goverment cut backs

[lou lou]

so have any of you come up against any cut backs yet, i had my child developement officer round yesterday and said there was no money they are even being asked to cut back on the ink they use and she could not see much free training coming up i find it such a great shame as i enjoy any training we can do but it also gets me thinking if the goverment wants my child developement officer to cut back on using ink i am thinking then maybe us childminders should be able to cut back as i seem to use a lot of ink for obs,learning journeys, policies etc as i was only thinking i need to start putting admin costs on but then it gets me thinking childminding is probably suspose to be the cheapest sort of childcare but i dont think it can be with all the extras you have to do like photos i dont think i make much money by the time you take all the extras out like heating, electric, food, and only charge £3.00 an hour and really can not afford to do it for this anymore so i think something needs to change but not sure what really just wondering what your views are.

[dobby]

Our local childrens centre managers were all called to a big meeting at civic centre a couple of weeks back to discuss the government spending review and how this would impact upon early years services. They were told all vacant posts will not be filled,every centre will be reviewed in terms of viability and its not a case of if but when the cuts will happen - Some centres will be closing, most likely my closest one as thats smallest

[singingcactus]

so have any of you come up against any cut backs yet, i had my child developement officer round yesterday and said there was no money they are even being asked to cut back on the ink they use

I had visions of her writing in pencil, until I read further.
I was really excited to be leaving Lincolnshire cos living in yorkshire the local going rate is £1 an hour more than I charged. It now turns out that my competition is the local after school club who charge a similar rate to lincolnshire so I am trying to figure out how I can continue at that rate and still make the whole thing worth it to me.
I've decided to just go no frills basically. Parents will need to provide everything, whereas before they provided the child only. I'm cutting right back on ink usage too, although I was starting to do that anyway. I have simplified all my day to day paperwork so I can if I need just draw it up with a pen and ruler I might even start to use both sides of the paper, although that does make it a little more irritating to use when in a ring binder.
I'm trying to weigh up whether paying for being on the data protection register each year, is actually more expensive than using wet film camera and taking a minimal amount of pics for the paperwork. Maybe developing them 2 or 3 times a year, as photos are the only thing I do using technology.
I think cutting down on the number of things we have to register for has got to take the edge of the amount of paperwork we generate which will impact on costs by themselves. As well as impacting on my time and energy.