This suggests that more than 1,900 childcare places could be lost from the free entitlement scheme by September, just from those PVI nurseries who responded to the survey, if the rules of the code are not amended to deal with funding shortfalls.
Well, it's one thing saying that you will either close your nursery or pull out of offering the free places if you can't charge top-up fees, but it's rather another actually doing it. Some settings have already withdrawn, but there is no accurate measure of how significant this is across the country at the moment.
For most nurseries, opting out of the free entitlement would be commercial suicide, unless there is a mass withdrawal or they are situated in well-off areas where parents would be prepared to forgo their free hours.
Protests about the free entitlement have been going on for quite a few years now, and most nurseries have stuck with it despite the financial penalties, aided since the latest code was implemented by local authorities trying to interpret it in ways that will avoid meltdown.
This is not a satisfactory way to carry on, of course, and it has led to huge inconsistencies of interpretation across different local authorities. I suspect that the review will lead to more clarity about room for manoeuvre in the way nurseries charge and how they offer hours.
More funding from the Government is not likely, however, so parents could end up paying more for their childcare. In the end, someone always has to pay!