Splitting Universal Funded Childcare Hours Between Two Providers

[Element05]

Hi all,

I'm hoping someone can help as I'm finding lots of conflicting information on this! We are eligible for the 30 hours of funded childcare in England and, from January, our DD will be attending two different childcare settings:

Two days at one nursery which is registered for Extended Funded Childcare (i.e. they accept the full 30 hours)
One day at a second nursery which only offers the Universal Funded Childcare (15 hours only)

Both are private nurseries.

In order to use our full 30 hours, we would like to split the 15 Universal hours between the two providers (since we can only use the Extended hours at one of them) and use all of the Extended hours at the provider that accepts the full 30 hours. The problem is, the provider which accepts the full 30 hours appears to be suggesting that if we receive the Extended hours, we can only use the Universal hours at one setting. From our perspective, we think this would have to be them as this is where she will spend the most time, but this would mean that we can't use any funded hours at the other provider which only offers the 15 Universal hours. However, this doesn't seem to reconcile with any of the other guidance I've read, which says that the Universal hours can be split between providers. Is this not the case when you are also claiming the Extended hours?

Any advice on this would be most appreciated, thanks!

You can use universal hours at 2 settings, but it depends what's in their funding policy. Maybe ask them again and ask them why.

A setting can only claim the number of hours they are providing, you can use more than you one setting but not over claim. A school owned nursery always gets first claim on universal. You decide in private settings
Settings can claim term time ....the full 15 or 30 hours to be used a week but not in the 14 weeks school holiday or training days....or they can opt to offer stretched ...... approximately 11 or 22 hours....but varys. ...many LAs say all settings must offer on the same basis so if using a school your other provider can only offer term time too.
Because universal is never lost if you loose a job a lot of settings prefer the universal funding.