Nursery World - Government makes U-turn on nurseries' access to furlough cash

The Government has backtracked on the amount of financial support that early years providers can access from ‘free entitlement’ funding and the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (furloughing) in a move described as ‘a kick in the teeth’.

Nurseries have now been given limits on accessing the furlough scheme

The Early Years Alliance said the move was likely to lead to nursery closures and threatened the long-term viability of the sector.

In new guidance released today (17 April), ‘Coronavirus (COVID-19): financial support for education, early years and children’s social care’, the Department for Education gives instances where an early years provider will not be able to furlough staff or will only be able to access the CJRS ‘to cover up to the proportion of its paybill which could be considered to have been paid from that provider’s private income’.

The move follows weeks of uncertainty in the early years sector about possible contradictions between the DfE early years sector guidance, which clearly stated that providers could access both schemes, without giving any restrictions, and the Treasury guidance on the CJRS, which said that, ‘Where employers receive public funding for staff costs, and that funding is continuing, we expect employers to use that money to continue to pay staff in the usual fashion – and correspondingly not furlough them. This also applies to non-public sector employers who receive public funding for staff costs.’

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