IIRC, ours is £3.77 at 3-4 years; £5+ a few pennies at 2yo.
We've seen a good few local nurseries fiddling around with the balance of children in order to maximise the profit from 2yo's since some parts of the area are pretty depraved (surely, "deprived" - edit
). They swap rooms so they get lots of 2yo's in the bigger room and are "so sorry" to have to give notice to 3-4yo's as a result.
Funded CMs are frequently left picking up the pieces so the less profitable 3-4's get some sort of care.
It's a moot point as to whether we can say we're "losing money" by taking on a child whose funded rate fails to match our usual fees. If the only business out there is funded children, then you're truly losing money by refusing it. (Self-Employed Syndrome always insists the grass is greener elsewhere and everyone is trying to ruin one's business.)
As I see it, there are numerous structural problems with the way funded care is delivered.
It is intended as education, not care. So it is entirely modelled on how nurseries operate. Hence no funding during the holidays or outside 'office hours'. There seems to be a bzarre idea that a parent who can find a CM to look after their lo in the evenings/weekends/school hols has no right to funded provision. Just because a nursery locks its door at 6pm, I can't deliver learning and development after the CBeebies Bedtime Hour is over???
Yet Ofsted expect us to fulfil EYFS irrespective of time or date. It's tempting to notify Ofsted that we only do EYFS during school hours, cos no-one else has to and the LA says they won't fund it cos we're no longer educating on certain days/times.
Our local funding figure is arrived at by dubious means. It's based on an average fee for childcare calculated several years ago from a cross-section of settings. It takes no account of
current prices. It's tempting to send back an edited version of my Council Tax bill, saying "I've recalculated this on the basis of what it cost the LA to run services 5 years ago - cheque enclosed."
The average includes all the 'satisfactory/requires improvement', 'unsatisfactory', 'totally useless' and 'failed businesses which went to the wall ages ago' settings, which drags down the average, even though such settings are not permitted to deliver funded care.
Sadly, these figures were largely what settings charged for 'non-inclusive' care. ie. Advertised rates to which they'd normally add extra charges for meals, snacks, drinks, playgroups, outings, etc. (all charges which are
not allowed to be added to the bill for funded hours.) It's another example of CMs shooting themselves (and all of us) in the foot by trying to look cheap by advertising low headline rate fees to which they add all the additional hidden extra charges. It has had the effect of depressing the funded rates for everyone.
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