The Government is making good progress towards full implementation of the new entitlement from September 2017.
The extended free childcare entitlement for working parents of three and four-year-olds will provide eligible parents with a total of 30 hours of free childcare per week, over 38 weeks or the equivalent number of hours across more weeks per year.
Additional free childcare will help families by reducing the cost of childcare and will support parents into work or to work more hours, should they wish to do so. This is in addition to the existing 15 hours of free early education, which is available to
all three- and four-year-olds and eligible two-year-olds
Detail of qualifiying children is set out in the current Childcare Bill Policy Statement
here.
The Department for Education invited applications to be early implementers from September 2016, Bradford Council submitted an application in November 2015 and are awaiting the outcome.