Guidance Coronavirus (COVID-19): financial support for education, early years and children’s social care
Sector-specific guidance
Early years
This section will be relevant to early years providers that are employers, and
that usually have a mix of public income (largely this will be funding for the
free early education entitlements, also known as ‘DSG funding’) and private
income (largely this will be the fees that parents pay for childcare beyond
the free entitlements).
Childminders are less likely to be employers, and therefore are less likely to
be eligible for support via the CJRS. Childminders may find the Self
Employment Income Support Scheme more
relevant. Maintained nursery schools should take account of the guidance in
this section. For school-based nursery provision, please refer to the
‘schools’ section below.
On 17 March 2020, the Chancellor confirmed that the government will continue
to pay local authorities for free early years entitlement places for 2, 3 and
4 year olds to support providers at this time. On 18 March 2020, the
government also announced a business rates holiday for many nurseries in
England for the 2020 to 2021 tax year. Read the
guidance.
Early years settings should remain open where they are needed to provide
childcare for the children of critical workers who cannot be cared for safely
at home, and vulnerable children.
A private provider should only furlough employees, and therefore seek support
through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, if they meet the following
conditions:

the employee works in an area of business where services are temporarily not required and where their salary is not covered by public funding
the employee would otherwise be made redundant or laid off
the employee is not involved in delivering provision that has already been funded (free entitlement funding)
(where appropriate) the employee is not required to deliver provision for a child of a critical worker and/or vulnerable child
the grant from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme would not duplicate other public grants received, and would not lead to financial reserves being created

If it is difficult to distinguish whether staff are funded through free
entitlement or private income for the purposes of meeting the first 3
conditions as listed above, then an early years provider can access the CJRS
to cover up to the proportion of its paybill which could be considered to have
been paid for from that provider’s private income. This would typically be
income received from ‘parent-paid’ hours, and excludes all income from the
government’s free entitlements (or ‘DSG income’) for all age groups. In line
with the conditions of the scheme listed above, providers should initially use
the month of February 2020 to represent their usual income in calculating the
proportion of its paybill eligible to be covered by the scheme. Providers
should adjust these proportions in subsequent furloughing applications if
their income from the government’s free entitlements changes, but are not
expected to make any adjustments in relation to changes in parent-paid income.
To illustrate:
If a provider’s average monthly income is 40% from DSG and 60% from other
income, the provider could claim CJRS support for up to 60% of their paybill.
This would be done by furloughing staff whose usual salary / combined salaries
come to no greater than 60% of the provider’s total paybill.
These proportions could change in subsequent furlough applications as a result
of DSG income changing (but not where income from parents increased or
decreased). For example, if this provider subsequently receives additional DSG
income from a local authority as a result of providing additional hours of
childcare, such that its new DSG income would represent 55% of its total
income in February 2020, then its maximum use of the furlough scheme should,
from that point, be reduced to 45% of its paybill.
Some early years settings may also be eligible for the Small Business Grant
Fund (SBGF). The details and eligibility criteria for SBGF can be found in
the
guidance. For more information, and to find out how to apply for the
Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan scheme, please refer to the Financial
support for businesses during coronavirus (COVID-19)
guidance.
Further guidance for early years
providers is available.
The DfE is considering appropriate measures to monitor the use of these
schemes in order to detect any duplication of funding, and will be considering
potential options to recover misused public funding as required.
[DSG]: dedicated schools grant
  [CJRS]: Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
  *[DfE]: Department for Education