Edinburgh council not funding private nursery places

[Beestingsore]

This story seems to imply that if you have a preschool child in an Edinburgh private nursery the council will stop any funding they give you, limiting nursery funding to council run nurseries. Is that right? I cannot read the full article, but surely they cannot do that?

I have a child soon to be 3 and would LOVE to be able to use a council run nursery, but that only seems to be suitable for those where one parent has the luxury of not working. For any families where join parents have to work the nursery hours in council places are laughably inadequate. Surely they cannot take away the current subsidy which will halve my massive bill.

https://www.scotsman.com/education/edinburgh-commuters-face-major-childcare-impact-under-city-council-plans-to-end-funded-places-in-private-nurseries-4521950

That would be a reasonable business decision - assuming there is sufficient demand.

You would still need to keep information on all children in your care and have accounts systems in place to invoice other people eg parents buying extra hours.

Sure. But they currently don't invoice the local authority.

They tell Edinburgh council how many funded children they have, and the Council gives them 3 payments a year, on a term basis.

It's a big enough job as it is calculating income based on one council's rate. Factor in an indeterminate number of kids from 5 or 6 LAs, with different funding rates, and it would be impossible to run a business

You count the children from each local authority and tell the councils how many funded children they have from that area (aka invoice them), and that council gives them payments in line with their agreed contracts. Most businesses are capable of operating more than one contract, certainly 5 or 6. If they also provide places for younger children, or offer extra hours for preschoolers then they would have a separate contract for each child with variable income based on the number of days/hours for each one. I am puzzled why you think it would be difficult?

Because the way it usually works is that the funded hours don’t cover the cost of providing the service.

Instead, the additional hours and the unfunded places subsidise the unfunded hours (up to a point - most baby rooms also need some element of cross-subsidy because of the lower adult to child ratio).

So in order to calculate how much you need to charge to cover this cross subsidy, you have to model how much you’re getting from the council. Possible when you know that all your 3+ cohort will be getting the same hourly rate, and you know who is eligible for funding for which term.

When you then throw in variables like how many from each cohort comes from 1 of 5 LAs, all with differing rates, and those number change throughout the year, and people move, it makes it much harder to calculate how much to charge to cover the subsidy.

It really is pretty basic maths for any business.

Funding follows the child. Years ago an exercise was performed to assess the level of cross border nursery usage and funding allocated to LAs was modified accordingly. If that needs reassessed this is the exercise that should take place. Completely unfair to disadvantage families living on council boundaries.

I am currently undertaking a research project looking at rural childcare and I was wondering if anyone who is commuting into Edinburgh and using an Edinburgh childcare provider would be willing to be interviewed to share their experiences and the implications if these changes happen. For more information email [email protected]

Just to update folk on this..... I've been in touch with my Councillor and MSP about the issue. My MSP has advised that her and the MSPs for other affected areas are writing a letter to CEC about their proposal and the impacts.

My councillor has advised that Midlothian Council have been seeking a meeting with CEC to resolve the situation.

Both agree that the proposal goes against the intention of the 1140 hours funding, as the intend was to provide flexibility for families and not to keep them in their home local authority.

It's good the elected representatives have taken an interest 😊

@carryanne great update!

Any news on this?