The government has announced it will be taking action to tackle reported instances of parents facing “very high” additional childcare charges on top of the funded entitlement hours. 

The Department for Education (DfE) said it would engage with local authorities and providers to clarify statutory guidance on charging for funded early years places, including on so-called ‘top-up fees’ . It said it would consider how to better support local authorities to protect parents from overcharging.

The DfE said additional charges, such as  mandatory extra charges for nappies, lunch or other “consumables”, should not be made a condition of accessing a funded place.

The news, which forms part of a wider announcement on funding for school-based nurseries, came after the DfE agreed to replace the word “‘”free”’” with “government-funded” in any marketing materials on the 15 and 30 hour entitlement. Primary schools can now apply for up to £150,000 of £15 million capital funding, with the first stage of the plan set to support up to 300 new or expanded nurseries across England.

Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, said: “We fully agree that it is important that providers are clear and transparent with parents on any additional fees and charges being issued beyond the funded hours. That said, many in the sector will be understandably frustrated at the mixed messages coming out from government: while the Department for Education recently confirmed that going forward it will refer to the early entitlements as ‘government-funded’ rather than ‘free’, under DfE guidance, providers are still not allowed to ask parents to subsidise the insufficient rates they receive from government.” 

He added: “At the Alliance, we believe that every family, regardless of their income, should be able to access affordable and high-quality early years provision – and we know that nurseries, pre-schools and childminders do their best to keep costs low. The reality is, however, that years of underfunding have made it impossible for the vast majority to stay afloat without introducing some form of additional charges. 

“Ultimately, the only way to ensure that early education is genuinely affordable for all is to ensure that sector funding reflects the true cost of delivering high-quality early years provision, both now and in the future. Without this, all the guidance clarity in the world won’t actually help make places more affordable for parents.”