Regional childcare programmes (planned)

What is modelled today¶

The current childcare coverage is recorded in policyengine_uk/programs.yaml, where #1703 split the old umbrella entry into per-programme rows after the #1644 audit. Care to Learn and the Scottish funded ELC have no row yet. Coverage works as follows:

• UK-wide: Tax-Free Childcare (HMRC); Universal Credit childcare element (DWP); Working Tax Credit childcare element (legacy, HMRC administered, ended 5 April 2025, modelled under gov/dwp/; see tax-credits.md).

• England-only (gate on country == ENGLAND): Universal Childcare Entitlement (15 hours for 3- and 4-year-olds), Extended Childcare Entitlement (working parents, now reaching down to children aged nine months), Targeted Childcare Entitlement (2-year-olds in families on qualifying benefits, or on Universal Credit or tax credits with income below a limit), Care to Learn, Student Finance England Childcare Grant.

• Scotland: eligibility for the universal funded ELC for 3- and 4-year-olds (scottish_funded_early_learning_childcare_eligible, with the statutory start date for 3-year-olds taken as an input, scottish_funded_early_learning_childcare_start_date_reached) and its 1,140 hours a year, added in #1643. No funding value is attached yet, so it does not reach household income.

• Wales, Northern Ireland: no programmes modelled.

Proposed scope by jurisdiction¶

Scotland: three remaining strands¶

The #1644 audit flagged three Scottish gaps:

1. Eligible-two-year-old strand of the funded ELC programme: 2-year-olds who are looked after, under a kinship care order or with an appointed guardian (Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 s. 47(3)), or whose parent receives a qualifying benefit under the Provision of Early Learning and Childcare (Specified Children) (Scotland) Order 2014. It would be modelled the same way as the 3- and 4-year-old strand but gated on those conditions. The qualifying benefits include Universal Credit with earned income of up to £850 an assessment period; Child Tax Credit was removed from the list from 6 April 2025 (SSI 2025/82).

2. Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) support for student parents: the Childcare Funds that universities and colleges pay out (a Lone Parents’ Childcare Grant of up to £1,215 a year, not income-assessed, plus discretionary help assessed on need), the closest Scottish equivalent of Student Finance England’s Childcare Grant (SAAS childcare fund guidance, 2026 to 2027); and SAAS’s income-assessed Lone Parents’ Grant (up to £1,305). The audit also listed SAAS’s Dependants’ Grant, but that supports adult dependants rather than children.

3. Support for young parents in further education, the role Care to Learn plays in England. The Education Maintenance Allowance still runs in Scotland for 16- to 19-year-olds, applied for through local councils and colleges, but it is a maintenance payment rather than childcare support, so the childcare side needs its own scoping.

Wales¶

The audit identified four Welsh programmes:

1. Childcare Offer for Wales: up to 30 hours a week of combined nursery education (at least 10 hours) and childcare, for up to 48 weeks a year, for 3- and 4-year-olds of working parents or parents in further or higher education (gov.wales). Modelled the same as the English Extended Childcare Entitlement with Welsh-specific income tests and hour caps. Statutory basis: Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019.

2. Flying Start: funded childcare for 2- to 3-year-olds in some of the most disadvantaged areas of Wales (12.5 hours a week, 39 weeks a year), expanded in phases since 2022 with the aim of reaching all 2-year-olds (Welsh Government guidance). Eligibility is geographic, based on lower layer super output areas chosen by each local authority.

3. Student Finance Wales Childcare Grant, parallel to the English Childcare Grant.

4. Welsh EMA, parallel to the Scottish EMA.

Northern Ireland¶

The audit identified four NI programmes:

1. Pre-school Education Programme (PSEP): a funded place in the immediate pre-school year for every child whose family wants one. In December 2024, 60% of children had 12.5 hours a week and 40% had 22.5 hours; the Department of Education is moving places to 22.5 hours, starting with 77 settings from September 2025 (Department of Education).

2. Sure Start: younger children in disadvantaged areas, including a programme for 2-year-olds.

3. Student Finance NI Childcare Grant.

4. NI EMA.

Implementation outline¶

For each new programme:

• New parameter tree under the administering body (as #1643 did with parameters/gov/scottish_government/<programme>/) capturing the income tests, hours offered, and weekly funding rates.

• New variable(s) under the matching variables/gov/<body>/<programme>/ folder, gated on the appropriate country == ... check.

• A <programme>_eligible companion variable that the new programme variable composes with the rate parameter, the same pattern as the English entitlement trio.

• A programs.yaml row per programme, bound to the new variable and parameter prefix.

Structural items deferred to this work¶

The #1644 audit also listed four structural findings. #1703 has since split the programs.yaml umbrella row, and one (a shared in_england helper) is minor; the other two become more pressing once the regional programmes land:

• weeks_per_year and childcare_funding_rate currently sit at gov.dfe.* root but encode English term-week and funding-rate assumptions. They should be regionalised (for example gov.scottish_government.funded_early_learning_childcare.weeks_per_year) once the Scotland, Wales and NI programmes are modelled.

• No aggregating variable across programmes exists (for example “total subsidised childcare hours per child per week”). The API surfaces the per-programme variables but can’t answer “what’s this family’s combined childcare support” without the caller summing.

Both belong in a separate cleanup PR rather than mixed into the per-programme work.

Data needs¶

Several regional programmes (the Scottish two-year-old strand, the Childcare Offer, Flying Start and PSEP) are funded hours rather than cash payments, so their data side is comparatively easy:

• FRS provides the household’s region, from which the model derives country; that is enough to gate eligibility.

• Welsh Government publishes Flying Start official statistics with local authority breakdowns, and an annual Childcare Offer for Wales report that gives the number of children using the Offer by local authority.

• Scottish Government Funded Early Learning and Childcare Statistics (the annual ELC census) provide funded ELC registrations, including eligible two-year-olds.

• Department of Education NI publishes PSEP caseloads.

• The SAAS, Student Finance Wales and Student Finance NI childcare grants need published award totals to check the modelled amounts against. The English childcare_grant has no calibration target yet: the Student Loans Company targets in policyengine-uk-data cover Parents’ Learning Allowance and Adult Dependants’ Grant only.

The aggregating challenge is choosing whether to expose subsidised hours or subsidised cost as the primary household-level variable. Recommendation: subsidised cost, since that is how the English entitlements already enter household_benefits and gov_spending.

Open questions¶

• Should the Scottish ELC universal strand and the eligible-two-year-old strand be modelled as two separate variables (matching how England splits Universal / Extended / Targeted), or as one variable with the age-and-eligibility logic inside? Recommendation: separate, mirroring the English pattern for queryability.

• Welsh Flying Start is geographic. Microcosm UK, the default UK dataset in the policyengine.py bundle since release 6.10.0 (21 October 2026), places each household in its local-area build in one atomic area (a 2021 Output Area in England and Wales, a 2022 Output Area in Scotland, a 2021 Data Zone in Northern Ireland) and derives larger geographies such as LSOAs from it. The national file carries no small areas. Eligibility by area becomes possible on the local-area build once the Flying Start LSOA list is sourced.

• EMA ended in England but still runs in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Today child_ema and adult_ema (under variables/gov/dwp/) are reported FRS amounts with no formula. Should the devolved schemes sit alongside the England-only gov.dfe.care_to_learn tree, or be separate schemes under each administration?

References¶

• Audit: #1644, the full childcare coverage audit.

• Tracking: #1008, the original Scotland, Wales and NI gap report.

• Recent landed work: #1643, Scottish universal funded ELC; #1703, per-programme programs.yaml rows.

• Existing England implementation (the pattern to mirror): the entitlement variables under policyengine_uk/variables/gov/dfe/.

• Welsh childcare statute: Childcare Funding (Wales) Act 2019.

• Scottish eligible-2-year-old legislation: Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 s. 47(3) and SSI 2014/196, as amended by SSI 2025/82.

• SAAS, University Childcare Fund guidance, 2026 to 2027.