Preschool closing - can they do this?

[ChocOrange1]

My daughter attends a preschool 6 hours a week. They emailed us on Monday asking whether we want to send out child in during lockdown - I said "no" as my daughter will be attending nursery and I dont want to mix settings.

Anyway. They emailed us today saying that they have contacted their staff and 90% of them are unable to work because they have vulnerable relatives or are home schooling their own children. Therefore they are not opening and the staff will be furloughed.

Is this right? Can they just choose not to open and claim furlough? The parents who cant work because they are homeschooling would be eligible for a school place as they're keyworkers, wouldnt they?

It doesn't actually affect me, as I said my daughter won't be going in, but I find it very strange and wondering if anyone has come across the same thing?

@onemachine

My childcare is also now closed and I’m a key worker. Hoping I can find another setting who isn’t so selfish as if everywhere closed because they wanted to not take the risk we would have no healthcare, Utilities, food, fuel...

Selfish? Really. The staff are unable to work as they have their own children. The government have thrown nurseries and staff under a bus as they are one of the only professions being TOLD by the DfE that they CANNOT WEAR PPE.

And you think it's selfish of them?
Get a grip

Callistography no, they can send their kids to school just like the key workers have to

So not only risking themselves, but their own children, for you! Nice! (For minimum wage more than likely)

Can anyone here link to the information on the decision not to provide funding this time for children not attending?

Our school attached pre-school has closed.

Our council have emailed us this

· Providers should advise parents that funding cannot be transferred, once the parent has signed up for the term and make parents aware of funding considerations and options if they leave mid-term or take up a place after the start of term. We may ask for written evidence that the parent has been adequately informed where there is a dispute over funding claim.

· Providers should make clear to parents the number of funding hours they are claiming and the number of fee paying hours their child is accessing.

· If you have allocated a place and have a signed Parent Authorisation Form for the spring term 2021 and the parent/carer chooses not to send their child due to concerns over covid19 then you may still make a claim for the funding. In this situation, the place must remain open and available to the child for the rest of the term should they wish to access it and the child must not be in attendance elsewhere.

Presumably it is legal, and I think it is disgraceful to suggest these people would commit fraud.

I feel so sad for teachers in this period, they've borne unreasonable risk and been treated badly by both government and many parents.

I hope op can find alternative provision but I don't think the pre-school deserves opprobrium for closing.

I have heard of a local pre-school that did the same - with all bar one staff member under 40 and with no underlying conditions - under the assumption that they would be getting furlough and early year funding as they did in March.

They then learned they'd not get the early year funding and are re-considering the decision to close..

OP - if you receive early year funding I would tell them that you'll be moving your request to a provider that is open. It is illegal for them to claim the funding if not open.

Well @inquietant you might not think it's fraud to claim funding while open and I'm sure the intention wasn't to commit fraud.

But undoubtedly the pre-school i know was closed to all while they thought they could receive the funding and is now re-considering that decision when it was pointed out that they couldn't get the funding if closed.

Thanks @YellowOranges.

Our preschool, attached to a nursery, which basically purely takes funded hours, has closed. I assume they are still planning to take the funding. They probably are unaware they can’t claim the funding in this situation if that is correct?

Is there a link to the government guidance that states this? If so I can highlight it and ask what the plans are - to reopen or to allow the funding to be transferred, which I know is the option some parents would probably take up.

@OddBoots do you know where I could find this?

This is is worrying development. Has anyone got the link and when was this announced?. We are open and told that we would get full funding money from the LA even if parents chose to keep their children at home for the time being. We have 60ish children on roll of these only 11 have chose to attend. If we only get funding for the 11 and not all children on the roll we will have to close and will not be able to pay staff. Thus defeating the object of nurseries being open.

I don't have a link but we recieved an email from our nursery a couple of days ago saying that if we didn't send our funded child in, they couldn't claim the funding, so we would have to pay a 20% retainer. 2 keyworkers here so he was going in anyway! But then picked him up on Thursday to be told he'd spent all day with a positive case on Tuesday so had to isolate for 10 days. C'est la vie.

Right - I have now trawled through guidance that was updated yesterday!

Starting here

www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-early-years-and-childcare-closures/coronavirus-covid-19-early-years-and-childcare-closures#funding-and-business-support

States the following:

Local authorities should not fund providers which are closed, without a public health reason, from the start of the 2020 autumn term.

However, I saw something that stated if the parents choose not to send the child then the setting still gets the funding but I can’t find it again - need to through it all!

I manage a private nursery and we had to close to even to key workers back for April & may last year as we only had 5 key worker children coming in - we made no money at all - it was costing us a fortune to open each day and we were just spiralling into even more debt every day! We needed 4 staff (one cleaning all day) so that was 4 full salaries - then we had our usual cleaner come on the evening to do a deeper clean / get toys and blankets and stuff into the wash!

It just wasn’t a feasible business model tbh! It was close down completely and furlough everyone or Risk going into even more debt and possible just end up permanently closed!

@Chill08 the NDNA say this:

Spring term
Government will return to funding the childcare entitlements based on the number of hours taken up by children from the start of the spring term 2021. And will therefore fund all local authorities on the basis of their January 2021 census for the 2021 spring term. Information on funding for the spring term can be found here: www.gov.uk/government/publications/use-of-free-early-education-entitlements-funding-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak

It’s not been updated since mid December though so fingers crossed they change to reflect parents’ reluctance to send in their children at the height of a pandemic! Our council have said they’d fund those children anyway but it seems unfair not to have that certainty from all councils/government.

Thankyou all for coming back to quickly. What an absolute mess! Ive got staff who are nervous about coming into work, and now this situation with the funding. Fingers crossed our LA stick to what they have said which is they will provide funding even if some children won't be attending. Otherwise we would be running at a significant loss and would have to shut we can only claim 30% furlough as 70% of our children are funded. We just cannot afford to take anymore loss of income are private paying parents are not paying fees and we've kept them on the roll. All but one were going to deregister their children if they had to pay fees anyway. The funding is the only thing keeping us going at the moment.

Reading the advice above it suggests that a nursery will get funding if they are open, even if some children don't attend.
So in your case @Chill08 your nursery will get funding.
If a pre-school decides not to open, they won't.

Can anyone link to anywhere where it says nurseries and pre schools can choose to close or limit numbers even though the government is saying they should be open?

The advice is so far from clear. It says here

" Funding for local authorities to early years providers in the spring term 2021

Local authorities should return to the normal funding approach (that is, ‘funding following the child’) for all providers from 1 January 2021. This is in line with the approach announced in July 2020.

Providers should note that the guidance on Early Years providers’ access to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) has been updated to reflect this approach to funding in the spring term, to take account of the position of any providers who see reductions in entitlements funding as a result.

Local authorities must take account of the provisions within the Early education and childcare statutory guidance for local authorities in making decisions on funding for providers which have restricted attendance, or are closed or temporarily closed for reasons connected to coronavirus (COVID-19). Local authorities should ensure that providers are:

• not penalised for short term absences of children, for example sickness, arriving late or leaving early, or a family emergency through withdrawing funding, but use their discretion where absence is recurring or for extended periods taking into account the reason for the absence and the impact on the provider
• aware of the local authority policy in the area in which they practice on reclaiming funding when a child is absent from a setting
• not penalised through withdrawal of funding for short term closures of a setting, for example, as a result of local or national elections or damage to the premises"

It looks to me that it says that if a child doesn't attend for more than a short time the setting then it is up to the LA (or government?) discretion if the setting get the funding. - does anyone else read it another way?

@OddBoots

The advice is so far from clear. It says here

" Funding for local authorities to early years providers in the spring term 2021

Local authorities should return to the normal funding approach (that is, ‘funding following the child’) for all providers from 1 January 2021. This is in line with the approach announced in July 2020.

Providers should note that the guidance on Early Years providers’ access to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) has been updated to reflect this approach to funding in the spring term, to take account of the position of any providers who see reductions in entitlements funding as a result.

Local authorities must take account of the provisions within the Early education and childcare statutory guidance for local authorities in making decisions on funding for providers which have restricted attendance, or are closed or temporarily closed for reasons connected to coronavirus (COVID-19). Local authorities should ensure that providers are:

• not penalised for short term absences of children, for example sickness, arriving late or leaving early, or a family emergency through withdrawing funding, but use their discretion where absence is recurring or for extended periods taking into account the reason for the absence and the impact on the provider
• aware of the local authority policy in the area in which they practice on reclaiming funding when a child is absent from a setting
• not penalised through withdrawal of funding for short term closures of a setting, for example, as a result of local or national elections or damage to the premises"

It looks to me that it says that if a child doesn't attend for more than a short time the setting then it is up to the LA (or government?) discretion if the setting get the funding. - does anyone else read it another way?

For Surrey you can claim if a child is isolating or ill, as long as they have attended this term before or on head count day. If that child goes out for 2 weeks you can keep the money. After 2 weeks you need to return the money from day 11 until they return.

If they are not there before or on head count day you can not claim for them.

Some councils are doing it differently and paying as long as the child is still on roll

@Freddiefox I am also in Surrey!

Do you have any link to the document that outlines the Surrey policy? Do PM if that is easier.

From what you have said it sounds like if parents choose to keep their children off then they won’t get funding past 10 days.

That might explain why the school have closed the nursery if enough parents have their children off through choice. I guess they can furlough the TA’s and that may be less financially damaging than trying to claim the funding. But then they should release the funding for parents to use at other provision if they want.

That's false that they can't transfer funding. We as the early years education providers can either just log in to the portal for the council we use and alter the claim as an adjustment, and then notify the LA that the funding will be transferred to the named setting.

@Herhereherhere thank you so much for posting the link about updated guidance as I hadn’t seen that had come out. I chair a preschool and we were just about to tell the three staff who have just been furloughed again (combination of very low numbers and them wanting to home school their children rather than send to school with the hordes) that we couldn’t pay them the full 80% as could only claim 35% from HMRC based on 65% of children being funded and us already making losses due to low numbers. But that guidance says you can apply funding received this term as % of normal income. So if we have to hand back some funding it means we can claim higher proportion of our salary bill as furlough payments. Doesn’t mean we would get it all back of course as number of staff not directly proportionate to number of children but does help. May mean nurseries more willing to do the right thing and hand back the funding. But parents please do remember that most settings are struggling to survive financially so if they hand back fees they are more likely to have to close permanently.