The news came to light after the Department for Education and Skills announced last month that grants of up to 1.9m, with a total of 17m, had been awarded to 65 organisations under the newly-formed Children, Young People and Families (CYPF) grant programme.
Children's organisations in receipt of letters confirming their strategic grant allocation for the next three years told Nursery World that they welcomed the funding, but were concerned about the impact of reduced funds, lack of inflationary increases, and in some cases complete withdrawal of funds.
The National Association of Children's Information Services, which provides training and advice to 202 local Children's Information Services across the UK and Northern Ireland, was informed last month that its bid for 220,000 of funding under the CYPF grant was unsuccessful. For the past four years it has received an average of 100,000 from the programme.
Chief executive Karen Ramshaw said, 'Bearing in mind that our members'
remit is set to expand considerably over the coming years with the introduction of the Childcare Bill, we are very disappointed the CYPF unit failed to acknowledge the role we play in the development of CIS across England.'
Chief executive of the Pre-school Learning Alliance Steve Alexander said that most voluntary sector organisations are aware that the DfES is under pressure to make savings and that central funding to the sector will be reduced in coming years. He said, 'To compensate, the DfES is expecting voluntary organisations to see increased support in their contractual work with local authorities. But this is not happening on the ground.'
He added, 'We are facing an unfair burden this year. Not only are we having to cope with a reduction in central CYPF funding, but there's no growth in local authority income to compensate. The Alliance is losing support because of a few renegade local authorities who are determined to take services in-house before the guillotine of the Childcare Bill comes into force.'
Early Education is experiencing a year-on-year reduction in CYPF funding.
Director Anne Nelson said, 'The amount predicted for 2008/09 is about a third of our allocation in 2004/05. The trustees will be considering the implications of this at a meeting this month.'
Patricia Jackson, head of regional development at the National Day Nurseries Association, said that the DfES had not taken into account inflationary increases. She said, 'We've received no cut on last year's funding, but our funds have effectively been frozen. This feels like a cut because we know that by 2009 there will be increases in running costs, water, mileage and conference hire. None of this has been recognised.'
The DfES said that early years organisations have received approximately Pounds 7.3m from the CYPF fund for 2006/07, which represents 43 per cent of the total awarded. A full breakdown of the allocations is to be published on the Every Child Matters website.