Funding

Funding is a
'Hot Topic'

Funding has been a 'hot topic' for a long time and also a bit of a headache for a lot of childminders, therefore, the founder felt it was incredibly important that the Hub features an entire Collection focussed on all aspects of funding!

Whilst the Funding Collection covers all countries across the UK, there is a huge emphasis on England because it now has a funding scheme for children from 9 months old until they begin school or their home education journey!

For now, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland each have a space that covers their whole country as the founder's research has shown that their funding schemes are much more straightforward. But if needed, more localised spaces can be introduced as has been done with England - the Hub is there to support all its members, so if something needs improving for that to happen, the founder will do their utmost to achieve that!

The purpose of this entire Collection is to help childminders understand funding, to equip them with the necessary tools and to generally help them get their heads around it, so they feel confident to deliver it within their settings and can navigate any problems that occur.

To help childminders better understand funding and communicate it effectively to the families they support, the founder has written public-facing pages to this website. These pages offer accessible information for everyone, since the Hub itself is only available to current childminders or those considering joining the profession. Here are the links;

Funding for Childminders

Funding for Parents

Images taken from the full scale laptop view of the Hub.

Funding in England

Funding in England features heavily in the Hub's Funding Collection because it has a far reaching scheme that is delivered at a local level by 317 different local authorities, each of which seem to do things a little bit differently!

Creating this Collection proved a bit tricky for the Hub's founder as it was important that all members feel valued and supported, whilst ensuring they can find relevant information easily! Therefore, the founder categorised England into regions and listed their geographical areas!

This seemed a better approach than asking members to wade through 317 local authorities to find theirs! But within each regional Space, members will be able to find their local authority so they can connect with others in their area for mutual funding support.

The photo highlights the Space for North West Funding.

Just to clarify - the terms 'local authority' (also known as LA) and 'council' are often used interchangeably, but they have different meanings.

'Local authority' is a formal term used in legislation and documents and refers to the governing body responsible for delivering public services in a specific areas - like education and social care.

'Council' is more commonly used in everyday language refers to the organisation or elected body that runs the local authority. So the local authority remains, but the council may change if that makes sense!

Within the Hub, the term local authority is generally used by the founder.

Funding Overview

Funding refers to the subsidised childcare that is paid for by central governments and delivered at local levels. Children can access these funded hours if their family circumstances and/or their age makes them eligible, and there are different types of funding available.

Understanding funding as a childminder can unlock extra support for both them and the families they work with. It's like adding a booster to their toolkit, if childminders know how to navigate the processes and use funding effectively, so that childcare is more affordable for parents and childminders can grow their business too.

The purpose of this Funding Overview Space is to provide general support with funding that is applicable to everyone across the UK - government updates, useful information for terminology, term dates etc. and funding in the news.

Funding Examples

Each child has a unique set of funded circumstances, so when calculating the individual funding claims and invoices, childminders may need to consider a family's individual circumstances, their contracted hours, stretched funded hours, private payments, shared settings, consumable fees and stipulations imposed by the local authority!

It's a lot!

So the intention for this Space is for the founder to provide as many worked examples as they can in the hope that members can find one that best represents the situation for the family they are trying to help. They will deal with tricky scenarios like stretched funding and shared setting etc.

Please remember that in England, each local authority has their own way of doing things and it's really important that childminders read their funding agreements thoroughly to make sure that they are sticking to their rules!

Please note, the founder cannot and will not work out funding calculations for specific children - this isn't a service provided by the Hub because if it was, there would literally be no time to dedicate to managing the Hub and the other 29 collections.

But if there's a 'type' of calculation a member would like to see, they can ask inside the Hub and the founder will do their best to include it in the Funding Examples Space.

Funding

Funding is a 'Hot Topic'

Funding in England

Funding Overview

Funding Examples

Funding is a
'Hot Topic'