Two county funding query

Hi all

I wonder if any one can help me with this query or point me in the right direction please.

I have a little one turning 3 in July who will be eligible for 3 year old 30 free hours from September. She lives in and attends preschool in one county but I live in another and she is minded by me two (non-preschool) full days a week for 17 hours. Do I claim in my county or her county? Can the 30 hours be split across the two counties? Is there anything else I need to know?

This will be my first claim. I am registered but have not have funded children for the first 18 months of childminding. It would have to be a complex one!

Thanks in advance.

Only reliable answer will have to come from the Local Authorities involved. It happens often, so there will be a procedure in place, just phone and ask.

Most of my funded children live in different counties to me but I just claim through my own LA. I've read something somewhere that says there's an agreement between counties but I can't find it now.

I would phone your own local authority for advice.

I live close to a county boarder and often have children from across the boarder but all funding is claimed through my county like others have said just check with your own county council.

I live near a county boundary and between two cities, so we’ve had children who live in four different local authority areas. We simply claim from our own LA, then the LAs sort out the rest between them.

I’ve been told by the LA funding office they are very aware that the system is open to abuse in areas like mine, with some canny parents double-claiming by using multiple settings across two counties. For that reason, they carry account an increased number of audits of childcare settings in such places. So it’s even more important to be absolutely thorough with the paperwork and not let mums get away with even the slightest thing, whether it's signing the agreement, the attendance register or providing birth certificates, etc. If they aren’t happy with a claim, the LA can simply refuse to pay you.

Make sure you are very clear in the contract that the parents pay if the LA fails to, in all circumstances. You should also take a good deposit.

You will also need to check how many hours the other setting is claiming for.

I had a child who I was going to claim 9 hours for and he should have had the other 6 hours at playgroup. I had a phone call the first term to say I couldn't claim anything as the playgroup was having all 15 hours. I asked how they could do that when the child was only there for 6 hours a week! It turned out they automatically put in 15 hour claims for any child who attended, not matter how many hours they actually did. Apparently mine was the first time they'd had a child claiming at 2 different settings so it had gone unnoticed till then. I know they had a big audit done as they'd claimed 15 hours for lots of children who weren't there for 15 hours a week.

Now when I'm doing split funding I contact the other setting to tell them what I'm claiming and to check they're only claiming the rest.