Nursery World - Paying the price

Funding committed to many local projects around the country has been put in jeopardy by drastic cuts in the Children's Fund. Simon Vevers finds out what's happened practitioners can do in a tense family Organisations that have tapped into the Children's Fund to provide a range of local preventative services to vulnerable children are facing budget cuts of nearly a quarter over the next two years due to administrative failures at national level.

Organisations that have tapped into the Children's Fund to provide a range of local preventative services to vulnerable children are facing budget cuts of nearly a quarter over the next two years due to administrative failures at national level.

Budgets for 2004/05 will be sliced by 15 per cent and by about one third in 2005/06, leaving a total budget of 250m for the next two years instead of the expected 150m a year.

In a letter last December, Tom Jeffery, director of the new Children, Young People and Families Directorate at the Department for Education and Skills, alerted managers to the cuts and told them not to take on any further commitments for next year.

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