Reduction in Early Years funding

[KatyMac]

I'm a childminder; my council has reduced my Early Years funding from £5.06 per hour to £3.91 (with a flexibility & level 7 subsidy). My normal rate is between £5 (full days) & £5.75 (part days)

Can I still afford to offer this as a service to my parents?

HSMM one of my cm friends has just written to all her current parents informing them that with much regret from September she will no longer be offering the funding. She explained about the latest reduction in fees & stringent rules top-ups etc and much lower ratios cm's have compared to nurseries but for the same fee and how she simply couldn't afford to continue at the current rate of pay. She obviously won't be taking on any new eyfs and is yet to find out if any of her existing parents will leave although all have been very sympathetic & understanding.

We're lucky that there's always high demand for cm's so it was a measured risk on her behalf and she is confident she will fill any leavers before too long but I know feels bad for the parents. In your situation I would be going down the same route or at the very least not offering any new funded places.

I would definitely change the rates for those at an age to receive funded hours, that is allowed surely? And I'm sure parents would understand, not many people would be able to work for that pittance.

OK - revisiting this

I can't charge a top-up

I don't want to charge for holidays as I don't want holidays to seem like a choice(eg currently even if I had teachers childrens they still attend in the holidays) or for food as currently food is included & I don't want a pile of packed lunches to sort through

SO how do I differentiate the charging for parents who claim their early years (increasing it) and those that don't?

Any ideas?

The only way I've heard is to charge a higher rate for the over 3s, but that penalises those who are claiming the funding elsewhere.
Likewise raising fees overall.

The stark choice is to subsidise it ourselves, or get the parents to subsidise it (even if they aren't actually claiming).

It's so unfair

Whether or not you can afford to offer it surely depends on your numbers?

It's not meant to be free childcare neither do the government advertise it as such, it's meant for parents to be able to access pre school education if they so wish. Upto you if you want to offer that and, if you do, then you know the rate that the government will pay.

It isn't about numbers; it's about me subsidising the Governments promise of free hours.

I have a child from 4/6/9 months, the parents are told (at the time) thatof course they can claim the EYE (early years education) at the childminders no problem at all (childminder is an EYP and is Outstanding twice)

Then 2 weeks before that child is due to start the council cuts the money from £5.06 to £3.91 and the parents cannot top-up thatrate to the normal rate the childminder charges.

How is that about numbers?