSM eligibility criteria. However, as identified by the Education Policy Institute, there was much confusion among local authorities and schools about this. and it has not been consistently implemented Part of the problem was that schools were previously expected to pay for the cost of meals from the hourly funding rate. This was not consistent with the Department’s position that settings were able to charge extra for meals because they were not provided for in the funding. We are therefore delighted to see this resolved, and hope it will be a first step towards recognising the need to fund meals for all eligible children, regardless of the type of setting they attend.
The Department for Education (DfE) have today launched a consultation on proposed changes to the early years funding system. It runs until 14 September 2026.
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