March 2025

Expansion to early childcare entitlements: eligibility codes issued and validated

Data guidance

Published 20 March 2025

Description

Codes Issued and Validated relating to the childcare expansion (staggered from April 2024 to September 2025), with termly updates. 

Coverage

All codes issued and validated nationally, regionally, and at local authority level. We also present Local Authority termly returns combined with school census data to present headcount and funding PTE figures from the midpoint of the term. 

File formats and conventions

See methodology - data is split into the term, the child's age (at the start of the relevant term), the geography, and more recently whether the code is new for that term or had been eligible for a previous term as well (existing). 

Data files

All data files associated with this releases are listed below with guidance on their content. To download any of these files, please visit our data catalogue.

Autumn 2024 Local Authority Codes Issued and Validated

• Filename: issued_codes_autumn_by_age_and_user_type.csv
• Geographic levels: Local authority; National; Regional
• Time period: 2024
• Content:
  Codes issued and validated for Autumn 2024, by LA/Region/National, by age of child and by whether the code was newly issued or had been eligible in a previous term.

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
age	Age
codes_issued	Codes issued
codes_validated	Codes validated
percentage_validated	Percentage of codes validated
user_type	User Type

Footnotes

1. Eligibility Checking Service data was aggregated to local authorities using the child's postcode, and the ONS November 2024 postcode directory. This means that codes validated will not align with the total aggregated using the provider postcode, which is relevant to funding. This also means that validation rates can only be between 0% and 100%.
2. Small drops in the validation rate can occur as the number of codes issued can exceed validations by more than the validation rate, but this won't happen for long into the term. This trajectory of validation rates is consistent with other terms and with data on three and four-year-olds.

Autumn 2024 termly headcount local authority returns

• Filename: 20250223_autumn_term_headcount_data.csv
• Geographic levels: Local authority; National
• Time period: 2024/25 Autumn term
• Content:
  Termly headcount and PTE data from Schools and PVIs, as collected from local authorities.

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
age	Age
headcount	Headcount of users in the autumn term
pte_count	Number of PTEs in autumn term

Autumn 2024 time series

• Filename: local_authority_autumn_time_series.csv
• Geographic levels: Local authority; National; Regional
• Time period: 2023 May to 2025 February
• Content:
  A monthly time series of codes issued, validated, and percentage - from the start of the offer (January 2024) to the last month.

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
codes_issued	Codes issued for 9 months to two-year-olds (Autumn term)
codes_validated	Codes validated for 9 months to two-year-olds (Autumn term)
percentage_validated	Percentage of codes validated (Autumn term)
user_type	User

Footnotes

1. Eligibility Checking Service data was aggregated to local authorities using the child's postcode, and the ONS November 2024 postcode directory. This means that codes validated will not align with the total aggregated using the provider postcode, which is relevant to funding. This also means that validation rates can only be between 0% and 100%.
2. Small drops in the validation rate can occur as the number of codes issued can exceed validations by more than the validation rate, but this won't happen for long into the term. This trajectory of validation rates is consistent with other terms and with data on three and four-year-olds.

Spring 2025 Local Authority Codes Issued and Validated

• Filename: spring_issued_codes_by_la.csv
• Geographic levels: Local authority; National; Regional
• Time period: 2025
• Content:
  Codes issued and validated for Spring 2025, by LA/Region/National, by age of child and by whether the code was newly issued or had been eligible in a previous term.

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
age	Age
codes_issued	Codes issued
codes_validated	Codes validated
percentage_validated	Percentage of codes validated
user_type	User Type

Footnotes

1. Eligibility Checking Service data was aggregated to local authorities using the child's postcode, and the ONS November 2024 postcode directory. This means that codes validated will not align with the total aggregated using the provider postcode, which is relevant to funding. This also means that validation rates can only be between 0% and 100%.
2. Small drops in the validation rate can occur as the number of codes issued can exceed validations by more than the validation rate, but this won't happen for long into the term. This trajectory of validation rates is consistent with other terms and with data on three and four-year-olds.

Spring 2025 time series

• Filename: monthly_time_series_spring.csv
• Geographic levels: Local authority; National; Regional
• Time period: 2024 January to 2025 February
• Content:
  A monthly time series of codes issued, validated, and percentage - from the start of the offer (January 2024) to the last month.

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
codes_issued	Codes issued for 9 months to two-year-olds (Spring term)
codes_validated	Codes validated for 9 months to two-year-olds (Spring term)
percentage_validated	Percentage of codes validated (Spring term)
user_type	User

Footnotes

1. Eligibility Checking Service data was aggregated to local authorities using the child's postcode, and the ONS November 2024 postcode directory. This means that codes validated will not align with the total aggregated using the provider postcode, which is relevant to funding. This also means that validation rates can only be between 0% and 100%.
2. Small drops in the validation rate can occur as the number of codes issued can exceed validations by more than the validation rate, but this won't happen for long into the term. This trajectory of validation rates is consistent with other terms and with data on three and four-year-olds.

Headline national codes issued, validated, and percentage validated by term and age of child

• Filename: headline_stats_2025.csv
• Geographic levels: National
• Time period: 2024/25 Autumn term to 2024/25 Spring term
• Content:
  National figures for codes issued and validated to be used in headlines.

Variable names and descriptions

Variable names and descriptions for this file are provided below:

Variable name	Variable description
age_of_child	Age of child at start of term
codes_issued	Codes issued
codes_validated	Codes validated
percentage_validated	Percentage of codes validated

Footnotes

1. Data includes new and existing codes, where a child has a code that has been reconfirmed for the most recent term, the code that was first validated and its issue date have been counted.