Councils are being encouraged to transfer early entitlement funding between early years settings if it helps them to create enough childcare places for key worker children.
Nurseries around the UK - both large chains and standalone providers - have voiced their concerns about staying open, following the change in official guidance as to how how much they can claim for staff on furlough.
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’.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has been inundated with emails from the self-employed and small companies, including childcare providers, that are missing out on Government support during the coronavirus crisis.
Nursery workers that have been put on temporary leave by their employer during the coronavirus crisis can be furloughed more than once, according to updated guidance.
Fewer than half of childminders that have closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic plan to re-open within the next year, findings from a survey of childminders and childcare providers suggests.
Childminders are among the workers that could be eligible for the Government scheme to extend financial support to the self-employed affected by Covid-19.
More than 20 of the UK's leading nursery operators and early years organisations have formed a working group to co-ordinate responses and lobbying on the coronavirus crisis.
Childcare providers in deprived areas are twice as likely to close as those in the most affluent areas, according to new research, which also finds that the early years funding shortfall has risen by £50m in a year.
As providers increasingly move to charging parents of disadvantaged two-year-olds for ‘extras’, one local authority body has recommended settings refrain from doing so.