Twenty councils in England already offer 15 hours (see box).
The remaining local authorities will be given Government funding to extend the 15-hour offer to the most disadvantaged families in their areas from September 2009.
Last week the Government pledged £340m for three years from 2008-11 through the Standards Fund to extend the offer so that all local authorities can provide 15 hours of early education for 38 weeks a year by 2010.
But Darrell King, owner of the Old School House Nursery in Headcorn, Kent, warned that many private nurseries were already struggling to offer the current 12.5 hours a week to parents, because Government funding did not cover their costs.
She said, 'If there's a shortfall for a lot of groups it's not going to get any better if there's more of the day that's funded. The Government's intentions (to extend the free entitlement) are great, but they have insufficient knowledge of the sector.'
She added, 'I fail to see why the Government is intent on pushing forward on 15 hours when 12.5 hours is already causing issues of sustainability for providers. If they all close, 15 hours of nothing is nothing.'
Local authorities are carrying out a survey asking private and voluntary providers to give details of their costs.
The National Day Nurseries Association also said the extension to 15 hours threatened the sustainability of private and voluntary providers and questioned whether funding would cover the extra sessions and flexibility of the offer, coupled with the costs of employing more highly qualified staff and Early Years Professionals.
Chief executive Purnima Tanuku said, 'The move to a more flexible entitlement with increased hours will help children and parents benefit from high quality early years care and education. However, the system is currently fraught with problems for providers and while the recently announced funding reforms will hopefully help address these issues, we are concerned that if they are not implemented effectively, many providers will struggle with providing an increased and flexible entitlement. Private, voluntary and independent providers are key to ensuring parental choice and helping local authorities meet their sufficiency requirements. NDNA believes interim measures are vital to enable struggling providers to remain viable while changes come on board.'
She urged local authorities and providers to work together 'to ensure that the cost analysis process provides an accurate picture' to develop a standard formula for calculating the free entitlement.
FREE EARLY EDUCATION
Local authorities offering 15 hours of free nursery education from September 2008:
Hackney, Lambeth, Brent, Wolverhampton, Liverpool, Salford, Kirklees, Middlesbrough, North East Lincolnshire, Luton, Durham, Southampton, Nottingham City, Cornwall
Local authorities offering 15 hours from April 2007:
Worcestershire, Derbyshire, Leeds, Rochdale, Blackburn and Darwen, Sheffield, Telford, Hampshire, Peterborough, Gloucestershire, Haringey, Sunderland, York, Somerset, Greenwich, Herefordshire, Leicestershire, Newham, Slough, Blackpool.
