The Nursery Education (England) Regulations 2000

• Citation: S.I. 2000/107
• Sections: 11

Section 1 Citation, commencement and interpretation

(1) These Regulations may be cited as the Nursery Education (England) Regulations 2000 and shall come into force on 11th February 2000.

(2) These Regulations apply only in relation to England.

(3) In these Regulations–

“ the Act ” means the Nursery Education and Grant-Maintained Schools Act 1996; and

“grant” means a grant made under arrangements under section 1 of the Act.

Section 2 Definition of accredited child minder

In these Regulations–

“accredited child minder” means a person who at the relevant time is–

registered by a local education authority under section 71(1)(a) of the Children Act 1989 ;

acting as a child minder for the purposes of Part X of that Act within the local authority’s area, and

accredited by a recognised organisation or by a body or group of people approved by a recognised organisation for purposes including the bestowing of such accreditation; “recognised” means recognised by the Secretary of State for purposes including the accreditation of registered child minders; and

“the relevant time” means any period of time during which nursery education in respect of which grant is claimed is provided by the person.

Section 3 Revocation

The following Regulations are hereby revoked–

(a) the Nursery Education (England) Regulations 1998 ;

(b) the Nursery Education (England) (Amendment) Regulations 1999 ; and

(c) the Nursery Education (England) (Amendment) ( No. 2) Regulations 1999 .

Section 4 Nursery Education

(1) For the purposes of section 1(2)(b) of the Act (prescribing a time, earlier than the time in section 1(2)(a), after which education provided for children is nursery education) there is prescribed the day immediately preceding whichever is the later of–

(a) the start of the first term starting after the child has attained the age of 3 years; or

(b) if the child’s third birthday falls within one of the periods specified in paragraph (2), the start of the term following the term referred to in that paragraph.

(2) The periods referred to in paragraph (1) and regulation 8(7) are, in any year–

(a) the period commencing on 1st April and ending with the start of the Summer term of that year;

(b) the period commencing on 1st September and ending with the start of the Autumn term of that year; and

(c) the period commencing on 1st January and ending with the start of the Spring term of that year.

(3) For the purposes of paragraphs (1) and (2) “term” means the term kept in relation to the education provided, or to be provided, or under consideration, for the child, as the case may be, and, in any year, Spring term, Summer term and Autumn term mean, respectively, the term which starts in January, in April and in September.

Section 5 Recipients of grant

Grants may be made (in addition to grants made to local education authorities under section 1(3)(a) of the Act), to–

(a) local authorities which provide day care under section 18 of the Children Act 1989;

(b) persons registered by a local authority under section 71(1)(b) of that Act (persons providing day care for children under the age of eight on non-domestic premises) or who would be required to be so registered if that Act applied to the Crown;

(c) proprietors of independent schools to whom the Secretary of State has given notice of final registration of the school under section 465(3) of the Education Act 1996 ;

(d) proprietors of independent schools the registration of which under that section is provisional, being schools providing nursery education for children with statements of special educational needs with the consent of the Secretary of State under section 347 of the Education Act 1996 or with the approval of the authority by which the statements are maintained;

(e) proprietors of special schools not being maintained schools;

(f) local authorities which provide nursery education at home for children with special educational needs; and

(g) accredited child minders.

Section 6 Amount of grant

(1) Paragraphs (2) to (5) apply for the purposes of regulations 7 and 8.

(2) The following expressions have the following meanings–

“allowable unit cost” means the average cost per child to the provider of the nursery education of providing that education for the children for whom it is provided during the grant period;

“approved Early Years Development Plan” means an Early Years Development Plan which has been approved by the Secretary of State and in respect of which that approval is extant;

“Early Years Development Partnership” means a body established by a local education authority under section 119 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998;

“Early Years Development Plan” means a statement and annexes prepared by a local education authority, in conjunction with the Early Years Development Partnership, pursuant to section 120 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, setting out their proposals for the provision of nursery education in their area;

“grant period” means a period referred to in paragraph (3) or paragraph (4), as the case may be;

“head count” means a count conducted by a provider of nursery education of the children attending for the purpose of nursery education during the week notified for the taking of the count by, in the case of provision taking place within an area in respect of which an approved Early Years Development Plan is operating, the local education authority and in any other case the Secretary of State;

“reckonable children” has the meaning given to it by regulation 7(8);

“Revenue Support Grant” has the meaning given to it by section 79 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 ;

“session” means any period during which nursery education is provided on any one day, disregarding any break of less than one hour;

“unit amount” means any amount specified by the Secretary of State for the purposes of determining grants.

(3) Subject to paragraph (5), where the nursery education in respect of which grant is made is provided at a school, the amount of grant shall be determined in respect of a period (“the grant period”) comprising a term.

(4) Subject to paragraph (5), where the nursery education in respect of which grant is made is provided otherwise than at a school, the amount of grant shall be determined in respect of a period (“the grant period”) which is equivalent, or approximates to, a school term.

(5) Where the nursery education in respect of which a grant is made is provided in an area in respect of which an approved Early Years Development Plan is in place, and that plan provides for the payment of grant to be made in respect of the period of half a term then the grant period for the purposes of paragraph (3) or, as the case may be paragraph (4), shall be half a term or half a school term, respectively.

Section 7 Amount of grant

(1) The provision of this regulation shall apply for determining the manner of counting children for the purposes of regulation 8.

(2) For each grant period, only those children may be counted who either–

(a) attend at least one session of nursery education provided by the provider during the week in which the head count takes place, or

(b) only fail so to attend because of illness or for some other exceptional reason but are at that time genuinely expected to take up the place which the provider has allocated to them.

(3) Except in the case of a child in relation to whom paragraph (4) or (5) applies, for the purposes of determining the number of children for whom a provider is providing nursery education in any grant period every such child shall count towards that number as a whole child.

(4) Except in the case of a child in relation to whom paragraph (5) applies or for the purposes of regulation 8(5), where, throughout a grant period, a provider provides nursery education for a child for fewer than 5 sessions per week, for the purposes of determining the number of children for whom nursery education places are provided that child shall count towards that number to the extent obtained by applying the following formula–

where

A is the child and S is the number of sessions of nursery education provided each week for the child (or if, during the grant period, a different number of sessions is provided in different weeks, the average such number).

(5) For the purposes of regulation 8(6) only, this paragraph applies throughout a grant period, if, in that period, for any number of weeks the following conditions are both met, namely–

(a) that for that week or each of those weeks two or more providers each provide nursery education for the child; and

(b) that in respect of that week or each of those weeks, the total number of sessions for which grant is claimed by those providers in respect of the child exceeds 5.

(6) Where paragraph (5) applies, for the purposes of determining the number of children for whom a provider is providing nursery education, the child in question shall count towards that number to the extent obtained by applying the following formulae–

(a) in a case in which the conditions in paragraph (5) are met during every week in which nursery education is provided for the child throughout the grant period, the formula is

where

A is the child, P is the average number of sessions of nursery education provided by the provider for the child each week during the grant period and T is the average of the total number of all sessions of nursery education provided for the child each week during the grant period for which grant is claimed;

(b) in a case in which the conditions in paragraph (5) apply for a number of weeks (“N weeks”) during the grant period that are fewer than the total number of weeks (“W weeks”) in which nursery education is provided for the child, and for each of the remaining weeks (“W–N weeks”) grant is claimed in respect of the child by only one provider and nursery education is provided by that provider for fewer than 5 sessions, the formula is

where

A is the child, P is the average number of sessions of nursery education provided by the provider during each of the weeks in which the conditions are met, T is the average of the total number of all sessions of nursery education provided for the child each such week and Q is the average number of sessions provided for the child by the provider in each week in which the conditions are not, or one of the conditions is not, met;

(c) in any other case in which the conditions in paragraph (6) apply for a number of weeks (“N weeks”) during the grant period that are fewer than the total number of weeks (“W weeks”) in which nursery education is provided for the child, and for the remaining weeks (“W–N weeks”) nursery education is provided for the child by one provider, the formula is

where

A is the child, P is the average number of sessions of nursery education provided by the provider during each of the weeks in which the conditions are met, and T is the average of the total number of all sessions of nursery education provided for the child each such week.

(8) For the purposes of regulation 8(2), the number of reckonable children is given by subtracting from the number of children for whom places are provided at such schools as are mentioned there for the period in question the number of children provision of nursery education for whom during that period has been taken into account in calculating the Revenue Support Grant payable to the local education authority for the financial year in which that period falls.

Section 8 Amount of grant

(1) The provisions of this regulation shall have effect for determining the amount of grant payable to a provider of nursery education.

(2) The amount of grant made to a local education authority for any grant period in respect of nursery education provided at schools maintained by them shall be the amount obtained by multiplying the unit amount by the number of reckonable children.

(3) The amount of grant made to an authority for any period in respect of nursery education provided by them (other than provision in respect of which grant is made under paragraph (2) or would be made but for the effect of regulation 7(8)) shall be the amount obtained by multiplying the unit amount by the number of children for whom nursery education places are so provided for that period.

(4) The amount of a grant made to a person (other than an authority or a local education authority) for any grant period in respect of nursery education provided by that person in respect of those children shall be the lesser of the amounts calculated in accordance with paragraphs (5) and (6).

(5) In this paragraph, the amount is the amount obtained by multiplying the allowable unit cost by the number of those children for whom nursery education is so provided by that person during that period.

(6) In this paragraph, the amount is the amount obtained by multiplying the unit amount by the number of those children for whom nursery education is so provided by that person during that period.

(7) Subject to paragraph (8), the total amount of grant payable under this regulation in relation to the area of a local education authority in any financial year beginning on or after 1st April 1999 in respect of nursery education provided for children before whichever is the later of–

(a) the start of the first term starting after the child has attained the age of 4 years; or

(b) if the child’s fourth birthday falls within one of the periods specified in regulation 4(2), the start of the term following the term referred to in that paragraph,

shall not exceed such amount specified from time to time by the Secretary of State in relation to that local education authority area and that financial year (and for these purposes the Secretary of State may specify zero as an amount).

(8) In respect of the area of a local education authority specified in the Schedule to the Nursery Education (England) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 1999 the Secretary of State may not specify an amount under paragraph (7) above in respect of the financial year beginning on 1st April 1999 which is lower than the total amount of grant which has been paid or which is payable in accordance with regulation 3(1)(a) of the Nursery Education (England) Regulations 1998 under regulation 7 of those Regulations in respect of the Autumn term, or a period equivalent or approximate thereto, falling within that financial year.

Section 9 Social Security information

(1) The information specified in paragraph (2) shall constitute information of a prescribed description for the purposes of paragraph 1(2) of Schedule 2 to the Act.

(2) The information for the purposes of paragraph (1) shall be any information supplied to the Secretary of State in connection with a claim for, or in connection with the adjudication of a claim for, child benefit pursuant to Part IX of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 and in particular–

(a) the name, address and date of birth of the child or of each child in respect of whom child benefit is claimed; and

(b) the name and address of the person by whom the claim for child benefit is made.

Section 10 Inspection reports

(1) For the purposes of paragraph 13(1) of Schedule 26 to the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, there is prescribed, as the period within which a report of an inspection under paragraph 6 of that Schedule is to be made, 25 days beginning on the day following that on which the inspection is completed.

(2) For the purposes of calculating the period prescribed by paragraph (1), no account shall be taken of Saturday, Sunday, Good Friday and Christmas Day or any day which is a bank holiday in England under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 .

(3) In paragraph (4), “the local education authority” means the local education authority for the area in which the nursery education is provided and references to “any other local education authority” are references to any local education authority other than the local education authority.

(4) For the purposes of paragraph 13(2) of Schedule 26 to the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 there are prescribed, as the authorities and persons to whom a copy of a report of an inspection shall be sent, the local education authority and–

(a) in the case of nursery education provided at a school maintained by a local education authority, the head teacher of the school and (except in the case of a nursery school) the school’s governing body;

(b) in the case of nursery education provided at a school having foundation governors, the person who appoints them;

(c) in the case of nursery education provided at a school whose instrument of government names a person as sponsor, that person;

(d) in the case of nursery education provided at an independent school, the head teacher of the school, the proprietors of the school, the Registrar of Independent Schools for England and, where the school is approved by the Secretary of State under section 347 of the Education Act (approval of independent schools for children with statements), any other local education authority paying fees in respect of the attendance of a registered pupil at the school;

(e) in the case of nursery education provided at a special school which is not maintained by a local education authority, the head teacher of the school, the proprietors of the school and any other local education authority paying fees in respect of the attendance of a registered pupil at the school;

(f) in the case of nursery education provided by a local authority under section 18 of the Children Act 1989, the local authority and the person in charge of the place at which the education is provided;

(g) in the case of nursery education provided by a person registered by a local authority under section 71(1)(b) of the Children Act 1989, that person and the registering authority;

(h) in the case of nursery education provided by a person who would be required to be so registered in that Act applied to the Crown, that person and the Secretary of State;

(i) in the case of nursery education provided by a local authority at home to children with special educational needs, that authority; and

(j) in the case of nursery education provided by an accredited child minder, that accredited child minder.

Section 11 Inspection intervals

For the purpose of paragraph 6(1)(a) of Schedule 26 to the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 it is hereby prescribed that relevant nursery education, as defined in paragraph 1 of that Schedule, shall be inspected by a registered nursery education inspector at intervals of four years.