1. The lead partner must be a local authority in England, Scotland or Wales. There must be commitment at a senior level to provide strategic oversight and champion the work.
2. The partnership must include representation from health, early education and childcare settings, and the voluntary and community sector (minimum requirement).

The local partners must agree to form a partnership board with Nesta, which will meet on a quarterly basis. The local authority will be represented on the partnership board at Director level.

At the end of phase three, once the formal partnership is in place, the local partnership must commit a dedicated project manager to this work. They will take part in weekly (virtual or in-person) project meetings with Nesta.

All types of local authority in England, Scotland and Wales are eligible as long as they have responsibility for early years services (eg. it may be a county council, unitary authority, London borough or metropolitan borough).

Please note that an additional eligibility criterion applies to English local authorities. See section on 'Evidence of the opportunity to make a positive impact'.

These criteria are designed to ensure that we are working with the areas where there is greater need and potential for impact.

In England, the local authority must meet either of the following criteria:

Criteria one: The local authority as a whole, or at least one of its districts, currently has an attainment gap of at least 20 percentage points between children eligible for free school meals (FSM) who achieve 'A good level of development' in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile and those who are not eligible for FSM. [In 2018-19, the average attainment gap for local authority districts was 19.87 percentage points].

Criteria two: In the local authority as a whole, or at least one of its districts, 54 per cent or less of children claiming free school meals reached a good level of development in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile.

See which local authorities met these criteria in 2018-2019.

In Scotland or Wales, local authorities will need to provide evidence to show that there is the potential for a partnership with Nesta to make a substantial positive impact on the outcomes of disadvantaged children (aged 0-5) in their area.

In the Expression of Interest form, applicants will be asked to provide evidence to demonstrate the scale of the problems faced in their local area that could be addressed through the partnership. Part of this will include quantifying outcomes (eg. cognitive, social or emotional) of disadvantaged children currently:

• In Scotland, please provide evidence of the percentage of children achieving the Early Level in P1 according to the most deprived/least deprived quintiles on the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation.
• In Wales, please provide data from the Foundation Phase Profile (baseline assessment during reception year), comparing the performance of children eligible for free school meals with those who are not eligible.

We recognise that there may be other measures which are more useful to demonstrate the scale of issues in an area and the potential for impact; please do include this information. In addition to providing evidence for children in the local authority as a whole, applicants may choose to highlight challenges faced by children from a particular demographic group or geographical area.

Applicants are committed to work with Nesta to share and develop our mutual practice in relation to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) and implement EDI practices through the partnership. Applicants already have a formal EDI policy, or are willing to develop and implement one within the next year.

High-scoring applicants can demonstrate that there is a strong need for improvement in their local area, and that there is potential for the partnership to impact significantly on children’s outcomes.

High-scoring applicants have a clear strategy or vision for improving outcomes in the early years, necessary buy-in from senior leadership and service providers, and an ambition and openness to redesign or change services through the partnership.

High-scoring applicants can clearly articulate specific opportunities or barriers related to their early years strategy around which an innovation partnership could focus.