Nursery jobs under threat by cash cuts

They fear the move, if approved by West Sussex County Council within the next two months, will mean jobs and dozens of places at the highly-rated nursery are under threat.

As one of only four state-operated nurseries within the county, parents are worried the centre '“ which has been consistently rated as excellent for more than a decade '“ will suffer if budgets are cut by a quarter.

The nursery's chairman of governors, Jean Ensing, has called the new government formula for dividing funding between state nurseries and privately or voluntarily operated playgroups as '˜robbing Peter to pay Paul'.

She said: 'We're very concerned by this as the new system means the four state nurseries including Bognor Regis are going to have a far greater proportion of funding cut compared to more than 400 privately and voluntarily run playgroups.

'Why are they proposing to cut funds to a place that has been consistently rated as excellent and has had millions spent on it to expand its range of children's services?

'We are appalled by this as we looking at up to five job losses which will affect the numbers of children we can have at the nursery,' said the governor, who has already given evidence on the issue at a national education select committee.

Concerned parent, Dean Steel, who has two children at the nursery said he was '˜disgusted with the government' over its proposals to cut state nursery funding.

He said: 'The Bognor nursery school is a part of the family and key in supporting the community, when we lose funding this is going to have a detrimental affect to children's education, in a time of uncertainty and the financial impact we are all under for the government to promote taking money from maintained nursery schools they are actively and knowingly saying that we would have to make qualified teachers redundant.

'We see how they have grown in themselves by being at nursery and the value they get out of being there. The friends they make and the opportunity to express themselves is fantastic. So when you lose 140,000 of your budget, you know things will change.'

Bognor Regis MP Nick Gibb, the Shadow Minister for Schools, said the funding cut was unfair and was symptomatic of government policy '˜chopping and changing on funding'.

He said: 'What the nursery sector needs is certainty '“ there have been tremendous fluctuations in the level of funding provided.'

A spokesman for West Sussex County Council said the council understood the concerns and '˜transitional arrangements had been made to assist it over the next two years'.

Its statement read: 'The changes in early years funding are as a result of a new funding formula as required by the government, which takes effect from April 2010. This will see the funding based in future on the actual number of children enrolled at nurseries, rather than planned places.

"Bognor Regis Nursery School has actual pupil numbers of 50 full time equivalent places (as of October) but is currently funded on planned places for 104 children.

"Government policy and the current economic climate means funding has to change to reflect actual places rather than projected places."

What do you think? Send a letter to [email protected] or leave a comment below.

Click here to go back to Chichester news

Click here to go back to Bognor Regis news

Click here to go back to Midhurst and Petworth news

To tell us where in the world you are reading this story click here to add yourself to our readers' map.