Nursery World - Editor's view (287)

Ask any nursery or pre-school manager what they dislike about their job and it's the bureaucracy and paperwork that usually top the list. Everybody accepts that a certain amount is necessary to safeguard children and ensure high quality, but a couple of troublesome areas are causing particular problems at the moment (see news, page 4). First is the nursery voucher scheme, aimed at giving parents help with their childcare costs. As the available incentives have grown, so has the number of companies offering voucher administration services - and so has the amount of hassle for managers. Dealing with different companies with different systems, spending huge amounts of time chasing details of which child payments relate to, and, indeed, coping with delays to the money coming through, are all causing headaches.

First is the nursery voucher scheme, aimed at giving parents help with their childcare costs. As the available incentives have grown, so has the number of companies offering voucher administration services - and so has the amount of hassle for managers. Dealing with different companies with different systems, spending huge amounts of time chasing details of which child payments relate to, and, indeed, coping with delays to the money coming through, are all causing headaches.

Then there's the nursery education grant code of practice. A number of local authorities are deciding to add lengthy and onerous conditions to the code, causing some settings to wonder if they can continue to accept the grant (see NW 22 June 2006). As our story this week shows, various conditions such as insisting that pre-schools must open for 38 weeks to qualify to receive the grant could threaten their survival.

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