Funding 2014 / 2015

[Fredbear]

Has anyone received there hourly rates yet, ours remain the same as this year, £3.82 for 3/4 year olds.

£5.00 for 2 year olds.

Thought we might have seen a slight increase given the minimum wage went up by 11p again this year, but I suppose it could have been worse and gone down.

[Stargrower]

Same rate for two year olds as yours. Three and four year olds slightly lower. I thought it might go up too. Our hourly rate for three and four year olds is higher than the amount we get for funding so effectively we lose out for each hour a funded child attends. But hey ho, we make it work!

[Rea]

The 3 & 4 year old rate in Birmingham is the same as last year at £3.56, I dont know what the 2 year old funding is though.

I wish everyone would realise we subsidise the Governments 'free' childcare at the expense of our staffs wages, but like you say Beehive, we make it work <_<

[Panders]

can't imagine anyone believing that Governments would keep on increasing the amount given to us, that was always the problem from day one - they sweetened everything in the beginning, raising the amount each year but then once they got to a tipping point all that stopped. I can't foresee a time when it will naturally rise, it will now always be attached to some performance target or other.

 

Like everything in the last year or so, funding clamp downs, free training gone and costs rising and they know we are foolish enough to keep on making early years work by cutting back on wages, or worse still cutting staff, because we are so strong at managing we get taken advantage of.

[Fredbear]

Yes I naively thought it may have risen in line with the minimum wage Panders, but you are right it was never going to happen.

I will struggle tooth and nail to keep our ratios high, but I'm afraid at a cost to our practitioners wages. When are the powers that be going to pay a decent wage to our brilliant staff for the excellent, care, love, nurture and education they provide to our very young children. sorry rant over just makes me a little sad with the way it's going)

[Panders]

Yes I naively thought it may have risen in line with the minimum wage Panders, but you are right it was never going to happen.

I will struggle tooth and nail to keep our ratios high, but I'm afraid at a cost to our practitioners wages. When are the powers that be going to pay a decent wage to our brilliant staff for the excellent, care, love, nurture and education they provide to our very young children. sorry rant over just makes me a little sad with the way it's going)

Trouble is fredbear I think we are vote catchers - they say they are doing so much for early years because they recognise how important it is, but what's the point of not actually putting money in. Graduate funding is all well and good but if that is only so they cAn reduce number of staff I'm afraid I don't agree with it. This has the potential of going the way the nursing profession has been portrayed, that nurses with degrees don't go into the profession because of vocation any longer, obviously many must do, but some think they are too highly qualified to mop up sick, poo, feed patients etc.

[Fredbear]

Couldn't agree more Panders.

[lashes2508]

yes ours has stayed the same and yes we struggle to give a decent pay to all staff which does not help when you are recruiting and yet other settings can offer higher wages - not sure how ??

 

I am still awaiting over 4 weeks now for 2 yr funding applications which should have taken 5 days - previously really good with these but not this time - fortunately had foresight to get applications in for next term already but as they only pay from day it is confirmed it's a night mare as 2 children started on the condition it was being granted !! my mistake i guess.

[Fredbear]

Hi lashes2508 iI know your in my neck of the woods, can i please ask how easy it was to be registered to take the 2 year funding.

[lashes2508]

Hi Fredbear it was very straightforward - we were already doing it before this new drive and it was simply a phone call to two year old funding department - I was doing applications myself but all parents need to have registered with their local childrens centre so now as we have good links with ours , the outreach worker does them for us. Not sure if there is any change in registering now though . will pm you the email x

[Fredbear]

Thank you. Trying to speak to someone at LA has been impossible this week.

Without going into details for obvious reasons we need this ASAP.

[Mouseketeer]

its the 2 year funding that winds me up....we get 3.91 for 3 year olds, if the staff ratio doubles for 2 year olds why aren't we getting 7.82 for 2 year olds gggrrrrrrrrr......seems like simple maths to me

[Guest]

(in a quiet voice) we currently get £4.85 for 2 year olds and £4.23 for 3/4 yrs and are able to invoice an 'additional services' charge as well, so are managing pretty well. Shame we have vacancies or things would be even better

[Mouseketeer]

Wow max321 that's a good 3/4 year rate, I'm not Somerset but right on border so take many Somerset children yet only get the dorset rate for them though they don't pay us the extra 15p we lose by taking Somerset 2 year olds

Edited November 24, 2013 by mouse63

[Guest]

Really, thats weird mouse63, you would think if you were claiming from somerset you would get their rate, that said the rate is different for every setting and is set according to several criteria, %of children from areas of deprivation, staff qualifications, opening hours, whether you pay for maintaining the property etc so maybe the area you are close too doesn't get any add ons for these markers

[Mouseketeer]

We just put all children no matter where from on to our own county form.....wouldn't surprise me if they pay us our county rate but claim back the higher rate from other county and make the extra 31p profit !

[Inge]

Really, thats weird mouse63, you would think if you were claiming from somerset you would get their rate, that said the rate is different for every setting and is set according to several criteria, %of children from areas of deprivation, staff qualifications, opening hours, whether you pay for maintaining the property etc so maybe the area you are close too doesn't get any add ons for these markers

 

 

We just put all children no matter where from on to our own county form.....wouldn't surprise me if they pay us our county rate but claim back the higher rate from other county and make the extra 31p profit !

There was a time in the past where we had to claim from the relevant county.. I was always dealing with 2 LEA with 2 different rates as we took children from just over the border.. (Somerset and N Somerset) Caused havoc at the time as both had different agreements, with different amounts, claiming on different forms.. then things changed and there became an agreement between them that the LEA the setting was in would pay for any children attending... they did not claim the money from the other one...the though is that it evens out once they account for the children passing in both directions over the borders.. hence the difference... but all involved it became much simpler..

[thumperrabbit]

£3.20 per 3/4yr old funded child - no increase for PVI run settings but maintained school nurseries and childminders have had a small increase.

No funded 2yr olds but I believe its £4.80 in our area

[louby loo]

We just put all children no matter where from on to our own county form.....wouldn't surprise me if they pay us our county rate but claim back the higher rate from other county and make the extra 31p profit !

I would seriously ask this question to your LA. I can't them funding a child without claiming it back from the original source.

I thought £5 was a universal amount for all funded two-year olds.

[finleysmaid]

I take from three counties...we get paid by the borough we operate in . I also thought £5 was universal but discovered a while ago that there is a bit of a get out clause for lea's on this.

[louby loo]

I also thought £5 was universal but discovered a while ago that there is a bit of a get out clause for lea's on this.

Why does that not surprise me :huh: ? I should count myself lucky then that we do get the £5.

[Rea]

Birmingham have just sent our exact figures for 2013-2014, £3.59 for 3&4 year olds, £4.89 for 2 year olds :1b

[sunnyday]

can't imagine anyone believing that Governments would keep on increasing the amount given to us, that was always the problem from day one - they sweetened everything in the beginning, raising the amount each year but then once they got to a tipping point all that stopped. I can't foresee a time when it will naturally rise, it will now always be attached to some performance target or other.

 

Like everything in the last year or so, funding clamp downs, free training gone and costs rising and they know we are foolish enough to keep on making early years work by cutting back on wages, or worse still cutting staff, because we are so strong at managing we get taken advantage of.

Very well said my little black and white furry friend - I think it's time to revolt - are you with me? :rolleyes:

I imagine that most - actually I think all of my parents would be more than happy to top up fees to my hourly rate - have said it all before I know but drives me 'nuts' what other business has their rate set by an outside body - just going off for a quick scream

[Panders]

Very well said my little black and white furry friend - I think it's time to revolt - are you with me? :rolleyes:

I imagine that most - actually I think all of my parents would be more than happy to top up fees to my hourly rate - have said it all before I know but drives me 'nuts' what other business has their rate set by an outside body - just going off for a quick scream

Up the revolution Sunnyday! If the government can have minimum wage rises each year they should allow rises ever year for early years, or allow top up fees.

[Guest]

Can I just offer a point of clarification on funding rates for 2YO's.

There is no universal national rate, what the government talk about is a national average of £5.10, which is different to what individual LA's actually get.

The government apply various weightings to what they give to LA's, so London boroughs for example get far more than we do up here in the North West. I belive the government/DfE divide what they give out by the number of LA's to arrive at this national average.

In my LA we give out exactly what we get in, so we take the funding amount given, divided by the number of places /hours = the hourly rate , which in our case is £4.95 per hour per child. . LA's can, should they choose, "top slice" a little for their own admin costs (our LA doesn't) but of those that do in these parts the hourly rate in most is £4.85. In neither case are we paid a universal national rate.

[hali]

yes please don't blame LAs we also get monies in from government and 100% goes out to settings. We do not decide the hourly rates and know its not fair - but our hands are tied.

[SueJ]

I'm with Sunnyday in thinking that the time has come for the worm to turn.

Perhaps we should have a couple of days each term of "synchronised country wide action" where we refuse to take children who access the funded entitlement only to highlight the issue big time (I'm sure that other than ourselves no one really understands what low funding rates mean in the real world).

I know that this will cause chaos to the families who access our provision and would mean a financial loss to settings BUT this is nothing to the chaos and financial loss that being unsustainable will ultimately mean as more small settings go to the wall.

On rates like these it's no good just acknowledging that we can't give our staff the wages that they so thoroughly deserve - rates like these are also going to start causing massive problems when it comes to pension auto enrolment which is coming our way (as most of us are small businesses) faster than is being recognised. Where exactly are you meant to find a 3% increase for (some) staff wages to pay into pension pots!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Guest]

North West here and we only get £2.54 base rate and additions for opening hours and weeks tops it up to £3.30 per hour and then theres additions for children from "deprived areas" of 0.89p totalling £4.19 per hour for these children whome we have many of.

So £4.19 is a good rate i feel. Now this is where it gets interesting and most of you will already know this but it has only just dawned on me this week!!!

If we was to employ a EYT (EYP) we can get an extra £1.46 per hour!! I wish this had been made clearer to me before! It's only on the latest summery from this term that in small print it says the higher base rate if a professional is employed. And now after speaking to out LA we have been told exactly what this figure would be and that we only need to employ a EYT (EYP) for 20 hours or more per week to get his extra funding.

So you can basically say for each term time at least we could employ a Early years teacher (ratios 1:13 in some cases) for absolutely nothing and pay them pretty damn well!!

I do feel like we have missed out and i feel rather stupid for not realising sooner!

Now the problem is actually employing one i guess...

[Guest]

Hate to say it but it was one of the main reasons I did my EYP, sustainability has been a real issue for me and that extra money per hour, per child makes a huge difference

[Guest]

Just out of curiosity: Note we are in the North West here... how much would a EYT demand per hour?