Finance Matters – Breakeven Analysis

Information about early years funding for the 2025 to 2026 financial year, from the Department for Education.

This 60-minute session built on the how the discussion started on 7 November which looks at the role of schools in sufficiency planning for the early years entitlements. It provided officers responsible for sufficiency planning and market management an opportunity to explore and understand the different ways schools can offer early years places to support action planning activity.

On 9 December, the Department for Education published details of local authorities’ early years entitlements funding for 2025-26. To accompany this announcement, the department has shared these examples of local authority practice as a tool for all authorities to use as they are thinking about how to develop their EY SEND approaches locally. These examples have been grouped thematically to highlight what approaches and improvements could be considered at different stages of the funding cycle to...