Funded nursery places in Scotland

Does anyone in Scotland know how the partnership funding for nursery works? I've emailed the nursery back, but I don't really get it.

There's a partnership in place paid by the government through Glasgow City Council where term of third birthday your kid is eligible to 12.5 hours or 5x 2.5-3hrs sessions for free. Ella's in nursery monday / tuesday so 16 hours a week and that costs £325 a month. The nursery said for that I would be eligible for £80 funding per month Sept - June so term time, which would equate to only 16 hours a month, not 12.5 hours per week, more like 4 hours per week. It's from April when Ella's is so I need to know to update tax credits and to have an idea of how it affects things next year. I get a lot of my nursery funding back in CTC, but I need to know what's going to be coming in and going out when I'm on mat leave and I don't understand why she would only get funding for 4 hours a week or if it's for 2 sessions, when she should be eligible for 12.5 hours. I don't know if it's because it's broken down into 2-3 hours daily sessions so they are just funding her for a session on the days she's actually normally in, but then that makes no sense with kids that start going to nursery later because of the funded places. Stupid way of doing things and the nursery is close to DH's work, so it's not like it's convenient to spend 2 hours travelling each day for her to only be there for 2 hours.

I don't know about Scotland but certainly my experience in England is that the funding is not at private nursery rates but the government funding rate - so when they say 12.5hours this does not equate to 12.5hours of your private nursery cost iyswim

Charlotte was at nursery fulltime and if irc we got a discount of something like £125 per month on average when there were no school holidays - of course it is also variable because as you say you are only eligible for the funding in term time. I can't remember exactly but even when she wasn't fulltime then she still got the full discount whatever days she did.

again, i don't know scotland but in england it's linked to how many days the child attends. so Oscar is in nursery 2 full days, 18 hours but we don't get the full 12.5 hours free because they have to attend over 3 days to get that. We'd save money if I sent him 1 full day and 2x half days because he'd then get the full benefit.

again, i don't know scotland but in england it's linked to how many days the child attends. so Oscar is in nursery 2 full days, 18 hours but we don't get the full 12.5 hours free because they have to attend over 3 days to get that. We'd save money if I sent him 1 full day and 2x half days because he'd then get the full benefit.

ah this is probably right, Charlotte has always done at least 3 days since she was 3 so we have always had the full funding. So it might very well be related to the amount of time Ella is in nursery.

Why does the government have to make everything so complicated

Sorry Beth no idea, our kids have always just gone to the school nursery at 3 for their 2.5 hours a day, not really sure if we will send Gracie or not as she will be pretty young

I am pretty sure with Charlotte that it worked out about £40 per week funding - which actually was less than 1 day of actual nursery cost. Ben isn't eligible until next September being a May baby so we only get 3 terms (as I did with Charlotte) but it is certainly a nice added bonus for me as I would be sending him to nursery anyway

again, i don't know scotland but in england it's linked to how many days the child attends. so Oscar is in nursery 2 full days, 18 hours but we don't get the full 12.5 hours free because they have to attend over 3 days to get that. We'd save money if I sent him 1 full day and 2x half days because he'd then get the full benefit.

WSS.
Not sure about Scotland but in England in order to get the full amount of the grant, Zac has to attend five different sessions at nursery. He does three mornings and two afternoons. He gets £56 a week in grant funding, during term time. At our nursery you can either have them do the full nursery session and pay the extra or just do the short 3 hour funded sessions for free during term time. Or you can do a mixture of both, which is what we do.

They must operate on a similar principle in Scotland I guess.

Thanks, that makes a lot more sense to me now. I think then if she was in 3 days a week it would break almost even to what we're paying atm roughly going by that or we'd get equivalent of 3 days for less then. It doesn't make a lot of difference because we get most of it back funded, so it's more then that I know then that the CTC won't drop drastically and neither will the outgoing cost. She's in 2 days as that seemed like a good balance for her and for me. Steven is saying she could go 3 days, but then I feel really cautious about that as I'm not going to be working so I've always wanted to have her in for the minimum needed.

Kaitlins nursery (council not private) will allow you to send them 2.5 full days instead of 5 half days. In the 2 full days you have to pay for care over lunch but they go from 9 til 3.30pm then 9 til 11.30 (or 12.30) if you send them still for lunch.

I dont have a clue how it works though in a private set up but I do know you can use the entitlement over private and council nursery.