FactCheck: parents in poor areas more likely to struggle getting a childcare place from April

Many more families will become eligible for free childcare next week - but will they find places?

The government is just days away from rolling out more funded childcare hours for two-year-olds with working parents.

This allows us to work out how well served each local authority will be from next month – and which areas are most at risk of gaps. And in dozens of council areas, things are even worse. Blackpool has the lowest provision – with just 78 places for every 100 children we expect to want funded hours. Leicester and Hull are next on the list, with 79 places.

So they often rely on the parents who pay for private places to stay afloat. When more families switch from private to public funded hours next week, some of that income will be threatened – which could force nurseries and childminders to cut the number of places they can provide or even close down altogether.

The Department for Education told us it is “confident” in the strength of the childcare market — and every local authority is “currently meeting its statutory duty to secure sufficient numbers of childcare places”.

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