Early years providers urged to check for council underspends
Nina Jacobs
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
Early years providers could secure themselves a base rate increase by probing their council's childcare funding plans for budgetary underspends, the National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) has said.
The NDNA issued the advice following the success of its early years network in Sheffield, which secured a 4p funding increase after identifying an £800,000 underspend by the city council for its early years budget for 2018/19.
The surplus money was discovered by the network's chair Karen Simpkin after she downloaded the council's "nursery funded early learning indicative budget", detailing how much money would be given per child in each early years setting, including deprivation supplements.
Simpkin presented her calculations to the council and, as a result, the network's members were awarded the boost, taking their rate from £4.10 to £4.14.
The deprivation supplement was also increased by 10 pence to 40 pence per child, with both increases backdated to April 2019 for all early years providers.
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Simpkin, who owns Sunflower Children's Centre in the city and represents NDNA members on the council's early years working group, said she initially struggled to understand where deprivation supplements cash was being sent.
"It didn't all seem to be distributed to providers," she explained. "For example, each nursery gets a proportion of that depending on how many children from areas of deprivation they are looking after.
"I inputted the information for each nursery, including maintained nurseries, into a master spreadsheet.
"There seemed to be approximately £800,000 left over from the original budget. When I checked the figures with them, I was absolutely right."
Simpkin said the council had worked with the network to rectify the financial situation, but that half a million pounds in surplus funding had still not been allocated.
"They have agreed to increase our base funding and deprivation rates, but we still have £500,000 left once they have taken their full five per cent off.
"We are hopeful that the council has ringfenced this money to be spent on early years providers. The Early Years Working Group will decide how this money is to be distributed," she said.
The NDNA is urging early years providers to check their own area budget information, which it claims councils are required to publish soon after their January census is completed.
Purnima Tanuku, the charity's chief executive, said providers could look at local authorities' plans around early years funding through their Schools Forum.
"It's amazing what Karen has managed to achieve due to her hard work, dedication and persistence," said Tanuku, adding: "She was sure the providers in Sheffield were owed more money and managed to prove it."
She said she hoped more early years settings would follow the example of the Sheffield network and check financial figures for early years funding published by their own local authorities.
"This will make a big difference to early years settings in Sheffield. We will continue to campaign for the government to pay meaningful, sustainable funding for childcare places and for nurseries to be made exempt from business rates," she added.
Abtisam Mohamed, cabinet member for education and skills at Sheffield City Council said: "We are glad that we were able to work closely alongside Karen to resolve this situation as it is paramount for the council that early years providers are given the support and recognition they need to do the vital work that they do.
"It is excellent news that as a result of the collective work we have all undertaken, we have increased early years funding in Sheffield.
"We are also looking forward to an increase in government funding for early years provision next year."