Thanks to the Toddler+ government programme, implemented by the Ministry of Family and Social Policy, the number of nurseries has tripled, from 80 thousand in 2015 to 230 thousand today. In total, PLN 2.6 billion was spent on the programme from the state budget during that period. However, in Poland there are still municipalities without any single institution of care for children under 3 years of age. Therefore, new solutions were required.

Increased budget

The new Toddler+ programme receives an enormous, unprecedented budget – more than PLN 5.5 billion for the coming years until 2029 – said Deputy Minister Barbara Socha.

The algorithm will calculate the demand

For the purposes of the programme, we have prepared an algorithm which calculates the amounts of the funds proposed by the Ministry of Family for each municipality

The algorithm considered two variables: income per capita in a given municipality, so as to reward poorer municipalities, and the share of children in nursery care in the total number of children under 3 years of age in a given municipality – explained Deputy Minister Socha.

No own contribution

Another novelty is that no own contribution is required, thus, we assume that even 100% of the investment costs may be financed thanks to the Toddler+ programme – said the Deputy Minister.

Longer investment period

Local governments will have 3 years to complete the investment. Other non-public entities - 2 years to create new places of care.

Money for functioning

In the new edition of the programme, we also provide the co-financing for maintaining newly created places. This is a monthly amount of PLN 837 per child for three years.

Other forms of support for parents

Minister Socha reminded that the year before we had also introduced Family Care Capital and co-financing for nursery care.

This is a method to meet not only the expectations of the European Union, which highly recommends to introduce permanent financing mechanisms, but, first of all, the expectations of parents and local government officials - summed up Deputy Minister Barbara Socha.