To be delighted with thirty free hours child care!!!

[Lookingforabetteryear]

I have a three year old , I'm a single mum and work full time . On average I pay £700 pm for nursery fees . From sept I'll be paying £285!!! Bloody wonderful move in childcare policy. Am I missing something with this ?! Seems too good to be true.

[missadasmith]

just talked about this to a friend. Her nursery offers it but the council's rare us way below the parental rate. As a result, the nursery increased the fees for the under 3. My friend has 2 children there (1 and 2.5) and my have to give up work now as she cannot afford the higher childcare rates.

The 30 hours fee for some come at a stark fee rise for others.

[coffeemachine]

3. Children who are in receipt of DLA or have SEN are eligible regardless of parents income.

this is not the case. I have a child on DLA and always had to pay. I only got the 15h after she turned 3.

[strawberrygate]

missada then the nursery are greedy. They should increase the hourly rate for the non funded hours for the funded children only ( and before anyone says anything; yes, you are allowed to do this. Nurseries and CM's are well within their rights to charge whatever they like for each child)

[jojomo]

We have spoken to them at length on many occasions. We cannot charge any form of 'top up' whatsoever. All charges must be voluntary for the parents (and we've had parents refuse to pay the suggested 50p a day for snack!).

We are providing the 30 hours after many, many deliberations about it all. It will involves changing the entire way we work and we can only offer 4-8 30 hours places in order to still offer places to 2 year olds and those who just want 15 hours. It's been a nightmare to be honest and we're still extremely concerned about our sustainability.

[missadasmith]

I don't know the nursery. Don't know their overheads and staff. But I heard this a few times now. Either nurseries increase the fees or they don't offer it (interestingly, non if the council run school nurseries near me do the 30 hours as they don't have the facilities)

[RoseLight]

I work in a school and our preschool will be offering school hours including a lunch for the 30 hour funding. We are actually relieved at not having to chase as many parents for the £60 per week it costs at the moment!

[ThanksMsMay]

coffee
www.gov.uk/government/news/number-of-2-year-olds-eligible-for-free-childcare-to-double

It might be regional?

[Yura]

around here, only not-so-great nurseries and choldminders offer the free hours. all good and outstanding ones don't (and have waiting lists). council pays about £4.20 per hour, going rate here is £6... i've looked at some of the nurseries who offer it, and they are dire

[strawberrygate]

(and we've had parents refuse to pay the suggested 50p a day for snack!)

You ARE allowed to charge for food/ drinks/ nappies/ wipes etc etc.

[HSMMaCM]

Strawberrygate you are allowed to charge for those extras, but parents don't have to pay, they can send their own. I have been through an extremely thorough audit to make sure I don't just deduct the council rate and could offer a completely free space.

My parents are happy to pay the additional fees I ask for, but they don't have to. If they didn't, I would have to stop offering the scheme, as it's £2 / he less than my normal rate. If I don't offer it, I will have to close, as I nearly did when they wouldn't let CMs offer the 15 hours for a while.

[behindthewhitedoor]

I'm a bit confused about it all. I'm a lone parent and I work 29 hours / week. Will I qualify? And I am sure HRMC said I could get benefits if I worked 30 hours rather than 29, but didn't tell me what benefits!

[Mumoftwoyoungkids]

I live in a "trial area" so we have been getting it for ds since September.

Talking to our nursery manager she actually prefers the 30 free hours to the 15 free hours. This is because (in our area anyway) 30 free hours is paid at a rate of £4 per hour. 15 free hours was (and still is for those kids who come to the nursery only eligible for the 15 free hours ie kids of SAHP) paid at a rate of £3.38 per hour.

The nursery rate is £43 for a 10.5 hour day so about £4.10 an hour.

30 4 + (X - 30) 4.1 = 4.1X - 3
3.38 15 + (X - 15) 4.1 = 4.1X - 10.8

So they are always better off with 30 hour kids.

Up until about 2 weeks before the pilot started nurseries city wide were still saying they weren't going to offer it so the council caved and put the rate up.

[Lostinaseaofbubbles]

My nursery has just said that they can't afford to offer all of it. So they only offer full or half days all year around (10 or 5 hour sessions) and that for each half day session the parents can claim a maximum of 2 hours of funding. And the rate for the other 3 hours in each session has gone up by £1 an hour.

[hotcrossbun83]

My private nursery takes the funding as a subsidy, rather than a full hours rate, and also splits the term time funding over 52 weeks. So I don't get 15 free hours but I did see a decent drop in my nursery bill when my son turned 3. They are doing the same for the 30 hours. No one is paying more, I doubt it will increase demand as most kids are there 30 hours at least, their parents all work. It seems so straight forward compared to all these problems, and they're a huge nationwide chain so I would be very surprised if they aren't allowed to do it that way

[UnaOfStormhold]

We're eligible for this from September and I feel it's ridiculous to benefit people like us who don't need it at a time when desperately needed benefits and services and benefits are being cut. Add on the underfunding and the impact that it will have on nurseries, and it seems a badly misconceived scheme.

[Pigface1]

As PPs have pointed it, the problem with it is that it's underfunded so in order to provide it the nurseries hike their fees for those who don't qualify. But I can totally see why you think it's great - and I think it's a step in the right direction!

[Xmasbaby11]

Yes it's amazing for us too! I work 3 days a week. Dd 3 will go to preschool 4 days a week using up 27 free hours. I am keeping her off on Fridays to have a day with me. And on Thursdays I have a day to myself to get stuff done!

We will be paying the childminder for wraparound care and holidays so not really much better off, but without the 30 free hours the pre school wouldn't be open all day and dd wouldn't be able to go. She'd have had to stay in her current nursery.

[OnionKnight]

jojo you absoloutely are allowed to engineer it in any way you want so it benefits the parent with no loss to yourself. The rules can be used to allow this in a variety of ways but the simplest is to just knock the 15 / 30 hours off. Believe me, I've gone into this in detail with my council. Try speaking to yours, you'll find they bend over backwards to have providers take the free hours.

My team will not bend over backwards to allow providers to do this

Of course some LA's will but we don't let providers break the terms of their contract.

[wineandsunshine]

Check out champagne nurseries for lemonade funding on Facebook - it's very useful and shows both sides of the story.

I'm a CM and I'm still undecided if I will offer the 30 hours as it's lower than my hourly rate...our local preschool also isn't offering it.

Why don't the government just give parents a set allowance to spend at whichever setting they like/or split care?! It doesn't make sense to me!!

[ClarkWGriswold]

Yet Jeremy Corbyn wants 30 hours of childcare for ALL from the age of 2 but apparently this is a splendid idea and of course the money can be found with no problems [humm]

[Enidblyton1]

YANBU

[dinnafash]

@strawberrygate You're very lucky if your LA allow to operate like that. You are in effect charging parents a top up which is not allowed.
I know that it does happen, but usually if an LA finds out you would be in trouble for breaking the legal contract that you would have signed to receive the funding.

[dinnafash]

@coffeemachine DLA is a criteria for two year old funding but you do have to apply. Did you try to apply for it?

[coffeemachine]

DD is at school now. But I didn't know about it. Guess it is one of the many things you have to know about and request rather than somebody telling you. May I didnt qualify because I worked? Anyways, too late for us know but would have been godsend back then.

[dinnafash]

That's so bad that no-one told you about it at the time. It should have been brought to your attention.