(2) what assessment his Department has made of the level of funding per capita for the free 2.5 hour early years session for three and four year olds that is being passed onto (a) private, voluntary and independent sector nurseries, pre-schools and daycare providers and (b) maintained sector nurseries, pre-schools and daycare providers by each local education authority in south east England.
The free entitlement is delivered by a very diverse range of providers in the maintained, private, and voluntary and independent sectors, which would make it impossible to identify a single unit cost for delivery of nursery education and care.
Because of this diversity. local authorities—in consultation with their school forums—are responsible for deciding how best to apply their total school and early years funding across all age groups and between different types of provider, based on an assessment of local circumstances. The code of practice on the provision of free nursery education places for three and four-year-olds requires local authorities to ensure settings are funded equitably, transparently and fairly, reflecting local need.
At national level, estimated expenditure on under 5s by local authorities in 2005-06, the latest year for which outturn data is available, is £3,473 million The Department is currently working with authorities to produce estimates of the level of funding allocated to early years in each local authority and its distribution between the PVI and maintained sectors in 2005-06 and 2006-07. We intend to collate and publish these estimates in August so that authorities can benchmark their approaches to funding the free entitlement. This is part of a wider package of reforms of the early years funding system announced on 25 June 2007 and available at
www.teachernet.gov.uk/schoolfunding2008to11