Introduction to the Early Years Financial Incentive Service
The Early Years Financial Incentive service is a new initiative designed to address critical staffing challenges in nurseries across England. Its aim is to help nurseries struggling to recruit and retain early years practitioners by providing £1,000 incentive payments. These payments should be advertised alongside job roles to attract new practitioners or encourage experienced professionals to return to the sector. Pilot activity has been underway during 2024 and 2025 to test the policy and delivery mechanism.
Why was this service needed?
This initiative comes at a pivotal time. In March 2023, the then-Chancellor announced significant reforms to childcare, including a significant expansion of funded childcare hours for working parents. By September 2025, all children aged 9 months to 4 years with qualifying working parents will be eligible for 30 hours of free childcare. The government elected in July 2024 has agreed to continue delivery of these reforms’ While this reform is a significant step forward, delivering it successfully depends on the availability of skilled early years practitioners. However, recruitment challenges persist—over two-thirds of group-based providers and more than half of school-based providers reported difficulties finding staff in 2022. The Early Years Financial Incentive pilot activity directly seeks to address this issue by helping nurseries secure the workforce they need to meet rising demand.
Where we started
In the Early Years Financial Incentive Payment Service, the claimant’s employer must commence the claim by answering eligibility criteria on behalf of their employee. They must answer information about their current role as well as their previous role, if they worked in the early years sector within the previous 6 months.
The challenge we faced
During the beta phase of the project, user research interviews revealed that many participants struggled to successfully submit an application because they had difficulty understanding the complex eligibility criteria questions within the service. To be eligible for this incentive you must: - Be employed at an eligible nursery in an eligible Local Authority - Be new or returning to the Early Years sector - Be employed on a permanent part-time or full-time contract - Spend most of the time (70% or more) in their role working directly with children - Have not worked in a permanent nursery role in the 6 months prior to starting their new role, where they spent most of their time (70% or more) working directly with children This issue was particularly prevalent among users with lower digital literacy, processing delays, and those who spoke English as a second language. These interviews highlighted that our current design was not inclusive of our diverse pool of users, highlighting the need to apply accessibility standards more effectively. As a result, we began exploring design methods to lighten the cognitive load on our users, helping guide them through their application successfully, and overall creating a more accessible and inclusive service.
The approach
Part of the eligibility criteria states that an eligible claimant must spend more than 70% of their role working directly with children. In previous rounds of user research, participants explained that this figure, 70%, was confusing and they would often do “mental maths” of hours that their employee worked to try and figure out whether they were eligible. They also found the phrase “working directly with children” confusing and needed further context of what this meant. They also expressed that the declaration pattern didn’t align with their expectations as they would require an exit route in the case that their employee wasn’t spending 70% of their role working directly with children. Therefore, we began by A/B testing alternative designs for this question, testing a declaration pattern with an escape route against a radio yes/no pattern. We also altered the title content, so it didn’t include 70% since this was causing users anxiety and confusion when reading. Additionally, we included further context of what working directly with children referred to. From user research findings, 5 out of 7 people prefer the yes/no question format as it was perceived to be clearer, less repetitive or ‘clunky’, and easier to follow.
Additionally, as part of the eligibility criteria, claimants must not have worked in a permanent early years role where they were working mostly with children in the previous 6 months. However, when participants were faced with this question in user research, they struggled to comprehend what was being asked, often leading to errors, resulting in eligible claimants losing out on an incentive they’re legally entitled to. In response, we explored design methods to reduce the cognitive load on users, aiming to guide them more effectively through the application process and create a more accessible and inclusive service. One key principle was to avoid presenting too much content on a single screen, which can cause cognitive overload, anxiety, and loss of focus. Instead, we distributed content across multiple screens, conditionally revealing additional questions when relevant, which helped guide users through the application process without relying heavily on their comprehension of the eligibility criteria from the guidance pages. When tested in further UR rounds, the updated design improved comprehension with a more intuitive screen design pattern and clearer content, improving the success rate when answering the question. Participants also appeared more comfortable answering the question without additional clarification.
In conclusion
Through these efforts, we were able to lead the redesign of the service with accessibility and clarity at the forefront, making it easier for all users to comprehend and complete their applications successfully. This work not only ensured the service catered to a diverse range of users, but also retained the core policy intent behind the eligibility criteria.