Childminders speak out on related children funding ban

As Nursery World reported (6-19 April), just before Easter nurseries in Lancashire were told that the council planned to stop children related to any staff from receiving free early education funding available for two-, threeand four-year-olds. However, while Lancashire County Council has changed its mind on nurseries, the Department for Education (DfE) has said that the rule currently applies to childminders across the board (see box).

Sue Blackman, from the West Midlands, has been registered as a childminder for almost 30 years. She is also a grandparent to Naomi, two-and-a half, who she has cared for since Naomi was ten months old. She will be three in September and will be eligible for funding in January 2016.

'I don't feel my daughter should be penalised. In the current situation I would not be able to offer the funding to a related child,' she said.

'My daughter doesn't want Naomi in nursery education at the moment. It's forcing a choice on my daughter - use a nursery or forgo 15 hours. It doesn't seem fair. Naomi will probably go to pre-school but my daughter doesn't want her to go just yet.'

Ms Blackman also cares for four under-fives. 'With my granddaughter I have to follow the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). I haven't become registered just to look after my own children.'

She added, 'It should be the same throughout the country. I would have thought it should be the same as nurseries and pre-schools. It should be looked into as a ruling right across the board.

'I think my daughter should be able to claim it and choose where she can send her daughter.'

'I think the situation should be clarified. Any registered childminder should be able to offer the same service.'

Ms Blackman's daughter, Alison Fry, said the decision to keep her daughter in her mother's setting could cost the family around £3,000.

'My daughter is with someone I fully trust, allowing me to go to work and concentrate on my job rather than worry about my child,' she said. 'She is well settled and receiving a full range of activities that stimulate and develop her young mind. The person who is providing my childcare is my mother but she is also a registered childminder, who is fully qualified, who is assessing and developing my child against the EYFS.

'I have been using and paying her to provide my childcare and don't understand why I have to move my child elsewhere to access the funding.

'Both myself and my husband do not want to leave her current setting and so when the time comes when she will be eligible for the funding, we will more than likely be doing what is in the best interest for our daughter and keeping her in a setting she is comfortable and thriving in, at the sacrifice of missing out on the funding.'

Anne Gallagher from Ormskirk, Lancashire, who has been caring for her nephew since he was a baby, said she had no idea the rule applied to nieces and nephews.

She said the first she heard of the guidance was when she received the email from Lancashire County Council just before Easter.

She said that she had looked after her own children and accepted that she couldn't claim for them, 'but with looking after my nephew, it's never been mentioned before'.

Ms Gallagher has six children on her books, all under five, and her nephew Adam is one of two three-year-olds she looks after. He comes to her for 27 hours a week over three days. 'I feel he's too young for a group setting. He's safe and secure here and there's continuity,' she says. 'I live in a small market town. My husband's from a big family and related to a lot of children. Where do you draw the line?'

She said she is also one of only two 'outstanding' providers in her area. 'If you're a bona fide childminder registered for other children, you should be able to claim for grandchildren and nieces and nephews,' she said.

PACEY is calling for the guidance to be amended - and wants to go further. It argues that this guidance needs to change so childminders are treated fairly and can claim the funding for their own children as well, so long as they offer childcare places for other children too.

It says free entitlement funding for childminders caring for related children has long been a significant barrier to more childminders feeling able to deliver the free entitlement.

Chief executive Liz Bayram said that it should be a condition of childminders receiving the funding for their own children that they are caring for unrelated children as well. 'If it was just their own children it would not be a good use of public funds,' she said. 'The point we're making is that if childminders are delivering childcare to unrelated children they should be able to offer it to their own children.

'There needs to be more clarity. For example, does the definition of a related child include grandchildren, nieces, nephews or stepchildren? How will local authorities check this anyway, without significant use of already limited resources?

'It's almost a nonsense to define it in that way. If you're delivering it for unrelated children, it avoids getting into the debate of whether children are related or not.'

The DfE has previously said that for group settings there is only an issue if the Ofsted registration holder of the setting is also directly providing day-to-day provision for their own child or a member of their own family.

Ms Bayram said that PACEY's main concern was the inconsistency of the DfE guidance. While registered childminders are delivering early education to exactly the same EYFS standards as group settings, they are treated differently to nurseries and cannot receive the funding for related children. 'This, combined with variable local interpretations of this guidance, makes for a very unlevel playing field,' she added.

Ms Bayram also points out that childminding is changing and that an increasing number of childminders operate more like small nurseries.

At least 20 per cent of them employ assistants, enabling them to care for more children.

'PACEY is clear the current ruling is misguided in its assumption that it prevents individuals from registering as childminders simply to claim free entitlement funding for their children. Childminder registration isn't easy and existing regulation and inspection already ensures this scenario is unlikely to happen,' she said.

Meanwhile, Ms Gallagher has been told by the council that it will not be reclaiming the funding from the previous term, but from the start of this term her nephew will miss out on 195 hours of the funding. 'We've come to an arrangement for the fees,' she said.

'We've split the costs - I'm paying half and they're paying half. I feel it's so unjust he can't claim. We've made the decision that he's ready for a group setting in September, but if not he would have lost even more hours. It takes away parents' choice.'

Lancashire climbdown over funding rule

Lancashire County Council has made a dramatic climbdown over its decision to stop free hours funding for children who have a relative working in the nursery they attend. The move came following a furious response from providers, and just hours after Nursery World broke the story online.

The council had said that the definition of childcare in the Childcare Act 2006 precluded early years providers from claiming funding for any child where a relative was employed in any capacity at a setting that the child attends. But early years providers were told in another email on 2 April that the council would not now be going ahead with the plans, following clarification from the Department for Education (DfE).

The DfE had confirmed that the council's proposal ran counter to its policy for group settings. A spokesperson said, 'The department is clear that funding for the free entitlements to early education for two-, threeand four-year-olds cannot be claimed by or spent on individual childminders providing childcare for related children, even if they are in receipt of funding for other children.

'However, it is not the department's intention that this should apply to children related to members of staff in group settings, such as pre-schools or nurseries.'