A66Delivery risk: AmberGate: pending
Make childcare places work for working parents
Existing action A66, assessed at the same scope.
Not stated in the review record; treated as a provisional single-reviewer assessment, not an approved business case.
- Who and where
- Families in England with children aged 9 months to 4 years who are eligible for funded hours but cannot find a usable place, in council areas with a demonstrated local gap — starting with under-twos, children with SEND, parents working atypical hours and rural areas. (from the action record) Jurisdiction: England.
- Result so far
- Range if completed: 16.0–22.0 out of 30 (equal weights; not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co))
- Funded now (baseline)
- Funded baseline (England): 30 hours a week for 38 weeks for working parents of children from 9 months (since September 2025), the universal 15 hours for 3–4-year-olds, and 15 hours for disadvantaged 2-year-olds, with £9.5bn for early years in 2026–27; school-based nursery and capital grants add places. Commissioning extra places only where a local gap is shown is a UK Facts proposal, not government policy. (from the action record)
- The change assessed (marginal)
- Commission specified additional places/hours in demonstrated local supply gaps beyond the funded baseline; adult-carer support remains a separate option. (from the 6 October review)
- Domain home: Education
- In the national plan: Growth and prosperity list
What the evidence supports—and the next decision
The effect of older free-childcare policies cannot simply be applied to the under-three expansion or to places parents cannot use.
AI-assisted analytical follow-up · 8 October 2026. Proposed appraisal design; the attributed scores below are unchanged. No funding or delivery agreement is implied.
- Define the change
- Commission additional places in verified local gaps, specifying hours, age, SEND access and fees beyond current entitlements.
- Test whether it works
- Usable places taken up, parental employment and hours, child development and quality; compare similar eligible families and separate substitution for care already purchased.
- Establish the cost
- Premises, qualified staff, ratios, operating subsidy, fees and evaluation; test provider viability and continuing demand.
- Protect against harm
- Protect quality and access for disadvantaged families, children with SEND and parents working atypical hours.
Read with the outcome evidence and sources in the full assessment. Monitoring proposals are not existing baseline measurements. A numerical benefit or cost score needs evidence for the defined increment, not just the scale of the problem.
Full assessment of Make childcare places work for working parents: ten criteria, scenarios, delivery, costs and monitoring
The ten criteria (0–3)
Each criterion is scored 0 to 3 by the reviewer. “Not yet assessed” means unknown: it is never counted as zero.
Scale and severity (Sc)3 of 3 — Severe harm across a broad population
Increment beyond baseline (Ad)2 of 3 — Specific material change to existing delivery
Confidence in the proposed action (Ev)1 of 3 — Indirect, mixed, modelled or weak causal support
Expected incremental benefit (Bn)Not yet assessed
Residual harms (Hm)2 of 3 — Manageable harm with specified safeguards
Incremental affordability (Co)Not yet assessed
Delivery capacity (Ca)1 of 3 — Binding scarce resource
Distribution (Fa)3 of 3 — Benefits concentrated on disadvantaged people with assessed burdens
Meaningful first outcome (Ti)2 of 3 — More than one and up to three years
Readiness (Rd)2 of 3 — Named commissioning/allocation/coordination step
Four weightings
Normalised as 10 × weighted sum ÷ sum of weights, on a 0–30 scale. Where a criterion is not yet assessed, the range is the lowest and highest result if it were later scored 0 or 3 — not a score, a confidence interval or a rank.
- Equal weights: Range if completed: 16.0–22.0 out of 30. Not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
- Evidence doubled: Range if completed: 15.5–20.9 out of 30. Not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
- Scale doubled: Range if completed: 17.3–22.7 out of 30. Not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
- Cost ignored (the funding gate still applies): Range if completed: 17.8–21.1 out of 30. Not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
Funding gate: Not passed — the cost is not yet assessed or no allocation is committed for this scope. Ignoring cost in a weighting never removes the gate.
Delivery risk and gate
Delivery risk shown: AmberReview’s claim: Amber. Best the recorded evidence allows: Amber.
Review’s reason: Verify unmet demand, existing awards and provider viability; cost places, workforce, premises, operating subsidy and parental fees. Track access and sustained parental work. Proposed owners: councils, DfE and providers in England; separate devolved arrangements.
Why it is not Green yet
- Scope (population, place and increment) not verified against the delivery baseline.
- No verified owner with the powers in place.
- Delivery capacity not verified.
- Lifetime incremental costs not complete.
- No credible funding (a committed allocation for the scope).
- Safeguards not specified.
- Monitoring lacks a metric, a data source or a baseline.
Green needs verified scope, a verified owner with the powers, verified capacity, complete lifetime costs with credible funding, specified safeguards and monitoring with a metric, source and baseline. Amber means appraisal gaps remain; Red means a material delivery obstacle. Red does not mean unimportant.
Gate: Pending — appraisal incomplete (review label: “Pending baseline verification, incremental costing and funding; not a rollout approval”).
Why: Scores incomplete; Funding gate not passed (cost unknown or no credible funding).
The gate is separate from national list membership: being listed does not make an option eligible, and an eligible option need not be listed.
Cost and funding
Lifetime costing: Not established. Review: “Not fully costed in this review”.
Still to cost: Verify unmet demand, existing awards and provider viability; cost places, workforce, premises, operating subsidy and parental fees. Track access and sustained parental work. Proposed owners: councils, DfE and providers in England; separate devolved arrangements.
Funding status: not identified.
Owner, powers and capacity
Proposed owner: councils, DfE and providers in England; separate devolved arrangements (proposed, unverified).
Powers: needs a decision or allocation. Capacity: binding constraint.
Powers and capacity read from the review’s Rd and Ca anchors; no proposed owner has agreed to act (the review: “Proposed owners have not agreed to act”).
- England:
- Councils (Childcare Act 2006, section 6 sufficiency duty) with the Department for Education and providers (action record)
- Scotland:
- not assessed
- Wales:
- not assessed
- Northern Ireland:
- not assessed
Childcare is devolved. Scotland funds up to 1,140 hours a year for 3–5-year-olds and some 2-year-olds; Wales runs the Childcare Offer (up to 30 hours for 48 weeks for 3–4-year-olds of working parents); Northern Ireland has a 15% Childcare Subsidy Scheme for working parents. None was assessed here.
Dependencies, safeguards and risks
Depends on: None recorded.
Safeguards
None specified yet.
Monitoring and measured results
Metric: Define and baseline the outcome described in delivery requirements before approval.
Data source: Not yet named. Baseline: Not yet established.
Measures already on the domain page
- Eligible disadvantaged two-year-olds registered for funded early learning: latest 71.6% (January 2026); baseline 74.8% (January 2024) (England).
- Eligible children aged 9 months to 2 years registered for working-parent hours: latest 80% (January 2026); baseline 72% (January 2025) (England).
A page measure is not necessarily the review’s metric; linking the two is an editorial decision still to be made.
Evidence for the outcome
Outcome: Define and baseline the outcome described in delivery requirements before approval.
IFS finds employment effects depend on the hours offered. This is indirect evidence for filling today’s local supply gaps. A September 2026 process evaluation exists; it is not a causal national impact estimate.
Sources: ifs.org.uk (not yet in the source register)
Review record
Assessment status: Not stated in the review record; treated as a provisional single-reviewer assessment, not an approved business case.
Reviewer: Original assessment author (name not supplied). Reviewed: 6 October 2026.
Scored in the working review of 6 October 2026 on the shared ten-criterion scale (one reviewer); not independently calibrated.
An editorial screening framework by one reviewer, not a formal appraisal or business case. Proposed owners have not agreed to act.