To wonder why there isn't more outrage about the Nursey Education Grant?

[sleeplessbunny]

I feel incredibly frustrated about the way this scheme is administered. Our amazing, wonderful childminder was planning on entering the scheme as it would help out a few of her families, she went through inspections etc to get approved a few months back. However, after looking through the mountains of admin and then realising that the funding rate is 3.39 an hour and that she cannot legally ask for parents to top this up, she has, of course, backed out.

I am left feeling really angry about the whole thing, obviously not at the childminder, she can't run a business like that and I completely understand, but the whole scheme is a farce. Looking at local nurseries, they get round it by having a highly complex and frankly manipulative charging structure to keep them legal while minimising their risk of being underfunded. In fact I suspect some nurseries take it the other way and are making money out of the NEG, but that is hard to back up.

Basically, the only places locally where my kids can access NEG funded places are the pre-schools, whose hours are pretty inconvenient at best. I do understand that the money is intended for education, not childcare, but it is advertised as available through day nurseries and childminders. The reality, however, is that it's just not accessible to many working parents.

Maybe everyone else knows this already, but the penny has only just dropped for me and I am incensed. Free places for 3 and 4 year olds??? MY ARSE.

Why can't the scheme define an amount of funding rather than a number of hours? That simple change would enable childminders and nurseries to pass it on to parents in a straightforward manner that doesn't put them at financial risk.

Yanbu. This has been an issue for a long time and will continue to be until the government does it properly.

oops Nursery obv

I've never heard it talked about in the press, though. Maybe it gets lost in the general noise of "childcare costs are crippling families" but while I do hear politicians loudly proclaiming that 3 and 4 yr olds get funded places, I have never heard anyone shouting "bollocks!" back to them.

Can you access by using childminder to pick up and drop off from funded pre school?

eg 9-12 preschool (funded) pay childminder 12 til 6 etc.

Funding levels differ by local authority though. Here in Staffordshire it pays £3.58 an hour, compared to my hourly rate of £3.50 (childminder)

Dixie yes DD does go to a couple of preschool sessions a week, CM takes her but the sessions are so short CM only has 2hrs at home between dropoff/pick up, she can't fill a 2hr space so still charges a whole day. Even if she didn't charge for that time, it's only a small dent in the mythical 15hrs.

We'll just have to suck it up, but I struggle to believe that the system is so utterly broken and yet there doesn't seem to be any outcry. At least not that I can hear.

Maybe we are particularly badly off, then moderation. Here, 3.39 is laughable, our CM is the cheapest around but still 4.50. Nurseries in the nearby city are at least 50 per day.

Maybe we are particularly badly off, then moderation. Here, 3.39 is laughable, our CM is the cheapest around but still 4.50. Nurseries in the nearby city are at least 50 per day.

Couldn't she increase her rate slightly for the other hours she minds dd, so instead of being £4.50, it's £4.90 or something to balance it out?

We looked into this moderation, it is possible and it's effectively what the nurseries do, but the key is that she risks another parent asking for only the funded hours. She cannot force people to also take unfunded hours. So she could end up with mindees who are attending 15hrs a week and she is only getting 3.39/hr for them. She'd go out of business pretty quick if that were to happen.

Another trick is to charge a silly amount for lunch, but again parents could get their child to bring a packed lunch. Any charges she makes to compensate have to be optional to be legal.

Yes, but the answer to a parent who only wants to use funded hours is "I'm sorry, I have no space at the moment" isn't it?

Also as she sets a contract with each individual parent, it is of no concern to anyone else what the terms are, so if you are happy to pay more for additional hours that's up to you. For example I have one parent who has used me for nearly 3 years at a rate of £3.35 as it's never increased. A newer ad hoc parent is paying £3.85. They receive different services and are charged accordingly.

Maybe I'm missing the point but I've had the grant for two DC at two childminders in the past and in both cases they just claimed the full amount for the 15 'free' hours a week each term and subtracted it from the total bill for that period. Eg if my bill for four weeks full-time care was £1k (£50 a day), and she got 12 x 15 weeks at £3:50, say, then I'd get a third of that taken off the £1k. Does that make sense? It was helpful and made a big difference to us. I never heard of anyone only wanting the exact 15 hours at a CMs, only at state nurseries. Despite whatever rules there may be about not asking parents to top up, it seems the usage is quite straightforward. Like how you used to get a grant during your degree (those were the days!) and it wouldn't cover everything but was a help and you obviously topped up the rest. Or am I really missing the point here?

I mean 12 weeks x 15 hours, sorry. It's late!

No outrage from me because my dds went to preschool, free , 3 hours a day, 5 days a week.

Yabu because you want free childcare not free education.

pinkdelight - legally the CM isn't supposed to just pass the money onto the parent/knock it off the bill, they have to actually offer 15 hours for free.

pink your CM is really sticking her neck out for you, although perhaps she doesn't realise it. If she gets audited she could be in trouble. She has to offer the 15hrs completely free. The way she does it, though, is the way it should work IMHO. It makes infinitely more sense.

moderation what if an existing customer wants to use the 15hrs? That is a far more likely case for our CM, she takes mindees on from babies and sees them through to school generally. She can't just suddenly terminate their contract because they want to use the free hours.

soon I agree in theory the NEG is about education, but politicians regularly spout that parents have access to 15hrs free for 3/4 yr olds and it is basically a lie.

What really bugs me is that a small change in the way it is implemented would free all settings to use it sensibly.

We've just sent DD to a new nursery 2 days a week as her current (lovely) nursery doesn't take the "free" hours. I'm pg with dc2 and just can't afford to do anything else. The new nursery is also very good but so competitive I already have dc2 down to start there but I may well not get a place, or different days to dc1. It's a mess :(

How many children can a child minder be looking after? If there's only one £3.50 isn't much. If it's 4 £14 a hour isn't bad is it?

It should be remembered that the amount a parent pays me to look after children is not my salary. Out of the £4 per hour I'm paid I pay for food, insurance, registration, toys, craft materials, toddler groups and the miriad of other expenses related to looking after children and ensuring they meet their early years goals.

Childminders can also have a maximum of 3 under 5. My hourly rate also covers the additional hours I put in to maintain the mountain of paperwork Ofsted decree I must do as well as the general business admin.

So whilst £12 per hour may sound lovely, in reality if you work out my actual hour and take off expenses I'm often lucky to make half of that. And that's on days I'm full.

I won't accept nursery funding because in my area it is 50p per hour less than my hourly rate and there are lots of extra hoops to jump through and quite frankly I don't have the will or the energy to do the extra.

Nursery education grant is for education - not childcare.

YABU.

I appreciate that the amount paid per hour is not adequate but the scheme has helped my family out a great deal and I'm glad it's in place. I wonder if the problem with providing a set amount of funding rather than a set amount of hours is that it would push the prices charged up everywhere and consequently the kids who are intended to benefit from the 16 or so hours of early years education would get much less than this.

yanbu but I think most people can access them so probably are not even aware.

It is ridiculous that people with younger children have to subsidise it though.

even if we agree the NEG is for education not childcare, my kids can't access it so it is still a broken system IMO.

It would seem from the comments that the funding gap varies widely with region so perhaps that is why there is little comment on a national level. Perhaps we are in a harder hit area than others.