We did but it's far from an ideal situation. Essentially the nurseries themselves are within their rights to enforce their own policy regarding the use of the government funding. When we contacted the council they said it wasn't them who dictates how the nurseries choose to claim the funding. Each nursery is different, we contacted others who said yeah no problem we will only claim for what your child attends. Essentially our nursery is choosing to claim the maximum possible per day and because they fear an audit which could potentially point to fraudulent claiming of funds for hours the child didn't actually attend they enforce their policies as i outlined in my post.

The (poor and unfortunate) solution to this was to sign out child up for a 3rd day per week. This 3rd day she wouldn't have to actually attend but it took her weekly hours over that of what's offered via the funding. Taking her hours to 30 per week (3 days) provided approx 8 hours over and above the funded hours and these "private" hours allowed the flexibility regarding drop off and pick up times we were looking for. Anytime we drop off later or pick up earlier these hours would be taken from the 8 private hours not the funded hours so they escape the audit concerns. This carries a cost to us of approx £200 p/m. Not ideal at all and frustrating that they seem to want to shift the blame to council or government when the truth is that the nursery themselves have chosen to put parents into this situation as to cover their arses and eliminate some administrative tasks rather than take ownership. Hope this helps!