Free nursery for 20 month old - is this right?

[ibangthedrums]

A friend of a friend has just started sending her 20 month old DD to nursery for one day a week.

She has now told my friend that the Government will match what she does i.e. she pays for one day and they pay for one day so she is now going two days per week.

Friend does not work, is not re-training and her DH earns a fairly decent salary.

I am really puzzled as to what this scheme is. I know some free places exist for two year old but he is under 2 and is she does not work it can't be working tax credits etc can it (in any event the money seems to go direct to the nursery)?

Has anyone else heard of this scheme? I know its none of my business really but it all sounds very odd to me

I think some Surestart centres can have funding for similar schemes but there are normally criteria applied ie low income, ss referral or post code.

Sounds like a surestart thing, although the only ones that offer free care for this age group that I know of have strict criteria for who can access the funding, so for eg: families that need extra support, children with additional needs, ss refferrals, families with english as an additional language, ethnic minorities etc.

Would be interested to find out if this is something new that centres are rolling out though.