Early years providers around the country had not been informed of 2016/17 funding rates for three- and four-year-olds only a few days before the new financial year began.
A snap poll on Twitter by the Pre-school Learning Alliance carried out on 23 March found that 48 per cent of providers still did not know what their 2016/17 funding rate would be.
Some 26 per cent said their rate was not changing, and just 16 per cent said it was increasing. And for ten per cent of settings their rate was actually decreasing. (The findings were based on 50 responses.)
A Nursery World survey of more than 500 early years providers, carried out in March, found that of those settings that did know their rate for 2016/17, they would receive an average increase of just 3p per hour, from £4.09 to £4.12, for three- and four-year-olds.
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