The Department for Education has created a temporary fix for parents who are unable to access the new funded entitlement.

Some parents who use the Tax-Free Childcare system have been unable to apply for a code to access the funded hours for two-year-olds which launch in April, and so have been unable to secure places with providers who are asking for the code in advance.

The Department for Education (DfE) has now sent letters to parents affected containing a temporary code which can be used to claim the entitlement. It has also sent information to providers and asked them to point parents to information about the code on its Education Hub.

Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA), described the fix as “last minute” and said it would “put another layer of potential confusion on an already baffling system”. Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, said he welcomed the “belated” workaround , but pointed out the eligibility codes were a “small part of a much bigger problem” when it came to providers being able to deliver places.

The government also confirmed on 22 January that it is spending an additional £120m to fund the roll out of the extended entitlement from September 2024 to March 2025, after a miscalculation. In response to an urgent question from shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson, minister for children David Johnston said: “We allocated local authorities 22 weeks of funding because that is the period from September to March. Some said they paid 26 weeks to their providers, so we got that money in order they can provide the 26 weeks of funding.”

Tanuku said: “While we welcome the DfE’s response in supporting all local authorities to be able to fund 26 weeks for these two terms, nurseries have been suffering from underfunding for years. They have repeatedly been told that there is no more money. And yet the DfE says they will fund ‘however much it ultimately costs’. Suddenly the government seems to have found £120m of extra funding to enable this.”