Ministers have been asked to clarify government policy on part-time funded nursery places after claims councils may be “ignoring” official guidelines.
Scottish Conservative education spokeswoman Liz Smith is seeking assurances that funded places have not been withdrawn from private nurseries.
If this happens, parents need to find another partner nursery or risk losing a part-time funded place.
In some cases this can be worth up to £1,550 per year for each child.
Children aged between three and five in Scotland are entitled to 12.5 hours a week free nursery education during school term time.
The cash, which comes from the Scottish government, is distributed by local authorities.
The free hours can be provided in a council-run nursery, a nursery class in a primary school, a playgroup or a private day nursery which has “partnership status” with the local council.
When partnership status is withdrawn from a private nursery, parents must move their child to continue qualifying for funding.
This can be to another private nursery or one of the other providers.
Official guidelines on how this scheme operates state that councils should secure enough places locally to meet demand.
It also states councils must reflect parental choice to use private nurseries, and facilities in other authority areas to reflect their working lifestyle.
Ms Smith has tabled questions at Holyrood after worried nursery owners contacted her about a number of private nurseries losing partnership places.
She believes ministers have to clarify how official guidelines are interpreted to ensure parental choice is not being stymied.
She said: “I am very clear that parents both want and have a right to be able to send their child to a nursery of their choice.
“This choice must not be compromised because of confusion over what obligations are required of local authorities when it comes to the provision of places within partnership nurseries or by the fact that Scottish Executive guidelines are being ignored.
“It is very important to establish what the facts are and that is why I have laid parliamentary questions on this issue.”
Is free childcare forcing strain on your nursery’s finances? We love hearing your comments and thoughts! Have your say on this story below…
Source: BBC
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We should organise a demonstration for say September next year when all day care providers, nursery, pre-school, childminders, after school provision etc across the country close their doors and we ask parents and children to join us at central parks in major towns and citys across the country and we invite MPs, local and National press to come along and listen to our cause.
By not providing childcare on that day we would be informing parents of the real issues of sustainability we are facing (most of whom I believe genuinly do not have any understanding re costs, staff/child ratios, overheads, the underpaid often highly qualified staff and more importantly the real cost to the provider of a ‘free’ place and the shortfall in the governments funding of this place) whilst making the ‘protest’ a fun, family event. Settings could even join together to offer activities and entertainment.
Given enough notice parents are likely to come along and each provider could ask parents to complete a form recording how many working hours they have lost that day and the type of industry they work in. Each setting would send in to a central register the total lost working hours thereby further highlighting the importance of childcare on the nation’s economy.
It is a withdrawel of services without a harmful effect as I believe this is why many of us do not act as we are a caring sector, we don’t want to alienate or inconvenience our parents and as individuals we don’t know how to make our voices heard.
I own a full daycare setting in London and as my colleagues state above, it is not cheap.
I receive £3.71 an hour from our LA. What a complete joke this is. What an insult!!
We need to start the ball rolling now and all get together and WITHDRAW as there is no other option.
I for one won’t be ignored any more!! Nobody has listened. The NDNA clearly can’t help. The campaigning hasn’t worked. Let’s all do what the brave Buckinghamshire nurseries did and withdraw from the scheme. What are we all waiting for?
Reading through the comments it is obvious thet the scheme is subject to different rules and different levels of funding in each local authority. We should therefore be campaigning against the whole principal and not the specifics in each area. I read that one nursery charges £60 per day. Unless they are in Central London I find that to be outrageous. How can parents possibly afford it and more pertinently how could a local authority afford it? That is not the issue here. We can see from postings to date how each provider is different. If a provider has large borrowings the income that they need is obviously more than that required by an established nursery with little or no borrowings. The only answer that I can see is for a fixed rate to be paid to the provider as a subsidy for the child. Perhps that could include the tax credit as well so that it goes where it is intended to go.
DavidS
I totally agree with Helen whe she says
“This has got to stop. Private nursery owners must get together and refuse to be treated like this.”
We need to be one voice and rebel together. Any ideas people?
Dear all
It is Saturday afternoon and here I am (and I am sure so are are many of you) as usual working to continue with my 21 year old provision.
Having been here 21 years and having lived through the many different challenges private day care has faced I just wonder if there is some hidden agenda of the government that perhaps it will suit them to have private sector nurseries out of the free place loop. If so what can their purpose be? Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
It is interesting to see the variation in hourly rate provided by different authorities. We receive £3.30 per hour. In the past this has been revised in April but there was no increase this year. I would be keen to hear what other authorities pay as we have set up a meeting for early next week with Manchester authority.
Our daily charge in the South East is £60 per day and we are now being told that we must offer 15 hour “stand alone places”. At best we may get a child attending 5 x 3 hour sessions (say ams) 9am-12 and another 5 x 3 hours (say pms) 1pm-4pm so we will get say £23.10 per day when we were getting £60 which equates to a 61.5% loss in my income. This figure needs to be multiplied by 5 days and then 38 weeks so for each full time place replaced by 6 NEG hours we will lose £11,211 per annum. Remember that you will get no money for the holidays either! Then multiply this figure by the number of 3+ year old places that may be taken by 15 hour children and we no longer have a nursery. There is no option to consider offering 15 hour stand alone places.
The Council have offered a cashflow tool on their website, a financial management course and a Businesslink course called “How to manage your business and make a profit”! If they paid the going rate these would not be needed and having run nurseries for 20+ years I feel insulted by the offer of courses!
This whole issue is actually becoming absolutely ridiculous. I have been a nursery owner for fourteen years now and frankly I am sick of the government telling me how to run my business, what I can and cannot charge for, etc. It is getting to the stage where I am seriously considering dropping out of their scheme and offering private places only.
Every inspection that my nursery has had since it opened has resulted in top grades with no requirements or recommendations ever. We are regarded as a model centre by the local council and run at full capacity with a long waiting list at all times. My aim has always been to offer the highest quality of care and to maintain the highest standards with well qualified, trained and valued staff.
Why then can the council not see that the £3.60 per hour that they pay just does not cover our costs. They insist on seeing audited accounts every year so nothing is hidden – our rent, rates, salaries, fuel and food bills are all transparent and the charges that we make to parents for additional hours are in fact subsidising these council funded places.
I cannot think of any other business where the council would be allowed to buy/use a service but not pay the full rate. My charges are £5 per hour as this is what I need to cover costs and salaries – contrary to what some people may think, childcare is not a big money maker and we are not trying to make big profits. What we are trying to do though is make a living. I have a teaching qualification and I love my job and all my staff are qualified and paid well but it really irritates me that the council think it is ok for them to say that they want to purchase 20 pre-school places from me but they are not going to pay the going rate but instead they will pay £1.40 per hour per child less. This equates to a drop of around £16,000 per year. We are also required to keep places for children who are not entitled to funding until Christmas or Easter which means that we have to run for a significant part of the year with empty places which of course the council do not pay us to hold although they insist that we do so, resulting in us losing many thousands more. When I tell other professional business people about this they look at me in disbelief asking why I don’t just tell the council what my charges are.
This has got to stop. Private nursery owners must get together and refuse to be treated like this.
I am not against parents getting help with childcare and pre school education and I am also aware that the council’s purse is not a bottomless pit. If the councils can only afford say £9 per child per morning, then they should give the parents a voucher for that amount and let them use it towards their fees at a local school nursery or partner provider of their choice. You may say that then it is not a free place but it is not a free place at the moment as nursery owners are funding a significant part of it.
Sorry for the rant but this week I am told that the council are freezing what they are paying us per child for the next school year. My rent and rates have not been frozen though and I am still giving my staff a rise so in fact what is left as my salary will drop yet again. Am I the only one who feels this way?
The rules, in Engalnd at least, are that Nurseries that take up to 40 children must provide 2 ‘completely free’ places, nurseries that take more than 40 children must provide 3 ‘completely free’ places. Completely free means that there must be no top-up fees although (and this may be useful for day care settings) I am given to understand that you can charge a ‘reasonable amount’ if the free 15 hours includes a meal or other essential services such as the provision of snacks, toiletries, extra-curriculem classes – this can include Music & Movement etc which is provided by ‘specialist’ teachers
However, if at any time you do not have the 2 or 3 places available, due to being fully booked by parents who require more than 15 hours, you cannot be forced to offer the free places if it takes your setting above your registered number of children – or above your staff:child ratios, even if you are not completely full. You cannot be expected to recruit extra staff simply in order that you can offer an extra 2 or 3 free places.
One way that Day Nurseries can use their totally free places, rather than give them to children who will be ‘out of place’ and who will not be fully integrated in a full day care setting and/or whose parents do not want to pay for any extra services, is to offer the ‘totally free’ places, if available, to existing parents who are on Maternity leave, are temporarily out of work or have other financial issues.
We have been doing this for a few years as the families who use our ‘free places’ have been previously paying parents and there is a good chance that, once their maternity leave or financial difficulties are over they will, once again, be paying for nursery care. You should try to ensure that the ‘free’ place covers more than one term, even if only by a week, as otherwise you are obliged to offer it out again for any following term.
Advertise this option to your parents in your Newsletters – and hope that enough of your parents are interested that you do not have to take 2 or 3 children, who will actually be disadvantaged by attending a full day care setting for only 15 hours pw, term time only!
The funding for free places (£3.44ph) is based on the costs incurred by Children’s Centres and School Nursery Units, who, as they have to have a qualified teacher in charge, are allowed a ratio or !:13 for 3 – 5 year old children – in addition they do not have to pay rent or mortages (they do have to pay business rates unless they are a children’s centre, but this is included in the school business rates) and many of their resources are provided either by the LA, through the school, or by fundraising (private settings have to pay income tax on this) which reduces their costs enormously. In addition, some of their ‘staff’ are actually parents / teacher training students, which Day Nurseries are not able to source.
I can’t see how private nurseries can continue to offer 15 hours free childcare without topping up fees. If rates per hour vary from £5.50 an hour to £7 an hour, this is what we require for the child’s place within the school. If Government dictates that we can only charge their rate for the 15 hours, they are effectively telling us what our charges should be.
I am happy to take the £170 per month allowed for free child care off our monthly fee but then we need to make it up to our actual monthly charge. Currently this is not allowed. We run full day care places and do not have options of just 15 hours a week. Our rent and rates are enormous and a new venture I am starting will have outgoings of £300,000 a year for rent, service charges plus VAT and £60,000 a year business rates, this is without wages, food, insurance and other outgoings. To say we can’t top up is ludicrous and will, no doubt, ensure that many private nurseries will have to withdraw this benefit from parents.
I am not the only nursery proprietor that feels this way and it is clearly felt by every private nursery across the board.
Let common sense prevail.