This term, children must be enrolled between 17 and 21 September to claim the free entitlement.
A letter from the council states, 'Going forward we will, within Kent, only allow movement of funding at the start of a term and we will no longer make adjustments to a child's free entitlement at half term. The free entitlement hours collected in headcount week will be those funded for the academic period. A child's hours cannot then be changed until the following term's headcount collection.'
This means that any children joining a nursery after the cut-off point of 21 September will not be able to claim their 15 hours of funding until January 2013. However, nurseries will be able to keep the funding if a child drops out during the autumn term.
A council spokesperson said, 'Some nurseries may have spare funding when a child leaves part way through the term, which they can then use to fund another child after the week in September.'
Val Webb, owner of Ashford Play Nursery Schools in Kent, said that the rule change could see many prospective parents losing out, including a family on her books who are not moving into the area until the first week of October and are currently due to start their child at one of her settings at that time.
Ms Webb said, 'I think many other nurseries in our area would be of the same opinion as myself, that this is not giving children the opportunity to start their nursery education after their third birthday.'
She told Nursery World, 'It means that some children could lose out on nearly a term of funding. If children turn three before the end of August they are entitled to a free place.'
Ian Atkey, managing director of Kid Ease, which runs four nurseries in Kent, said that he did not envisage that the date change would cause any problems.
'The council has given us plenty of notice. We have prepared for it and informed parents. We might initially lose some business but from an administrative point of view it will be less complicated. Previously we had one headcount at the beginning of September and another after the autumn half term, so we used to process two headcounts a term.'
He suggested that the council may have made the change to cut back on the administration involved.
The letter from the council seen by Nursery World suggests this is the case. It says that changes to the statutory guidance for local authorities 'along with staff changes within the Management Information Unit, will impact on how the free entitlement is paid'.
