Times are hard, but the actions of some local authorities in clawing back funding for the free entitlement for threeand four-year-olds from nurseries if parents do not take their full 15 hours are very worrying.
Read our exclusive news story on pages 4-5 to find out about what appears to be a growing practice around the country, now that free places are funded on participation.
It is not a practice that the Department for Education condones, however, as its statement makes clear. On the other hand, the Code of Practice does not explicitly outlaw this either.
There are serious repercussions for both parents and nurseries.
Councils are telling nurseries to bill parents for the money that has been deducted from their funding, if audits show that children have not attended their full 15 hours a week without good reason.
So nurseries are expected to ask parents to pay for something they have not had, out of an offer which is free for them to access. There is one example of money being clawed back because a parent cannot always get an asthmatic child to nursery on time.
In general, of course, it is the families most in need of the free entitlement hours who are hardest to reach and who may be likely not always to turn up on time or at all. And nurseries are very unwilling to ask disadvantaged parents for reimbursement.
This leaves the nurseries out of pocket to an even greater extent - costs and staff numbers cannot be cut to account for unexpected missed time.
Something to sort out before the two-year-olds offer gets into full swing!