Does anyone know how the 600 free funded hours works in Scotland?

[springchicken123]

Getting myself into a right pickle.

Can't get to sleep with pregnancy insomnia so I've decided to start doing some maths (and badly!)

So when my child turns 3, I believe he will be eligible for the free 600 hours. How do they work this out?

Nursery fees are
Half day 23.50
Full day 42
Hourly rate 6.50

If he is doing 3 full days all year around, then do they work it out by 600/10 (10 being the no of hours in a full day session) = 60 free full day sessions a year. Divide by 12 and that's 5 free full day sessions a month.

Am I barking up the wrong tree completely? Surely the above method penalises those who do half day sessions though (as they are slightly more expensive).

Or is it all calculated using the nursery's hourly rate? So 600*6.50= £3900 worth of hours per year. And then depending on what sessions you choose you effectively 'spend' that £3900?

Please be gentle!

OK I think I've got it all wrong.

As far as I'm concerned (the parent) the nursery will take the hit for the 600
Hours irrelevant of what session schedule he is on. So my question is that this equates to 11.76 funded hours a week (600/51 weeks the nursery is open) - if he does 3 days ie 30 hours then we will pay for 18.24 hours a week - but I guess we can't because a full session is 10 hours at £42. So how do they work it?

Ask the nursery.

Will do. The basic principle must be the same across nurseries though no?

No. They all charge different amounts. They also don't all work the fees, meals and wraparound out the same way.

I see, thanks for that

No, it bears no relation to what the nursery actually costs. It’s based on a set sum (about £3.50 an hour) and nurseries do operate it differently. Mine gave me money back each term as they got the payments from the council.

Try not to worry. As someone said, each nursery is known to do it differently BUT by the time you have a 3 year old ANY reduction in nursery fees feels like a lottery win!

Oh I'm not worrying.Just working out how much we will possibly save

Also, critically... not all nurseries are eligible for the ScotGov funding. It’s not a blanket offering that applies across all.

All state nurseries will be included and select private nurseries.

However, there’s currently no coherent plan for how this will be implemented - you can’t roll out double the free spaces without a significant increase in staffing (and therefore training), space and resources - and there doesn’t seem to be one at the moment 😕

We finished with nursery in the summer, both kids at school, but I was getting £2100 back across the year split into three chunks for the 15 hours a week. Even double that would have been less than half what I was actually paying out (for four days a week)

Free hours for 3/4 year olds will be increased to 1200 in 2020. Something to keep in mind too