2025 to 2026 early years national funding formulae: technical note

Question 1

1. Introduction

Accepted Answer

This technical note describes the methodology for the 3 early years funding formulas that have been used to calculate final hourly rates and illustrative allocations for the early years government funded entitlements for financial year 2025 to 2026. These are:

a. 3 and 4-year-old entitlements

universal 15 hours entitlement
additional 15 hours entitlement for eligible working parents

b. 2-year-old entitlements

15 hours entitlement for eligible families receiving additional support. Throughout this technical note, this will be referred to as the 2-year-old ‘FRAS’ entitlement. This entitlement was previously referred to as the ‘2-year-old disadvantaged entitlement’
15 hours entitlement for eligible working parents, which increases to 30 hours from September 2025

c. Under 2s entitlement

15 hours entitlement for eligible working parents, which increases to 30 hours from September 2025

This document also covers the methodology for:

calculating the final hourly funding rate and illustrative allocations for maintained nursery school (MNS) supplementary funding
calculating the national funding rates for the early years pupil premium (EYPP) and disability access fund (DAF)
how we have rolled in additional funding to reflect increases to teachers’ pay from September 2024

This document accompanies the early years funding rates and step-by-step calculations 2025 to 2026 tables. These will be referred to as the ‘accompanying step-by-step tables’ and include:

a ‘National calculations’ tab showing illustrative national allocations funding totals for the entitlements and MNS supplementary funding and how formula factor rates have been derived
a ‘National average rates’ tab, containing 2025 to 2026 illustrative national average rates to local authorities for the entitlements and MNS supplementary funding, and the national rates for EYPP and DAF
local authority-level hourly rates tables for each of the entitlements and MNS supplementary funding
step-by-step tables for each of the entitlements and MNS supplementary funding showing how each local authority’s funding rate and illustrative allocations total has been calculated
several additional tabs providing further details on the area cost adjustment (ACA), formula factor data and how teachers’ pay funding has been incorporated

The Isles of Scilly and City of London have been excluded from these allocations as these local authorities receive a central grant from the government, which includes funding for early years.

Indicative allocations for the early years block will be announced in the dedicated schools grant allocations (DSG) table in December 2024.

Question 2

2. Key differences between 2024 to 2025 and 2025 to 2026

Accepted Answer

This section explains how the methodology for the EYNFFs in 2025 to 2026 differs from the previous year. Readers who are not already familiar with the EYNFFs’ methodology may wish to skip this section for now.

Since 2024 to 2025, no significant changes have been made to the methodologies used to calculate local authority-level hourly funding rates. The only change to calculations has been to include the expansion of the 2-year-old and under 2s working parent entitlements to 30-hours, which will be available from September 2025.This change is described in more detail in the section on ‘part-time equivalent (PTE) data for the entitlements’.

National average rates have been increased in line with the forecast average earnings growth and inflation, and final 2025 national living wage (NLW) arrangements, based on the data available when setting the early years entitlements budget for 2025 to 2026. See annex B for further detail on the specific data used.

Data have been updated, where possible, resulting in changes to the area cost adjustments and formula factor hourly rates for the early years entitlements (see tables 3, 4 and 5 for relevant factor values). A full list of data updates is provided in annex B and the most notable data updates are:

to estimate the local authority-level distribution of working parent PTEs for 2-year-olds and under 2s, outturn data (collected in the May 2024 school census and summer term local authority count, which covered non-school-based providers) on take up of the 2-year-old working parent entitlement has been used, rather than using the additional hours distribution as a proxy, which was the approach taken in 2024 to 2025
to estimate the proportion of provision in schools for 2-year-olds and under 2s, data have been updated to make use of outturn data where available. These data are used to weight together the nurseries rates cost adjustment (NRCA) and infant and primary rates cost adjustment (IPRCA) measures to create the nursery, infant and primary rates cost adjustment (NIPRCA) measure (that is, the premises costs portion of the area cost adjustment). See the ACA section for further details on this calculation. This update means that slightly different approaches have been taken for each age group, to recognise the different entitlements available at each age:
- 2-year-old provision in schools has been estimated using January 2024 data on the 2-year-old families receiving additional support (FRAS) entitlement in combination with data on the 2-year-old working parent entitlement, collected in the May 2024 school census and summer term local authority count
- under 2s provision in schools has been estimated using data on the 2-year-old working parent entitlement only, which was collected in the May 2024 school census and summer term local authority count
the premises costs portion of the area cost adjustment have been updated for more recent data. Whilst it is standard to update these data each year, the impact of this update is larger than usual due to the impact of the 2023 revaluations being included for the first time. Please see the area cost adjustment section and annex B for further details

Protection arrangements have been updated for 2025 to 2026:

year-to-year protection: across the main entitlements, a year-to-year protection of +0.5% has been applied against 2024 to 2025 early years DSG rates
gains cap: for 2025 to 2026, the following gains caps have been applied against 2024 to 2025 early years DSG rates
- on 3 and 4-year-olds a 3.9% gains cap
- on 2-year-olds a 6.1% gains cap
- on under 2s a 7.6% gains cap

For the 3 and 4-year-old formula, the minimum funding floor (MFF) has been increased to £5.71.

Additional funding to reflect increases to teachers’ pay from September 2024 has been rolled into 3 and 4-year-old and MNS supplementary funding rates, following the established method used in previous years: see the ‘Teachers’ pay notional rate calculations’ section of this document for further details.

The MNS supplementary funding MFF has been increased to £5.27 and the cap remains at £10.

The DAF national rate has been uplifted in line with an age-weighted cost pressure, reflecting the full age range of children taking up the entitlements, that is from 9-months to 4-years-old, instead of the previous approach of uplifting in line with 3 and 4-year-old cost pressures only.

The EYPP national rate has been uplifted to reflect additional investment in the early years budget in 2025 to 2026 to support the most disadvantaged children.

Question 3

3. Early years national funding formulae (EYNFF) methodology

Accepted Answer

3.1 Part-time equivalent (PTE) data for the entitlements

Using PTE data

As in previous years, the funding rates for early years entitlements are calculated using part-time equivalents (PTEs), which are a unit of hours. One PTE is defined as 570 hours of childcare, presented as 15 hours per week over 38 weeks. Therefore, a child taking up 12 hours per week for 38 weeks would be counted as 0.8 PTE.

PTEs are used for all entitlements, including where an entitlement starts or increases part way through the financial year, or where the entitlement exceeds 15 hours per week. This ensures a consistent approach to accounting for take up across the entitlements.

For example, with the expansion to 30 hours of the 2-year-old and under 2s working parent entitlement from September 2025, eligible children will be funded for 15 hours per week for the first 13 weeks of the year (April to August) and 30 hours per week for the remaining 25 weeks of the year (September to March). To calculate what this equates to in terms of PTEs, we take the total number of hours delivered across the full financial year, divide by 15 (hours per week) and then divide by 38 (weeks per year). A child aged 2 or under taking up the working parent entitlement in full in 2025 to 2026 would therefore count as 1.66 PTEs.

For each of the age groups, only the PTEs relating to the first 15 hours of each entitlement are used to calculate the funding rates, these rates are then applied to all hours of the relevant entitlements. This method has been used to ensure consistency of approach, where possible, in the calculation of funding rates across the entitlements and means that:

for 3 and 4-year-olds, the universal hours PTEs are used to calculate funding rates, and these rates are then applied to both the universal and additional hours entitlements
for 2-year-olds, the ‘notional’^{[footnote 1]} first 15 hours (that is, the sum of the PTEs for the 2-year-old FRAS entitlement and the PTEs relating to the notional first 15 hours for the 2-year-old working parent entitlement) are used to calculate funding rates which are then applied to all hours of 2-year-old entitlements
for under 2s, similarly, the PTEs relating to the ‘notional’ first 15 hours of the working parent entitlement are used to calculate funding rates, which are applied to all hours of under 2s working parent entitlement

PTE data used for each age group

For the 3 and 4-year-old entitlements, PTEs from the January 2024 school, early years, and alternative provision censuses (collectively, ‘the January 2024 censuses’) have been used at both national and local authority-level. See annex B for the exact data specification used for these PTEs.

For the 2-year-old entitlements, a similar approach has been taken as in 2024 to 2025:

for the 2-year-old FRAS entitlement, PTEs from the January 2024 censuses have been used for both national and local authority-level, see annex B for the exact data specification used.
for PTEs relating to the notional first 15 hours of the 2-year-old working parent entitlement, in absence of data from the January 2024 censuses (as this entitlement became available in April 2024), a national level estimate of PTEs has been used (see annex A for further detail on this estimate). This national level estimate has been distributed to local authority-level based on the data collected in the May 2024 school census and the summer term local authority count (which covered non-school-based providers). See annex B for the exact data specifications used.
similarly, for PTEs relating to the notional second 15 hours of the 2-year-old working parent entitlement, a national level estimate of PTEs (which accounts for the expansion to 30 hours from September 2025) has been used. Again, this national total has been distributed to local authority-level based on data collected in the May 2024 school census and summer term local authority count.

For the under 2s entitlement, the approach taken follows that used for the 2-year-old working parent PTEs. That is, for PTEs relating to the notional first 15 hours, a national estimate for the total is used and is distributed to local authority-level using data on the 2-year-old working parent entitlement collected in the May 2024 school census and the local authority count; see annex B for the exact data specifications used. For PTEs relating to the notional second 15 hours, a different national estimate (which accounts for the expansion to 30 hours from September 2025) is used, with the May 2024 school census and local authority count data used to distribute to local authority-level.

3.2 Entitlement funding for 2025 to 2026 illustrative allocations

This section sets out the funding available for 2025 to 2026 illustrative allocations for the 3 and 4-year-old, 2-year-old, and under 2s entitlements. Funding for MNS supplementary funding is described in a separate section.

As part of the illustrative allocations calculations, the 2025 to 2026 average funding rates must be calculated. The 2025 to 2026 average funding rates are calculated based on increasing the most recent 2024 to 2025 average funding rates in line with the forecast average earnings growth and inflation, and final 2025 NLW arrangements, based on the data available when setting the early years entitlements budget for 2025 to 2026. See annex B for further detail on the specific data used. Please note that calculations use unrounded average rates and cost pressures, however for presentational purposes, these will be presented to the nearest penny and two decimal places, respectively, within this document.

The exact cost pressures applied vary depending on the age group, this is primarily driven by differences in staffing ratios for children of different ages.

Early years funding is demand led, therefore the illustrative allocations for 2025 to 2026 are based on (a) 2025 to 2026 average rates and (b) an estimate of annual total hours of childcare delivered, based on the most recent censuses where possible, and in absence of outturn data, based on forecasts. See the previous section for further detail on the PTEs used for these calculations. The final 2025 to 2026 allocations and average rates will be based on outturn data collected in 2025 to 2026.

3 and 4-year-old illustrative allocations total

The combined 3 and 4-year-old 2024 to 2025 average rate was £5.88^{[footnote 2]}. This is based on 2024 to 2025 initial early years allocations (that is, 2024 to 2025 early years DSG local authority-level funding rates, and January 2024 PTEs). To this average rate, a cost pressure of 2.78% has been applied and on top of this 8p has been added, in respect of teachers’ pay (see the ‘Teachers’ pay notional rates’ section for information on the calculations underpinning this). This leads to a combined 3 and 4-year-old 2025 to 2026 average rate of £6.12.

There were 1,090,402.78 3 and 4-year-old PTEs (762,852.50 universal hours PTEs plus 327,550.28 additional hours PTEs) in the January 2024 censuses.

Therefore, the total illustrative allocation for 3 and 4-year-olds in 2025 to 2026 is £3.8 billion, calculated as £6.12 x 1,090,402.78 x 15 x 38 [multiplying by 15 and then by 38 converts from PTEs to hours of childcare].

This breaks down into a separate universal hours allocation of £2.7 billion and an additional hours allocation of £1.1 billion.

2-year-old illustrative allocations total

The combined 2-year-old 2024 to 2025 average rate was £8.26^{[footnote 3]}. This is based on (a) 2024 to 2025 initial early years DSG allocations for the 2-year-old FRAS entitlement, and (b) data on take up of the 2-year-old working parent entitlement from the May 2024 school census and the local authority count. To this average rate, a cost pressure of 3.33% has been applied to calculate the combined 2-year-old 2025 to 2026 average rate of £8.53.

For 2025 to 2026 illustrative allocations, a total of 437,497.06 2-year-old PTEs has been used. This is based on the January 2024 data on 2-year-old FRAS entitlement, in addition to an estimate of the total 2-year-old PTEs for the working parent entitlement; see annex A for further detail on this estimate.

Therefore, the total illustrative allocation for 2-year-olds in 2025 to 2026 is £2.1 billion, calculated as £8.53 x 437,497.06 x 15 x 38.

Under 2s illustrative allocations total

The under 2s 2024 to 2025 average rate is £11.16^{[footnote 4]}. This is based on data collected in the summer term on take up of the 2-year-old working parent entitlement, which is being used as a proxy for the distribution of take up of the under 2s working parent entitlement, in absence of direct data on take up of this entitlement. To this average rate, a cost pressure of 3.38% has been applied to calculate the under 2s 2025 to 2026 average rate of £11.54.

For 2025 to 2026 illustrative entitlements, we have used a total of 353,899.45 under 2s PTEs. This is based on an estimate of the total under 2s PTEs for the working parent entitlement; see annex A for further detail.

Therefore, the total illustrative allocation for under 2s in 2025 to 2026 is £2.3 billion, calculated as £11.54 x 353,899.45 x 15 x 38.

3.3 Teachers’ pay notional rate calculations

For 2025 to 2026, £56 million of funding has been included in early years funding rates in respect of the increases to teachers’ pay from September 2024.

The method used to distribute this funding is in line with the approach taken to roll in teacher pay grant funding in previous years. That is, teachers’ pay notional rates are calculated for 3 and 4-year-old formula and MNS supplementary funding. No funding has been separated out for 2-year-old or under 2s entitlements, as per the methodology in previous years.

First, the total £56 million is notionally apportioned between the 3 and 4-year-old entitlements and the MNS supplementary funding in the same proportions as were applied with the roll-in of the historic teacher pay grant. We have therefore added £48 million to the illustrative allocations total for 3 and 4-year-olds, and £8 million to the amount notionally available for MNS supplementary funding.

The total funding available is then notionally apportioned to local authority-level, based on the distribution of historic teacher pay grant funding.

For example, a local authority receiving 10% of the total 2022 to 2023 3 and 4-year-old teacher pay grant funding will notionally receive 10% of the total 3 and 4-year-old 2025 to 2026 teachers’ pay funding.

The notional 2025 to 2026 teachers’ pay allocation for each local authority is then divided by the total PTEs used for funding purposes for that local authority (that is, total January 2024 universal hours and additional hours PTEs for 3 and 4-year-olds and total January 2024 universal hours MNS PTEs for MNS), then divided by 15 and then 38 (to convert from PTEs to hours). This is then rounded to the nearest penny and is referred to as the 2025 to 2026 notional teachers’ pay rate.

The exact calculations are available in the ‘TP notional rates’ tab of the accompanying step-by-step tables.

3.4 Area cost adjustment (ACA): accounting for variations in costs

The ACA formula

Within the early years NFFs, area cost adjustments (ACAs) are used to account for the relative differences in costs between different areas of the country. The ACA acts as a multiplier to the formula factor rates. Further details on this are in the ‘Calculating ’pre-protection’ local authority-level funding rates’ section.

The ACAs for each local authority are calculated separately for each age group, to account for differences in where childcare is taken up.

To construct the ACA, we use the following data and weightings:

general labour market (GLM) data, to reflect variation in staffing costs: weighted 80%
nursery, infant and primary rates cost adjustment (NIPRCA) to reflect variation in premises costs: weighted 10%
the remaining costs are assumed not to vary between local authorities and are weighted at 10%

That is, the ACA for each local authority is calculated as:

(80% x GLM) + (10% x NIPRCA) + (10% x 1)

Further detail on ACA data

GLM data:

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) published updated 2021 GLM data on 29 March 2022. However, we are not using these figures for the 2025 to 2026 NFFs and are instead continuing to use the previously available GLM data for 2013 to 2014. The method of compiling the more recent GLM data was different from that used for the 2013 to 2014 figures, and the new data are not compatible with the existing ACA methodology in the NFFs.

NIPRCA data and calculations:

The NRCA and IPRCA values themselves are based on Valuation Office Agency data on rateable values and floorspace of nursery, infant and primary school premises. An average of the three latest available years of data is used, rather than a single year measure, to smooth the impact of data updates relating to revaluations, where the Valuation Office Agency updates the rateable value of properties every few years.

Each local authority’s NIPRCA is calculated as a weighted sum of their NRCA and their IPRCA, based on the proportion of childcare, measured in PTEs, delivered in schools. This is calculated as:

[(1 - % of PTEs in schools) x NRCA] + (% of PTEs in schools x IPRCA)

The exact calculations of the ACA for each local authority for each age group are provided in the ‘ACA’ tab of the accompanying step-by-step tables and further detail on the specifics of the data used are provided in annex B.

3.5 Formula factors

This subsection describes how the formula factors have been calculated for each of the early years NFFs.

For the early years NFFs, funding is split between ‘base funding’ and ‘additional needs funding’.

As above, only PTEs relating to the first 15 hours of entitlements are used for rates calculations, with the resulting funding rates applied to all hours of childcare delivered through those entitlements. As such, for rates calculations, the total funding used relates to the first 15 hours only. That is:

for 3 and 4-year-olds, funding for the universal hours PTEs is used
for 2-year-olds, funding for the 2-year-old FRAS PTEs and PTEs relating to the notional first 15 hours of the working parent entitlement is used
for under 2s, funding for PTEs relating to the notional first 15 hours for the under 2s working parent entitlement is used

To calculate the funding for each factor, we first take the total illustrative allocations funding for the first 15 hours and make two adjustments:

a. Where the distribution of PTEs across the country differs between the first 15 and second 15 hours, a small zero-sum adjustment is made to the funding total used to calculate rates. This adjustment does not impact the overall funding available for each age group, rather this means that, within each age group a small amount of funding is ‘redistributed’ from the funding available for the first 15 hours to the remaining hours, or vice versa. This ensures that all funding (across both the first 15 and second 15 hours) is spent and that rates remain affordable.

b. Additionally, for the 3 and 4-year-old entitlement, which has a minimum funding floor (MFF), as in previous years, the MFF (described in the ‘Applying protections’ section) is paid for out of the total funding available for the 3 and 4-year-old entitlements. This is implemented by ‘top slicing’ a small portion of funding (under 1% of the illustrative allocations total for 2025 to 2026) to uplift any local authority rates that are below the MFF.

Once we have made these adjustments, the remaining funding is split between funding for the base rate and funding for the additional needs factors in the following proportions:

89.5% of funding is used for the base rate
10.5% of funding is used for the additional needs factors, see table 1 for the breakdown of this funding into each factor – the exact factors used for additional needs are slightly different for the 3 and 4-year-old NFF and for the 2-year-old and under 2s NFFs

Table 1: additional needs factor weightings for the early years NFFs

Additional needs factor	Proxy for relative levels of	3 and 4-year-old NFF weighting	2-year-old and under 2s weighting
FSM	Deprivation	8%	4%
IDACI	Deprivation	N/A	4%
EAL	EAL	1.5%	1.5%
DLA	SEND	1%	1%

For the income deprivation affecting children index (IDACI) factor, which is part of the 2-year-old and under 2s NFFs only, the 4% total is split between IDACI bands A to F in different proportions. The calculations underpinning these band weightings are explained in annex C, and the resulting weightings are presented in table 2.

Table 2: IDACI band weightings for the 2-year-old and under 2s NFF

IDACI band	2-year-old weighting	Under 2s weighting
A	0.53%	0.50%
B	0.76%	0.74%
C	0.70%	0.68%
D	0.63%	0.63%
E	0.77%	0.79%
F	0.62%	0.66%

The data used for additional needs factors are:

a. Free School Meal (FSM) eligibility, based on the measure used for FSM in performance tables. These data are used as a proxy for relative levels of deprivation across the country. This aims to reflect the additional costs of providing childcare for children with disadvantage or low-level SEN. As there are no comprehensive FSM data available for children across all early years settings, data for this factor are based on the proportion of full-time children eligible for FSM in state-funded nursery and primary schools.

b. IDACI, a proxy indicator for the proportion of children in each local authority living in deprived areas. These data are used in the 2-year-old and under 2s NFFs as a second proxy for relative levels of deprivation, again trying to reflect the additional costs of providing childcare for children with disadvantage or low-level SEN. Further detail on the specific method used to construct this proxy indicator can be found in annex C.

c. English as an additional language (EAL) data, from state-funded primary schools, is used to proxy for relative levels of EAL in local authorities, and aims to reflect the cost of additional support for children who do not have English as a first language.

d. Disability living allowance (DLA) entitlement data are used to proxy for relative levels of more complex special educational needs or disabilities (SEND) across the country. This factor intends to reflect the additional costs associated with providing childcare for children with more complex SEND.

The data sources described above give us the proportion of children in each local authority who have each additional needs characteristic. For each local authority, we estimate the number of PTEs for each factor by multiplying the relevant additional needs factor proportion by the number of PTEs used in the rates calculations (that is, universal hours for 3 and 4-year-olds, PTEs relating to the notional first 15 hours for 2-year-olds, and PTEs relating to the notional first 15 hours for under 2s).The exact calculation of additional needs factor PTEs for each local authority can be found in the ‘Formula factor data’ tab of the accompanying step-by-step table.

For example, if 50% of a local authority’s nursery and primary school pupils are eligible for FSM, and there were 100 PTEs used for rates calculations in that local authority, then the number of FSM factor PTEs for that local authority will be 50 (that is, 50% of the 100 PTEs used in rates calculations).

To calculate the total PTEs for each factor, we simply sum the relevant additional needs factor PTEs across all local authorities.

Next we calculate the factor rates. The exact calculations are available to follow in the ‘National calculations’ tab of the funding output tables, but the calculation of a factor rate is:

national funding total for the factor

divided by

the national sum of each local authority’s PTEs for the factor x each local authority’s ACA x 15 x 38

The resulting formula factor rates^{[footnote 5]} are shown in tables 3, 4 and 5.

Table 3: 3 and 4-year-old formula factor rates

Funding factor	Hourly rate (£/hour)
Universal base rate	£4.88
Free school meals (FSM)	£1.77
English as an additional language (EAL)	£0.34
Disability living allowance (DLA)	£1.42

Table 4: 2-year-old formula factor rates

Funding factor	Hourly rate (£/hour)
Universal base rate	£6.82
Free school meals (FSM)	£1.24
English as an additional language (EAL)	£0.52
Disability living allowance (DLA)	£3.63
IDACI band A	£1.26
IDACI band B	£0.96
IDACI band C	£0.90
IDACI band D	£0.83
IDACI band E	£0.53
IDACI band F	£0.44

Table 5: Under 2s formula factor rates

Funding factor	Hourly rate (£/hour)
Universal base rate	£9.19
Free school meals (FSM)	£1.76
English as an additional language (EAL)	£0.77
Disability living allowance (DLA)	£4.96
IDACI band A	£1.88
IDACI band B	£1.42
IDACI band C	£1.34
IDACI band D	£1.23
IDACI band E	£0.79
IDACI band F	£0.65

3.6 Calculating ‘pre-protection’ local authority-level funding rates

This subsection describes how the PTEs, ACAs and formula factor values described above are used to calculate the hourly funding rates for each local authority, before protections are applied.

The first step is to create the local authority-level rates for each factor. These are calculated by multiplying the relevant formula factor hourly rate by each local authority’s ACA.

For example, the EAL formula factor rate for 3 and 4-year-olds is £0.34. So, for a local authority with an ACA of 1.5, their local authority-level EAL factor rate for 3 and 4-year-olds would be £0.34 x 1.5, or £0.51. Note again that these factor rates are unrounded and presented to two decimal places for presentational purposes only.

Next, the allocations for each factor are calculated for each local authority. These are calculated as the local authority-level factor rate multiplied by the local authority-level PTEs for the factor, multiplied by 15 and then by 38 (to convert from PTEs to hours).

For example, a local authority with an EAL factor rate of £0.51 who has 10,000.00 EAL factor PTEs would have an EAL factor allocation of £2.9 million. Calculated as £0.51 x 10,000.00 x 15 x 38.

Then, the total pre-protection funding for each local authority is calculated as the sum of all the factor allocations for that local authority.

Finally, the pre-protection hourly rate for a local authority is calculated by dividing the total pre-protection funding by the total PTEs used to calculate funding rates (for example, for 3 and 4-year-olds, the total pre-protection funding for a local authority divided by their universal hour PTEs), which is then divided by 15 and then by 38 (to convert from PTEs to hours). These calculations are available to follow in the step-by-step tabs of the accompanying step-by-step tables.

3.7 Applying protections

On top of the pre-protection rates, for 2025 to 2026 there are several protections that have been applied.

Minimum funding floor (MFF): provides a minimum hourly funding rate that every local authority will receive.

For 3 and 4-year-olds MFF has been increased from £5.47 in 2024 to 2025 to £5.71 in 2025 to 2026. This increase is in line with the pence increase to the universal hours average rate, and also reflects additional funding provided in respect of increases to teachers’ pay from September 2024. That is, the MFF has been increased by £0.24, which comprises £0.16 from uplifting the 2024 to 2025 universal hours average rate by cost pressures, plus £0.08 resulting from additional funding in respect of increases to teachers’ pay.

For 2-year-olds and under 2s, there will be no MFF in 2025 to 2026.

Year-to-year protection: guarantees each local authority will receive a minimum percentage increase to their funding rates compared to their 2024 to 2025 DSG rate.

For all main entitlements, local authorities will be protected +0.5% against their 2024 to 2025 early years DSG rate.

For 3 and 4-year-olds, we have included additional funding in respect of increases to teachers’ pay from September 2024. To do so, we have followed the approach used in previous years. That is, local authorities are first protected +0.5% against their 2024 to 2025 3 and 4-year-old rate (if protection is needed) and are protected further against their 2025 to 2026 teachers’ pay notional rate.

For example, if a local authority received a 2024 to 2025 DSG rate of £5.70 and their 3 and 4-year-old 2025 to 2026 teachers’ pay notional rate is £0.09, this local authority would not be able to receive a rate lower than £5.82, calculated as [£5.70 x 100.5%] + £0.09. Therefore, if their funding rate would otherwise be lower, it is increased to £5.82.

Gains cap: sets a maximum percentage increase against 2024 to 2025 DSG rates that any local authority can see to offset the cost of the year-to-year protection for each age-group. As the cost of the year-to-year protection differs between the age groups, the gains cap will be different for each age-group.

For under 2s, the gains cap is +7.6%.

For 2-year-olds, the gains cap is +6.1%.

For 3 and 4-year-olds the gains cap is +3.9% against 2024 to 2025 early years DSG rates. As in 2024 to 2025, the gains cap does not apply to the teachers’ pay notional rates.

For example, if a local authority received a 2024 to 2025 DSG rate of £5.70 and their 3 and 4-year-old 2025 to 2026 teachers’ pay notional rate is £0.09, this local authority would not be able to receive a rate higher than £6.01, calculated as [£5.70 x 103.9%] + £0.09. Therefore, if their funding rates would otherwise be higher, it is decreased to £6.01.

This method of including teachers’ pay funding means that some local authorities will see increases greater than 3.9% when compared to their 2024 to 2025 DSG rate, because the 3.9% cap is not applied to the teachers’ pay notional rate.

Importantly, this cap cannot reduce an hourly funding rate to below the MFF.

The hourly funding rates for each local authority, after protections have been applied, are then rounded to the nearest penny.

3.8 National average of local authority hourly funding rates

Table 6 summarises the national average funding rates for each age-group, based on the total 2025 to 2026 illustrative allocations and the relevant PTEs. See the ‘National average rates’ tab of the accompanying step-by-step tables for the exact calculations.

Table 6: 2025 to 2026 national average of local authority hourly funding rates

Age-group	Average hourly rate ^{[footnote 6]}
3 and 4-year-old entitlements – combined average for universal hours and additional hours entitlements	£6.12 ^{[footnote 7]}
2-year-old entitlements – combined average for FRAS and working parent entitlements	£8.53 ^{[footnote 8]}
Under 2-year-olds working parent entitlement	£11.54

Question 4

4. Maintained nursery school (MNS) supplementary funding

Accepted Answer

4.1 2025 to 2026 MNS supplementary funding total

This subsection sets out the national funding total for supplementary MNS funding. This will total £92.6 million in 2025 to 2026 which is based on uplifting the 2024 to 2025 MNS pre-protection supplementary funding rates, in line with the cost pressure used for 3 and 4-year-olds, increasing the MNS MFF and the January 2024 funded MNS PTEs. The final 2025 to 2026 MNS allocation total will be based on PTEs collected throughout the 2025 to 2026 financial year.

For 2025 to 2026 the above allocation total also includes £7.9 million of funding in respect of increases to teachers’ pay from September 2024, as described in the previous section. See ‘TP notional rates’ tab of the accompanying step-by-step tables for more details on this calculation.

4.2 Calculating ‘pre-protection’ local authority-level funding rates

To calculate the 2025 to 2026 pre-protection MNS supplementary funding rates, first the 2024 to 2025 pre-protection rates (which include the teachers’ pay and pensions funding rolled-in in 2024 to 2025) are uplifted by the 3 and 4-year-old cost pressure, 2.78%.

On top of this, the 2025 to 2026 teachers’ pay notional rates are added on.

These are the 2025 to 2026 pre-protection MNS supplementary funding rates.

4.3 Applying the MFF and cap

For 2025 to 2026 the minimum supplementary funding hourly rate that local authorities can receive for their MNSs has been increased to £5.27. This has been calculated by uplifting the 2024 to 2025 MNS minimum funding hourly rate (£4.64) by the increase in average pre-protection rate, including increases due to the additional funding in respect of increases to teachers’ pay.

To correct some of the most extreme outliers in the distribution of MNS supplementary funding a cap of £10 per hour was introduced in 2023 to 2024. The cap will remain at £10 per hour in 2025 to 2026 and will apply to all local authorities as the transitional arrangement previously in place has come to an end.

The hourly funding rates, after the MFF and cap have been applied, are then rounded to the nearest penny.

4.4 National average of local authority MNS hourly funding rates

The national average of local authority hourly funding rates for MNS supplementary funding, based on the total 2025 to 2026 illustrative allocations and January 2024 PTEs is £5.90.

Question 5

5. 2025 to 2026 EYPP and DAF national funding rates

Accepted Answer

DAF has been uplifted in line with the average increase across the main entitlements (3.02%) and then rounded to the nearest pound, see table 7 for the resulting national rate.

EYPP has been uplifted to reflect additional investment in the early years budget in 2025 to 2026 to support the most disadvantaged children, see table 7 for the resulting national rate.

Table 7: 2025 to 2026 national funding rates

Entitlement / funding stream	National funding rate
Early years pupil premium – hourly funding rate	£1.00
Disability access fund – yearly funding rate	£938

Further information

Details of the volumes used for the EYPP indicative allocations and DAF allocations for 2025 to 2026 will be set out in the DSG technical note 2025 to 2026, which is due to be published later this year.

Question 6

6. Annex A: Further detail on 2-year-old and under 2s working parent entitlement volumes estimates

Accepted Answer

6.1 Background

This annex describes the methodology used to estimate the 2-year-old and under 2s working parent entitlement volumes for financial year 2025 to 2026, which have been used for both 2025 to 2026 rates calculations, and illustrative allocations.

To inform the Spring Budget 2023 announcement of the new working parent entitlements, the department estimated the number of children aged 9 months to 2-years-old of working parents who will be eligible for and take up these entitlements. The details of this estimate were published in the Spring Budget 2023 Childcare Expansion Policy costing information note with an updated version of the original modelling subsequently presented in annex A of the 2024 to 2025 early years national funding formulae technical note.

We have refined these estimates of likely volumes further, taking account of new data to update the methodology of likely volumes for the financial year 2025 to 2026. These changes are detailed below. Note that these data are consistent with inputs used in work on early years places and workforce need, published in October 2024. Data used in rates modelling are presented on a financial year basis, whereas data used for the place and workforce analysis are presented on a termly-basis.

6.2 Population

The population projections have been updated since the original 2023 modelling and are now based on the ONS’s 2021-based interim national population projections. These have been adjusted for estimated deviations from birth projections up to mid-2023, with estimates of 0-month-olds to 8-month-olds removed, and then converted for use on a financial year basis.

Table A1: 2025 to 2026 financial year early years population projections

Age group	2025 to 2026
9-month-olds to one-year-olds (‘under 2s’)	729,000
2-year-olds	587,000

6.3 Eligibility Rates

The same approach to eligibility rates is taken as outlined in the section 9 of the 2024 to 2025 early years national funding formulae technical note, but using latest OBR forecasts and more recent historical eligibility rate estimates.

The forecast eligibility rate for the new entitlements remains at around half of the overall population for 2025 to 2026.

6.4 Take-up rates

We now have final place data for 2-year-old in summer 2024 and estimates for places for all ages in autumn 2024, based on analysis of eligibility codes issued to parents for use of the entitlements. We assume growth for all ages that is consistent with growth in 2-year-old from the summer term to the autumn term. Our take-up rate assumptions for 2025 to 2026 are:

9-month-olds to one-year-olds at around 65%
2-year-olds at around 75%

6.5 Hours taken

For April 2025 to August 2025 (that is, the portion of the year ahead of the roll out to 30-hours, where the maximum hours per week is 15), we assume 14 hours are taken on average (based on 2-year-old data in summer 2024). For September 2025 to March 2026 (that is, the portion of the year following the roll out to 30-hours), we continue to assume that 26 hours per week are taken. Overall, the weighted average hours taken per week across 2025 to 2026 is 22 hours per week.

Question 7

7. Annex B: Data used for 2025 to 2026 final rate modelling

Accepted Answer

Tables B1 and B2 summarise the data that have been used to calculate the 2025 to 2026 funding rates and data that were used to calculate the 2024 to 2025 funding rates.

Details on the data specification for PTEs sourced from DfE censuses are included in tables B3 to B6.

Table B1: Data sources for 3 and 4-year-old, 2-year-old, and under 2s formula

Data	Source of data	Date of data used for 2024 to 2025 DSG rates	Date of data used for 2025 to 2026 DSG rates
3 and 4-year-old PTEs	DfE school, early years and alternation provision censuses	January 2023	January 2024
2-year-old FRAS PTEs	DfE school, early years and alternation provision censuses	January 2023	January 2024
2-year-old working parent entitlement PTEs	DfE	National take up estimate from April 2024 (local authority-level take up – estimated using January 2023 3 and 4-year-old additional hours PTEs distribution)	National take up estimate for 2025 to 2026 (local authority-level take up – estimated using summer term data collected on 2-year-olds)
9 month to 2-year-old working parent entitlement PTEs	DfE	National take up estimate from September 2024 (local authority-level take up – estimated using January 2023 3 and 4-year-old additional hours PTEs distribution)	National take up estimate for 2025 to 2026 (local authority-level take up – estimated using summer term data collected on 2-year-olds)
Cost pressure data, inflation measures	Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR)	March 2023 forecast average earnings growth (AEG) and consumer price index (CPI)	March 2024 forecast AEG and CPI
Cost pressure data, national living wage (NLW) measure	OBR	NLW arrangements as at Autumn Budget 2023	NLW arrangements as at Autumn Budget 2024
Free school meals (FSM)	DfE annual school census ^{[footnote 9]}	January 2023 (performance tables measure)	January 2024 (performance tables measure)
English as an additional language (EAL)	DfE annual school census	January 2023	January 2024
Disability living allowance (DLA) ^{[footnote 10]}	Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)	February 2021	February 2023
Office for National Statistics (ONS) local authority-level mid-year population estimates	ONS	Mid-2021	Mid-2023
Income deprivation affecting children index (IDACI) (2-year-old and under 2s formulas only)	Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG)	2019	2019 ^{[footnote 11]}
ONS lower layer super output area (LSOA) level mid-year population estimates (2-year-old and under 2s formulas only)	ONS	Mid-2020 ^{[footnote 12]}	Mid-2022
Schools block NFF, IDACI primary unit values (2-year-old and under 2s formulas only)	DfE	2024 to 2025	2024 to 2025 ^{[footnote 13]}
Nurseries rates cost adjustment (NRCA) ^{[footnote 14]} ^{[footnote 15]} ^{[footnote 16]} ^{[footnote 17]} ^{[footnote 18]} ^{[footnote 19]}	Valuation Office Agency (VOA)	Average of 2021, 2022 and 2023	Average of 2022, 2023 and 2024
Infant and primary rates cost adjustment (IPRCA) ^{[footnote 20]} ^{[footnote 21]} ^{[footnote 22]} ^{[footnote 23]}	VOA	Average of 2021, 2022 and 2023	Average of 2022, 2023 and 2024
% of PTEs in schools weighting used to calculate NIPRCA^{[footnote 24]} for the 3 and 4-year-old formula	DfE school and early years censuses	January 2023	January 2024
% of PTEs in schools weighting used to calculate NIPRCA^{[footnote 25]} for the 2-year-old formula	DfE school and early years censuses, and the summer 2024 local authority count	January 2023	A combination of January 2024 data (on the 2-year-old FRAS entitlement) and May 2024 and summer 2024 local authority count data (on the 2-year-old working parent entitlement)
% of PTEs in schools weighting used to calculate NIPRCA^{[footnote 26]} for the under 2s formula	DfE school census and the summer 2024 local authority count	January 2023	May 2024 and summer 2024 local authority count data (on the 2-year-old working parent entitlement)
General labour market (GLM)	MHCLG	2013 to 2014	2013 to 2014
Teacher pay grant distribution (3 and 4-year-old formula only)	Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA)	2022 to 2023 ^{[footnote 27]}	2022 to 2023

Table B2: Data sources for MNS supplementary funding

Data	Source of data	Date of data used for 2024 to 2025 DSG rates	Date of data used for 2025 to 2026 DSG rates
Part-time equivalents (PTEs)	DfE annual school, early years and alternative provision censuses	January 2023	January 2024
Historic pre-protection MNS supplementary funding rates	DfE	2023 to 2024 effective combined rates	2024 to 2025 DSG rates
Teacher pay grant distribution	ESFA	2022 to 2023 ^{[footnote 27]}	2022 to 2023

7.1 PTE data specification

Table B3: PTE data specification for 3 and 4-year-olds

Census	Data used
January 2024 school census	All eligible PTEs in maintained nurseries, maintained schools, and all academies, aged 3 at 31 December 2023, aged 3 at 31 August 2023 but 4 by 31 December 2024, or in national curriculum year groups N1, N2, E1 or E2 and aged 4 at 31 August 2023 All eligible PTEs in maintained nurseries, maintained schools, and all academies, whose national curriculum year group is missing or ‘X’ and aged 3 at 31 August 2023
January 2024 early years census	All eligible PTEs aged 3 and 4 at 31 December 2023
January 2024 alternative provision census	All pupils in independent schools without a statement of special educational needs (SEN) aged 3 at 31 December 2023 All pupils in independent schools without a statement of SEN aged 3 at 31 August 2023 but 4 by 31 December 2023

Table B4: PTE data specification for 2-year-olds accessing the FRAS entitlement

Census	Data used
January 2024 school census	All eligible PTEs in maintained nurseries, maintained schools, and all academies, in national curriculum year groups N1, N2, E1 or E2 and aged 2 at 31 December 2023 All eligible PTEs in maintained nurseries, maintained schools, and all academies, whose national curriculum year group is missing or ‘X’ and aged 2 at 31 December 2023
January 2024 early years census	All eligible PTEs aged 2 at 31 December 2023
January 2024 alternative provision census	All pupils in independent schools without a statement of SEN aged 2 at 31 December 2023

Table B5: PTE data specification for 2-year-olds accessing the working parent entitlement

Census	Data used
May 2024 school census	All eligible PTEs in maintained nurseries, maintained schools, and all academies, in national curriculum year groups N1, N2, E1 or E2 and aged 2 at 31 March 2024. All eligible PTEs in maintained nurseries, maintained schools, and all academies, whose national curriculum year group is missing or ‘X’ and aged 2 at 31 March 2024
Summer term 2024 local authority count	All eligible pupils aged 2 at 31 March 2024

Table B6: PTE data specification for maintained nursery school supplementary funding

Census	Data used
January 2024 school census	All eligible universal hours PTEs in maintained nursery schools, aged 3 at 31 December 2023, aged 3 at 31 August 2023 but 4 by 31 December 2023, or in national curriculum year groups N1, N2, E1 or E2 and aged 4 at 31 August 2023 All eligible universal hours PTEs in maintained nursery schools, whose national curriculum year group is missing or ‘X’ and aged 3 at 31 August 2023

Question 8

8. Annex C: IDACI factor weightings and factor rates

Accepted Answer

The IDACI factor is one of two deprivation factors used in the 2-year-old and under formula (the FSM factor being the other). These factors target more deprived local authorities, assuming additional needs costs are greater in these areas.

The IDACI element of the deprivation factor is based on the IDACI dataset for 2019, which is published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). IDACI is a relative measure of socio-economic deprivation: an IDACI ‘score’ is calculated for a lower layer super output area (LSOA, an area with typically about 1,500 residents) based on the characteristics of households in that area.

The IDACI score of a given area does not mean that every child living in that area has particular deprivation characteristics: it is a measure of the likelihood that a child is in a household experiencing relative socio-economic deprivation. LSOAs are ranked by score, from the most deprived LSOA, with the highest score, to the least deprived LSOA.

For funding purposes, the 2025 to 2026 formula for 2-year-olds and under uses IDACI ranks to group LSOAs into 7 bands of decreasing deprivation; for example, Band A comprises the most deprived 2.5% of LSOAs. Table C1 shows the 7 IDACI bands, of which only A to F attract funding.

Table C1: Percentile limits of IDACI bands A to G

IDACI Band	Description	Ranks
A	most deprived 2.5% of LSOAs	1 to 821
B	next 5% most deprived LSOAs	822 to 2463
C	next 5% most deprived LSOAs	2464 to 4105
D	next 5% most deprived LSOAs	4106 to 5747
E	next 10% most deprived LSOAs	5748 to 9032
F	next 10% most deprived LSOAs	9033 to 12316
G	remaining LSOAs	12317 to 32844

For the 2-year-old and under formula, we determine the number of children aged 0 to 4 in each LSOA, according to the mid-2022 ONS population estimates. We then aggregate to local authority-level to determine the number of children aged 0 to 4 in each band within each local authority.

The percentage of children aged 0 to 4 in each band within each local authority is then calculated and these percentages are applied to the 2-year-old PTEs for each local authority to create an estimated number of 2-year-olds living within each IDACI band, within each local authority. This calculation is followed separately for under 2s using under 2s PTEs.

The 2-year-old and under formula is designed so that the formula factor rates for each band increase from F to A in the same proportions as the per-pupil primary school unit values in the calculation for the IDACI factor in the schools block national funding formula.

To allocate the funding for the IDACI factor:

a. IDACI is split into 6 separate factors, which cover the bands A to F as explained above. The differences in the primary unit costs used within the schools block IDACI factor for each band, together with the estimated 2-year-old PTE population estimates within each band are used to produce these splits as described below and set out in table C2.

b. The relative increase of each schools block primary unit value for each band from the schools block band F primary unit value is calculated.

c. For each band, these relative increases are weighted by the corresponding ACA weighted 2-year-old PTE population per band figures. This gives the relative funding required for each band. From this, the percentage of total IDACI funding for each band is then calculated (this calculation is followed separately for under 2s using ACA weighted under 2s PTEs).

d. Finally, this percentage is multiplied by 4%, which is the weighting of the total IDACI factor.

The full calculation for 2-year-olds is set out in the table C2 below and for under 2s in table C4

Table C2: 2-year-old entitlements IDACI band calculations

		Band A	Band B	Band C	Band D	Band E	Band F
[a] Schools block 2024 to 2025 NFF primary unit values		£680	£515	£485	£445	£285	£235
[b] = Relative increase from band F	[b] = band rate ÷ band F rate	2.894	2.191	2.064	1.894	1.213	1.000
[c] = ACA weighted estimated 2-year-old PTEs per band ^{[footnote 28]}		11,684	21,871	21,397	20,908	40,086	38,992
[d] = Population per band uplifted by relative increase from F	[d] = [b] × [c]	33,809	47,930	44,160	39,592	48,615	38,992
[e] = Weighting to apply	[e] = [d] ÷ total of row [d]	13.36%	18.94%	17.45%	15.64%	19.21%	15.41%
Factor weight	[f] = [e] × 4% (IDACI total weighting)	0.53%	0.76%	0.70%	0.63%	0.77%	0.62%

Table C3: 2-year-old entitlements IDACI factor rates

		Band A	Band B	Band C	Band D	Band E	Band F
Factor total allocation	[g] = [e] × total IDACI allocation	£8.4m	£11.9m	£11.0m	£9.9m	£12.1m	£9.7m
Factor rate	[h] = [g] ÷ [c] ÷ 15 ÷ 38	£1.26	£0.96	£0.90	£0.83	£0.53	£0.44

Table C4: under 2s entitlement IDACI band calculations

		Band A	Band B	Band C	Band D	Band E	Band F
[a] Schools block 2024 to 2025 NFF Primary unit values		£680	£515	£485	£445	£285	£235
[b] = Relative increase from band F	[b] = band rate ÷ band F rate	2.894	2.191	2.064	1.894	1.213	1.000
[c] = ACA weighted estimated under 2s PTEs per band ^{[footnote 29]}		7,116	13,695	13,439	13,501	26,674	27,034
[d] = Population per band uplifted by relative increase from F	[d] = [b] × [c]	20,590	30,012	27,736	25,566	32,350	27,034
[e] = Weighting to apply	[e] = [d] ÷ total of row [d]	12.61%	18.38%	16.99%	15.66%	19.81%	16.56%
Factor weight	[f] = [e] × 4% (IDACI total weighting)	0.50%	0.74%	0.68%	0.63%	0.79%	0.66%

Table C5: Under 2s entitlement IDACI factor rates

		Band A	Band B	Band C	Band D	Band E	Band F
Factor total allocation	[g] = [e] × total IDACI allocation	£7.6m	£11.1m	£10.2m	£9.4m	£12.0m	£10.0m
Factor rate	[h] = [g] ÷ [c] ÷ 15 ÷ 38	£1.88	£1.42	£1.34	£1.23	£0.79	£0.65

The term ‘notional’ is used here because, from September 2025, the 2-year-old and under 2s working parent entitlements will increase to 30 hours, and as such, will not automatically have a first 15 hours that can be used for rates calculations (as is the case with the 3 and 4-year-old entitlements which can be broken down into universal and additional hours PTEs). To ensure consistency, and for the purposes of calculations only, we have therefore broken down the full 30 hours of the entitlement into a ‘notional’ first and second 15 hours, noting that this differs from how entitlement will be delivered. ↩
The average universal hours rate was £5.90, and the average additional hours rate was £5.82. Whilst these entitlements are funded using the same local authority-level hourly rates, differences in the distribution of take up between each entitlement leads to different average hourly rates. ↩
This comprises the average 2-year-old FRAS entitlement rate of £8.35 and the average 2-year-old working parent rate of £8.20. Whilst these entitlements are funded using the same local authority-level hourly rates, differences in the distribution of take up between each entitlement leads to different average hourly rates. ↩
This national average will differ from that presented in the next ESFA allocations publication, which will continue to present the previous £11.22 hourly rate. This is because ESFA do not plan to update allocations until outturn data on the take up of the under 2s working parent entitlement in 2024 to 2025 have been received. ↩
The formula factor hourly rates are unrounded and shown to 2 decimal places for presentational purposes only. ↩
National average hourly funding rates are subject to change when allocations are updated to make use of January 2025 PTEs and January 2026 PTEs for 3 and 4-year-old entitlements. For the 2-year-old and under 2-year-old entitlement, national average hourly funding rates are subject to change when allocations are updated to make use of termly data collection throughout 2025 to 2026. This change will likely be more significant for the new entitlements due to the use of estimated local authority-level PTEs to calculate these illustrative average funding rates. ↩
The 3 and 4-year-old entitlement combined average funding rate comprises the universal hours average of £6.14 and the additional hours average of £6.02. Both of these entitlements are funded on the same 3 and 4-year-old funding rates at local authority-level, but they have different PTE distributions between local authorities, for example, universal hours has a higher proportion of total PTEs in London local authorities, which leads to different national averages. ↩
The 2-year-old entitlement combined average hourly rate is calculated from sum of the 2-year-old disadvantaged and 2-year-old working parent illustrative allocations. Both entitlements are funded using the same 2-year-old funding rates at local authority-level, but they will have slightly different national average hourly rates if calculated separately due to having different local authority-level PTE distributions. ↩
The FSM and EAL data used is taken from the department’s statistical release schools, pupils and their characteristics: January 2024. ↩
The data used are taken from the DWP Stat-Xplore system: benefit claimants eligible for disability living allowance in February 2023. These data are subject to statistical disclosure control, which is applied, by DWP, to all Stat-Xplore data. The 2023 cut of data is used alongside ONS mid-year population estimates, the latest of which are mid-2023. ↩
IDACI ranks are updated roughly every 3 to 5 years. ↩
The mid-2020 LSOA level ONS population estimates was the latest published at time of 2024 to 2025 rates publication. ↩
The 2024 to 2025 schools block NFF IDACI primary unit values remain the latest available data when setting the 2025 to 2026 early years funding rates. ↩
The data supplied by VOA is derived from the datasets used in their official statistics release ‘Non-domestic rating: stock of properties, 2024’. ↩
The sub-national aggregate data supplied by VOA also includes unpublished floorspace data and school type classifications that are based on information held on VOA systems. ↩
NRCA dataset is based on special category (085) Day Nurseries / Play Schools with any maintained schools that can be identified filtered out added to the IPRCA dataset. ↩
The 2024 NRCA data include the impact of the 2023 revaluation i.e., where VOA update the rateable values of private nursery properties as part of creating the 2023 rating list. The 2022 and 2023 NRCA data continue to be based on the rateable values recorded on the 2017 rating list. ↩
Floorspace is not recorded for private nurseries on the 2023 rating list due to a move to registered child places. These properties will use floorspace as recorded on the 2017 rating list where available. ↩
The NRCA floorspace measure is based on net internal area (NIA) where available else gross internal area (GIA). ↩
IPRCA dataset is based on special category (159) local authority schools with secondary and independent schools filtered out. ↩
The 2024 IPRCA data include the impact of the 2023 revaluation i.e., where VOA have updated the rateable values of schools as part of creating the 2023 rating list. The 2022 and 2023 IPRCA data continue to be based on the rateable values recorded on the 2017 rating list. ↩
The IPRCA floor space measure is based on GIA where available, else NIA. ↩
Properties that have no floor space data or zero rateable value are filtered out of IPRCA (and NRCA) datasets. ↩
PTEs in schools is defined for each local authority as the total 3 and 4-year-old entitlement PTEs recorded on the January 2024 school census divided by the total 3 and 4-year-old entitlement PTEs recorded on the January 2024 school and early years census. ↩
PTEs in schools is defined for each local authority as the sum of the 2-year-old FRAS entitlement PTEs recorded on the January 2024 school census and the 2-year-old working parent entitlement PTEs recorded on the May 2024 school census divided by the sum of the 2-year-old FRAS entitlement PTEs recorded on the January 2024 school and early years censuses and the 2-year-old working parent entitlement PTEs recorded on the May 2024 school census and summer term 2024 local authority count. ↩
PTEs in schools is defined for each local authority as the total 2-year-old working parent entitlement PTEs recorded on the May 2024 school census divided by the total 2-year-old working parent entitlement PTEs recorded on the May 2024 school census and summer term 2024 local authority count. ↩
Data used in 2024 to 2025 DSG rates setting related to both the teacher pay and pension grant distributions to reflect that additional funding was rolled into 2024 to 2025 rates for both pay and pensions. ↩ ↩²
Calculated by applying the ACA to the estimated number of 2-year-old entitlements PTEs in each IDACI band for each local authority. ↩
Calculated by applying ACA to the estimated number of under 2s entitlement PTEs in each IDACI band for each local authority. ↩

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