Moving house for work - nursery hours

thebottomline

Hi all,

I am hoping there is someone who has some advice here, as my wife and I are pulling our hair out at the moment.

Due to a work opportunity, our family is relocating a couple of hours away including a change of county and council.

Our eldest just turned 4 and we were able to get her into the school we wanted (not without its own bureaucratic challenges!), found a property we like and all looking good on those fronts.

The final challenge has been moving our 15 hours free childcare. We spoke to the childcare services helpline of the government, who said all is fine from their perspective, spoke to our current nursery and council and all was fine, but the council we're moving to are saying we cannot have free hours with them because we've missed some cut-off date they set, so we'll lose hours for all of June/July/August...

This is going to cost a huge amount, by my calculations it will be £2k+, and we feel it's all due to one council's arbitrary deadline, which the governments own department told us wouldn't be a problem.

Is there anything we can do?

We can't be the only people who have moved in term time, and to get one piece of advice from the government department themselves, then different from each council, has been very challenging!

Any help on what is much appreciated.

Thank you.

sheramber

The child care funding is allocated on a term basis and cannot be transferred mid term , unless in exceptional circumstances.

Your child's funding has already been allocated for the term.

You can only apply for funding from the new council for the start of the new term.