The Nursery Milk scheme is a government programme that provides free milk for children under 5 in registered childcare settings, for sessions of two hours or more. We know this matters to many of you, so we want to be transparent about where things stand.

The Nursery Milk scheme is administered by the Nursery Milk Service on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care. As the rules currently stand, the scheme only covers childminders who are registered directly with Ofsted.

tiney childminders are registered with tiney, a Childminder Agency (CMA), which is regulated by Ofsted but operates as a separate registration route. This means tiney-registered childminders are currently excluded from the scheme, even though you provide exactly the same care in exactly the same kind of setting as a direct Ofsted-registered childminder. This is not fair, and we do not think it is right.

tiney is actively campaigning for CMA-registered childminders to be included in the Nursery Milk scheme. We are raising this directly with the Department of Health and Social Care.

We will share updates through the tiney Hub and community newsletters as soon as we have them.

Until the scheme is extended to include tiney-registered childminders, you cannot claim free milk through the Nursery Milk Service. You can still provide milk to children in your care, you will just need to factor the cost into your fees or food provision. If you want to make your voice heard on this, share your experience on the Hub. Community evidence strengthens our case with the government.