What discount do you get for 15/30 free hours?

[FreeHoras]

I get nowhere near ‘30 free hours’ as the headline policy suggests.

Averaged across the year it’s 22 hours a week… so, about 40% of the total fees in principle.

A full time place = £2,007

With 15 hours = £1,800 (10% reduction)

With 30 hours = £1,600 (20% reduction)

You can do minimum 3 days a week - so the ‘cheapest’ option with 30 free hours is >£900pcm.

I appreciate the nursery is given a rate of funding far below the cost of the service.

Should it be rebranded £50/£100 childcare a week? This would be more accurate.

The current name implies parents get 60% of their bill funded.

Ah but that doesn't sound nearly as good as FREE for a vote winner!

It's free term time places. If you choose a term time placement at a nursery or preschool you'll get the full "freebie". If you use the hours towards care all year round it's pro-rata through the year. Don't choose a Monday as one of your days for this reason.

@Userob I’m aware it’s term time places.

But even accommodating that (and some), I am getting half the ‘free hours’ claimed ie 20% off my bill, not 40%.

Your basing full time nursery hours on substantially more hours than most kids, even in full the care will be in nursery. If 30 hours it's 40%, your assuming they will be in childcare for 55 hour weeks, or Monday to Friday for 11 hours. So that's why your rates are still so high.

Personally I pay £5, per term (so £15 per year) but it's a pre school that's only open school hours and dates. My daughter only goes for 12h per week for medical reasons but if she went for the full 30hr then there'd be no additional charge. It's no good for many people though because of the restrictive hours.

At our previous childminders, it was about £3.70ph for hours in excess of the 30 (or 22 stretched). Assuming a 55 hour week, you'd be paying just over £500 a month.

A lot of places seen to charge a lot of 'optional' fees (that in reality are anything but) or blatantly charge a top up rate, which they aren't allowed to do. Neither place I've had my children at have done that though. Both have been absolutely excellent with childcare.

We aren't London though (but not the north either)

@Babyboomtastic

‘30 hours a week in term time’ averages out at 22 hours a week. So if a child is in nursery full time, you get 22 hours off the total bill (in principle).

But the nurseries seem to charge by the day. So you have to take that time as part of full days.

I’m actually being overly generous saying 22h is equivalent to 2 days a week, as it’s probably more like 2.2 days. So the discount should be more than 40%.

My nursery wouldn’t let you just take 6 hours in a day - full days only.

It’s “funded hours” not “free hours”.

What hours are your DC doing? Like that time do you drop off and collect on which days?

If your DC went 9am-3pm term time then you’d only pay for 1 hour (usually lunchtime). But I’m assuming you drop them off earlier and collect later?

When my older DC used the funded hours, a couple of years ago, she turned 3yo in the May and started school nursery in the September, she did (term time only):
7.30am-9am- breakfast club, I paid for
9am-12pm- morning nursery session, funded (free)
12-1pm- lunch time care, I paid for and sent a packed lunch
1-3pm- afternoon nursery session, funded (free)
3-6pm- after school wraparound care, I paid for.

I have a 2yo now and she’s 3 in March so will get the funded hours from after Easter, I will keep her at her current private nursery from Easter to summer holidays then she will start term time school nursery in September, timings as described above.

My two year old will get funded hours at Easter. He only goes two days a week, it’s going down from £70 a day to £55 a day. Frustrating it’s not what the government suggested it would be but was prepared for that to happen. I don’t blame nursery at all , completely understand they have to cover costs and pay staff etc It just makes it difficult for people to work when childcare costs so much.

@Bernadinetta the government refer to the policy as ‘30 free hours childcare’?

My nursery charges by the day, you can’t pay by the hour.

The nursery is open 10 hours a day. So I guess I pay for 10 hours regardless. This would mean, with the ‘free hours’, 2.2 days a week for free.

But I actually only get a 20% reduction on my bill.

The structure you describe sounds very complicated - presumably to
allow them to charge more to make it financially viable for the nursery? Would you have been able to not do any funded sessions and still use your free hours?

It should really be £17.50 a day, assuming that’s the 15 free hours you refer to.

Annoying to have ‘free hours’ in place at 2
to help lower income families, and then it be applied in this way.

The headline policy name is a bit of a nonsense.

Even if places offer it "free" they then add on lunch and consumables.

As I said in my post, I would have been able to drop off at 9am and collect at 3pm, and these hours would’ve been completely free, but I would’ve had to pay for the one hour of care from 12-1pm. I’m not sure whether I could’ve collected at 12 and dropped back off at 1pm to make it completely free.
However due to needing childcare earlier than 9am and later than 3pm due to work, I needed to pay for breakfast club (could drop off from 7.30am and paid £6 per day) and after school wraparound care (could pick up as late as 6pm, and paid £12 per day).
To be clear, this is a school nursery. The 7.30-9am breakfast club and the 3-6pm after school wraparound take place in a mobile classroom unit and can be attended by children from all classes Nursery to Year 6 attending the primary school. The nursery children then went to the nursery classroom from 9-12 and 1-3. Between 12-1pm the nursery children had their packed lunches in the classroom (no option to have a school dinner in the hall until Reception).

Two days a week are "free" with the 30 hours stretched over the year to 22 hours. However there is a £15 per day fee to use those two days. So a saving of £84 a week plus a couple of pounds for the two hours.

It would be a lot more honest if the government simply added the funding to the childcare account for parents to use as they please (or forgo the payment to use a school nursery for a 3yo).

Parents would still be happy with a contribution in their account.

I get nowhere near ‘30 free hours’ as the headline policy suggests.

It's a rude awakening when you realise that despite the narrative the free hours are very much not free!

As I said in my post, I would have been able to drop off at 9am and collect at 3pm, and these hours would’ve been completely free, but I would’ve had to pay for the one hour of care from 12-1pm. I’m not sure whether I could’ve collected at 12 and dropped back off at 1pm to make it completely free.
However due to needing childcare earlier than 9am and later than 3pm due to work, I needed to pay for breakfast club (could drop off from 7.30am and paid £6 per day) and after school wraparound care (could pick up as late as 6pm, and paid £12 per day).
To be clear, this is a school nursery. The 7.30-9am breakfast club and the 3-6pm after school wraparound take place in a mobile classroom unit and can be attended by children from all classes Nursery to Year 6 attending the primary school. The nursery children then went to the nursery classroom with a teacher and teaching assistants from 9-12 and 1-3. Between 12-1pm the nursery children had their packed lunches in the classroom (no option to have a school dinner in the hall until Reception).

Not wanting to add to what you describe as complication, but just to be completely clear. My DC didn’t attend 7.30-6pm every day. She attended 9am-3pm every day and this was free, or a very minimal cost for a one hour of lunch time care. Due to my work hours, and help from grandparents, some days she was collected at 3pm at the end of Nursery and didn’t need to attend the after school wraparound until 6pm so I didn’t pay for it on those days. Similarly, on some days she didn’t need to attend the breakfast club, but could be dropped straight off at 9am for nursery.

I think the length and structure of the 30 free/funded hours is meant to mirror the term time school day and is more aligned with a primary school day (such as 9-3) than a private pre-school nursery where children attend longer days due to parents working hours.

Sorry to post twice @FreeHoras , I didn’t think my first post had posted and I then added some more info before I reposted!

A lot of nurseries charge top ups because the funding is pitiful.

My child has free hours. Term time 9-3. I pay for the lunch. £2.50 a day. My choice to pay that.

@FreeHoras we will get the funding for all two year olds coming in in April. Hadn’t been expecting it to be a huge saving but probably more than it was. But like I said it’s not the nursery I blame .

We are fortunate with our nursery as we don't have to book for a full day or even a half day. It's charged by the hour so we use the hours we need. It is also term time only or all year round - we decide. We pay a small hourly consumables fee (£1.80 an hour I think) as well as optional lunch and tea. We use 30 hours in terms time and I pay about £150 a month I think on average.

We still pay over £1250 per month even with free hours. We also aren’t eligible for tax free childcare savings so it’s still quite expensive.

It takes around 30k of my pre-tax income. The free hours knocked about £200-£250 per month off what we used to pay.

Honestly a lot of the problem seems to your specific nursery. Requiring all parents to pay for 10 hours care with 3 minimum days a week is crazy and not something I've ever heard of. Very few parents will want/have their child in for 10 hours. Yes, parents may need longer than 9-5, but that's where one parent doing each drop off, or one person having shorter hours/ flexibility etc, to keep the nursery day shorter helps.

But I'm also not understanding your maths. If the minimum commitment is 30hrs a week (3x10hr days), and 22hrs are funded, you'd be paying for 8 hours. If that was £900 a month, that would mean you'd be paying £207+ for a 8 hour day. I know some nurseries are expensive, but over £200 a day seems extreme.

Basically, I'd be looking at changing to a nursery that better fits your working hours/needs, and thats less extortionate. Unless it's the going rate for where you are, and you need those hours...

@Babyboomtastic Every private nursery in the area charges by the day.

The only ones I’ve seen that do half days are those attached to schools, and that doesn’t work for me as term time only anyway.

The maths is why I’ve asked the question - you aren’t getting anything close to the 22 hours a week, the top up is quite significant.

They don’t provide a breakdown of what it is for - but reading other posters comments, presumably they have some system to explain it beyond ‘its £200+ for these 8 hours’. So it’s not really £200
a day - it’s just subsiding the other days.

@Orangesandsatsumas v good being able to pay by the hour!

Yes - if the nurseries cannot provide the care for such a low cost, it’s inevitable they will need to find other avenues to charge parents.

They should change the name of it, ‘30
free hours’ is a nonsense!

What are you planning to do for school holiday childcare when your DC starts Reception? Could you do that now and use a school nursery, to save some money?