15 hours funding

[ridinghighinapril]

Our daughter is at a local Ofsted registered day care nursery and turned 3 in January. She is therefore eligible for 15h funding from April 1. However, our nursery states that they won't know if they are eligible until and of March and so won't be able to pass on the savings until May/June as they are non-profit organisation.

Apart from the non-profit bit, is this usual practice? This happens 3x/year every year, so why do they not know/or are not told in advance of the April cut off (April fees are due at the end of March)? Our daughter will be leaving the nursery in September so it won't even out over the course of a year and we will be losing out on savings for 2 months, which I feel a bit aggrieved about, particularly as we have a younger child's daycare that needs to be paid for.

Sounds dodgy to me. She fits the criteria to be funded and I can't see their problem

I'm not absolutely certain, but I think that nurseries can decide how many funded places they want to offer. They can certainly dictate which hours are available as funded sessions.

Phone your local authority NEF funding team and discuss it with them.

Thanks both! I'll contact the local council and see what they say.

Can nurseries really decide how many funded places they can offer? If all 3y are eligible then it would mean nurseries limiting the number of 3+ year olds that attend and, therefore, the number of under 3's that attend as at some point they will turn 3..... sorry, too many '3's in that sentence(!).

They can because they often make a loss on the funded places - lots of private prep type nurseries don't accept the funding at all.