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A Better Start Legacy

On 30 April 2026 we invited the 5 partnerships currently delivering our A Better Start funding programme to apply for England National Partnership funding.

The 5 partnerships are:

  • The National Society for The Prevention of Cruelty to Children and partners (Blackpool site)

  • Bradford Trident Ltd and partners (Bradford site)

  • National Children’s Bureau and partners (Learning contract supplier and Lambeth site)

  • Nottingham CityCare Partnership CIC and partners (Nottingham site)

  • Pre-school Learning Alliance and partners (Southend-On-Sea site)

We anticipate making two awards, each of between £1.5m and £5m.

Why we solicited these applications

A Better Start was a £215 million National Lottery-funded programme between 2015 to 2025. Its purpose was to promote good early childhood development so that children can have the best start in life. We are using a solicitation approach to:

  • build on the learning and legacy of A Better Start

  • continue working with trusted local partners that have strong connections with national stakeholders

  • deepen the impact of its work at a strategic, national level

Reasons

Our England Committee has approved a solicitation approach for the following reasons.

Unique position and best practice

We have worked closely with the 5 partnerships over 10 years to deliver A Better Start. During this time, they have built strong connections with national stakeholders, who cite their work as best practice.

This experience and knowledge make them the only organisations able to:

  • build on the learning and legacy of ‘A Better Start’

  • deepen its impact at a strategic, national level

Transparency and value for money

The solicitation process is more transparent and better value for money compared to an open programme. In an open programme, the Fund and applicants would spend significant additional time and money to achieve effective partnerships that are already in place.

How this fits our strategic funding priorities

This solicitation is part of the public commitment to Early Years made in our England Strategy launched on 6 November 2024. In this strategy, we said “building on the learning from A Better Start, we will invest £150m in a National Early Years Partnership”. The England investment in Early Years is part of 'Communities help children and young people thrive' community mission from our overall organisational strategy, It starts with community (2023).

How we invited them to apply

We emailed the 5 partnerships about this opportunity before this solicitation was announced on our website. They have 3 months to submit their applications, and we will consider them against each other. The strongest 2 will progress through for development.

How we’ll assess their application

We look to fund up to 2 partnerships of the 5 we’ve identified with between £1.5m to £5m per award. We expect the funding to last up to 5 years.

We will prioritise those applicants who demonstrate:

  • transformational systems change: we want to focus these partnerships on work that will make significant and lasting change in the early years system at a national level. Organisations should be able to show:

    • outstanding leadership at a regional or national level in the Early Years sector

    • evidence of using their understanding of Early Years learning to influence the policy and spending of public bodies and other funders

    • meaningful engagement of parents and practitioners to make sure approaches are aligned with the needs of families and communities

  • equity-based approach: we’re looking for partners who share our values and take an equity based and intersectional approach to the delivery of the work

  • strong partnership working: we want to support partners that bring networks that can work together to make system change happen