The Department for Education provides funding for local authorities to pay for three and four year olds to receive their entitlement to 15 hours of free education each week. The Department devolves delivery to local authorities and providers but it is responsible for the overall value for money from the system. In 2011-12 the Department's estimated funding for the entitlement of £1.9 billion provided over 800,000 three and four year olds with access to free education; an estimated annual allocation of approximately £2,300 per child. While the Department and local authorities have focused on ensuring places for children are available, there has been less attention on how value for money can be secured and improved. While there is evidence of educational improvement at age five, the evidence that this is sustained is questionable. The Department needs to do more to understand how educational benefits can be lasting. There is not enough good information for parents to make informed choices and there is concern at reports that some families are still not receiving the entitlement free of charge. It is important that all parents know what the entitlement is and that it should be provided completely free. Early years education has the greatest benefit for children from disadvantaged backgrounds however these children have the lowest levels of take-up and deprived areas have the lowest levels of high quality services. The Department needs to identify and share good practice from those local authorities which are having the most success.

The national take-up rate for three and four-year-olds in early education has been sustained at 95 per cent since 2008, despite an eight per cent increase in eligible children. There are however, wide variations in take-up between local authorities. Take-up for children from the most disadvantaged families is lower than overall take-up, and access to high quality provision varies depending on where children live. The percentage of good or outstanding provision across local authorities in March 2011 ranged from 64 per cent to 97 per cent. Areas of highest deprivation are less likely to have high quality provision. Children's level of development at age five has improved, but National Key Stage One results at age seven show almost no improvement since 2007. Although the relationship between the entitlement and Key Stage One results is not straightforward, the Department intended the entitlement to have lasting effects on child development throughout primary school and beyond. It is not yet clear, however, that the entitlement is leading to longer-term educational benefits, and the Department does not yet have robust measures to demonstrate whether the longer-term benefits it expects are being realised. The Department also lacks a robust analysis of the relationship between performance and funding levels. The NAO's analysis found that local authorities which fund providers of the free entitlement at a higher rate were not necessarily those with high-quality provision. There are also limitations in the information available to help parents choose where and how their children use the entitlement.

The foundations of health and wellbeing are laid down in pregnancy and the early years. Health for all Children takes a life course approach to child health, starting in pregnancy and extending to the age of seven to include transition into school, and to cover the foundation years in education. This new edition summarizes the evidence supporting preventive health care and health promotion; providing an effective, community-based response to the needs of families and children. Each chapter summarizes evidence of effectiveness in the topic area, in health promotion, and in universal and selective interventions. The fifth edition starts in pregnancy and runs until age seven taking into account Government policies and different models of delivery of the child health programme. Evidence from all over the world is critically appraised and referenced to UK policy and practice. Health for all Children summarizes the evidence about 'why' and 'what works' in health promotion and health surveillance with children and families, providing guidance on how to implement and quality assure a programme, and the competencies needed. Each chapter includes 'learning links' to online training materials and e-learning for health, or to resources freely available to practitioners. This established, evidence-based book continues to be essential reading for all health professionals who work with children. It will also provide vital background knowledge for those charged with the responsibility of planning, commissioning, and monitoring child health.

In this topical book, leading experts from eight countries examine how early education and care is organised, funded and regulated in their countries.

Affordable Childcare (HL 117) examines the Government's provision of early years education and childcare for younger children. The Government currently invests 5.2 billion annually in early education and childcare, set to rise to 6.4 billion in the next Parliament with the implementation of the tax-free childcare scheme and the roll-out of Universal Credit.

An useful guide to The Childcare Act 2006 for professionals working in children's services.

Naomi Eisenstadt and Carey Oppenheim explore the radical changes in public attitudes and public policy concerning parents and parenting. Drawing on research and their extensive experience of working at senior levels of government, the authors challenge expectations about what parenting policy on its own can deliver. They argue convincingly that a more joined-up approach is needed to improve outcomes for children: both reducing child poverty and improving parental capacity by providing better support systems. This is vital reading for policymakers at central and local government level as well as those campaigning for the rights of children.

Children are already learning at birth, and they develop and learn at a rapid pace in their early years. This provides a critical foundation for lifelong progress, and the adults who provide for the care and the education of young children bear a great responsibility for their health, development, and learning. Despite the fact that they share the same objective - to nurture young children and secure their future success - the various practitioners who contribute to the care and the education of children from birth through age 8 are not acknowledged as a workforce unified by the common knowledge and competencies needed to do their jobs well. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 explores the science of child development, particularly looking at implications for the professionals who work with children. This report examines the current capacities and practices of the workforce, the settings in which they work, the policies and infrastructure that set qualifications and provide professional learning, and the government agencies and other funders who support and oversee these systems. This book then makes recommendations to improve the quality of professional practice and the practice environment for care and education professionals. These detailed recommendations create a blueprint for action that builds on a unifying foundation of child development and early learning, shared knowledge and competencies for care and education professionals, and principles for effective professional learning. Young children thrive and learn best when they have secure, positive relationships with adults who are knowledgeable about how to support their development and learning and are responsive to their individual progress. Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth Through Age 8 offers guidance on system changes to improve the quality of professional practice, specific actions to improve professional learning systems and workforce development, and research to continue to build the knowledge base in ways that will directly advance and inform future actions. The recommendations of this book provide an opportunity to improve the quality of the care and the education that children receive, and ultimately improve outcomes for children.

This report is a follow-up to the Committee's report on Accountability for Public Money (HC 740, session 2010-11 (ISBN 9780215559029)) an issue at the core of the relationship between Parliament and government. Accounting Officers remain accountable to Parliament for funds voted to their departments but the policy intention is that local bodies will have significant discretion over the services they deliver. In the Government's response, 'Accountability: Adapting to Decentralisation', Sir Bob Kerslake drew a distinction between those services that government delivers directly and those that it may fund but are delivered in more decentralised arrangements. He proposed that Accounting Officers set out, in Accountability System Statements, the arrangements they have in place to provide assurance about the probity and value for money of funds spent through devolved systems. All departments are expected to produce Statements by summer 2012. Departments have made a genuine effort to develop arrangements which reconcile accountability and localism but the Statements so far are unwieldy and considerably more needs to be done to improve their clarity, consistency and completeness. There is concern that accountability frameworks must drive value for money and, critically, are sufficiently robust to address the operational or financial failure of service providers. Departments are placing increasing reliance on market mechanisms such as user choice to drive up performance and value for money, but there are limits to what these mechanisms can achieve. The Treasury needs to take ownership of the system and ensure that the Comptroller and Auditor General has the necessary powers and rights of access to examine the value for money of funds spent through devolved systems

Early action in public policy delivery involves the use of resources to tackle causes rather than symptoms. The Government spends nearly £400 billion each year on, for example, health, education, employment, justice and welfare, but huge numbers of people still suffer preventable health problems that are expensive to treat, too many young people leave school with too few qualifications and unable to get a job, too many young offenders commit further crimes when they leave prison, often because of drugs or alcohol addiction, and too many families get locked into benefit dependency. A concerted increase in effective early action could help to deal with the root causes of such problems, benefiting individuals and society and saving the taxpayer billions of pounds each year, but governments have consistently failed to deliver. Early action accounts for only a fraction of annual spending and this spending is not properly co-ordinated. There is no common definition of early action, no central ownership, and little capacity at the centre to drive effective delivery and share good practice. The Treasury is far too focussed on the short term. Robust evidence on the cost-effectiveness of early action and strong incentives for departments to implement early action projects are both vital. Good evidence, however, is thin on the ground and existing incentives do not seem to be working. Addressing social problems effectively also requires that departments work together but, despite some encouraging evidence of joint working amongst departments and at the local level, silo behaviour still predominates.