Nursery kids are caught in middle over council row
Families in limbo as spat over partnership funding means
FAMILIES have been left stuck in the middle of a row between Glasgow City Council and a private nursery.
Management of Monkey Puzzle Nursery claim they were all but guaranteed partnership status with the council but have been left in the dark about their application.
But council bosses emphatically state the nursery was rejected as being a financial risk and informed of the decision.
Meanwhile, the parents of 24 children who would be due extra funding from partnership status are left in limbo.
Lor ra i ne K i rkwood, manager of the Gorbals establishment, said the nursery, which is rated “very good” by the Care Inspectorate, first applied for partnership status in April 2016.
The nursery was initially working with counc i l employee Karen McCormack, whose role was to inspect nurseries, but she went off work sick.
It later emerged McCormack had embezzled £ 62,000 from children’s book charity Book Bug to fund a gambling addiction.
She was jailed for 12 months in April this year.
Ms Kirkwood said there was then a delay but the nursery, which opened four years ago, would be informed of the outcome of its application by August that year.
It was, she said, October before the nursery was told it was viewed as a risk for being a new business.
The nursery was later asked for updated accounts, which were provided.
In anticipation of partnership status, Monkey Puzzle spent £ 15,000 on additional resources and hired an extra member of staff.
After handing over the books, nursery bosses claim to have had no further information from the council.
A total of 12 children moved from the nursery so parents could take up the council funded hours families are entitled to at partner and council- run establishments. A further 24 children are due partnership funding.
Ms Kirkwood went to Nicola Sturgeon for support, as the local MSP, hoping political intervention would shake an answer from the education department.
A spokesman for Nicola Sturgeon confirmed her office had made representations on the nursery’s behalf.
She said: “I would not have gone to Nicola Sturgeon to ask her to find out for us about our partnership status if we already had that information.”
Ms Kirkwood, who is described in a 2017 Care Inspectorate Report as an “exceptional individual”, was invited to speak at a council event on after school care.
Her bosses, directors Brian Doherty and Della Martin, joined her.
The counc i l says Mr Doherty and Ms Martin were told at this event that they had not secured partnership status.
However, Ms Kirkwood said the council officer who spoke to Mr Doherty and Ms Martin only did so because they happened to bump into each other.
She said it was an off- therecord conversation and nothing was sent officially in writing.
A Glasgow City Council spokeswoman said: “It’s disappointing that parents who use this private nursery have not been told that the nursery has not been able to secure partnership status.
“Owners of Monkey Puzzle Glasgow were informed in May 2018 by council officers that the nursery would not be awarded partnerships status as the business had for the third time not met the council’s assessment of financial risk.
“The parents should have been informed at this time of this decision.”
Mum- of- two Rebecca Curran said she will now have to look for a private nursery to take her children in the afternoons
She or her husband will have to take an early lunchbreak to pick the children up