Aberdeen Nursery withdrawing from Goverment pre school funding

[Petal10]

Hello

This is my first post (I'm more of a reader on Mumsnet!) so hopefully I'm doing everything ok.

I've just received a letter from my daughters private nursery stating they have "decided to terminate our Pre-School agreement with Aberdeen City Council, which provides funding for 3-5 year olds". The long letter goes on (and on) explaining the reasons why but basically comes down to the administrative burden of the funding and wanting to focus on the care of the children rather than paperwork. I love the nursery it has given my almost 2.5 year old daughter a fantastic start, she is very happy there and I was able to return to work full time quite happily after I had her. I'm now on maternity leave with my second and he is due to start at the same nursery in October and both kiddies will be full-time from January so I was really, really looking forward to having the government funding for my daughter just to ease the financial burden of paying for two full time nursery places. Until today I'd never even heard of any private nurserys withdrawing from funding. Have any of you? Do you have any advice please? I really would like them to stay at this nursery. Has anyone had an experience of similar?

Yrs it's becoming quitecmon I'm afraid. Some nurseries are feeling it's just not worth the hassle of claiming.

Yes it is becoming more common. The admin burden is a big factor, everything gets tied to the funding so if you don't complete this form, that form, do this survey, only use their trainers etc etc they threaten to withdraw funding.

We would withdraw if others in our area did too.

The funding doesn't cover their costs. You would be happy getting the free hours, but they would be losing money.

Lots of nurseries are talking about withdrawing.