Early Years Provider Agreement
Announcement: Early Years Provider Agreement (Launching soon)
Thank you to those who attended the Face-to-Face meeting earlier this month. We had a fantastic turnout of over 70 attendees.
A version of the new Early Years Provider Agreement was showcased to settings on the evening and there was a wealth of discussion and feedback shared.
For those who couldn't make the meeting, please see the paragraph below for a quick introduction into this topic.
The Background to the Agreement
The Department for Education have asked us to put a provider agreement in place; this is a statutory requirement for all local authorities and is essential that we have this in place between the LA and settings. The agreement itself encompasses the already published statutory guidance from the DfE, with some more detail in relation to Shropshire.
It is key to understand that we want to work with providers to ensure this is launched in a collaborative manner.
This agreement has been created collaboratively by the Early Years team, Shropshire Council Legal team and Shropshire Early Years Partnership board members.
Therefore, we would like to announce the next stage towards the eventual launch of the provider agreement.
October 2025 Consultation (1st October until 31st October)
We are delighted to announce a month-long consultation period between Wednesday October 1st and Friday 31st October.
This consultation period will allow all settings to review an electronic version of the provider agreement (in Draft form) and pose any questions to Shropshire Council’s Early Years team. A copy of the draft provider agreement is available via the link at the bottom of this page.
We are keen to hear your feedback/thoughts/questions on the agreement.
You can pose any questions by using the link here: Early Years Provider Agreement- October 2025 Consultation
Please ensure any questions are sent to us by Friday 31st October at 5pm.
We will review the questions and pose any responses back to you by mid-November.
Following this consultation period, we hope to launch the agreement itself, please keep an eye out for updates on this.
If you are having trouble accessing the Microsoft form and you have any further questions, please email me on Dan.Steele@shropshire.gov.uk (please start your email with your name/name of the setting and the relevant point number within the document that you are referring to).