Eligible working parents with children aged nine months and over will soon be able to register for 15 hours free childcare per week for the first time. This is part of the extension of the free childcare scheme announced by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in his 2023 Spring Budget. This is the second phase of the free childcare scheme shake up; the first was extending 15 hours free childcare per week to working parents of two-year olds, applications of which opened in January 2024, with it coming into effect from April 2024.
When it was first announced, the extension of the free childcare scheme was welcomed by many parents, especially for those who had cited high childcare costs as the reason they weren't expanding their family. However, chronic underfunding and a staffing crisis threw a significant spanner in the government's plans for the first wave of the extension and it issued a stark warning, saying they couldn't force childcare providers to offer the government-subsidised hours, leaving many families wondering whether the government could actually deliver on its free childcare promise.
