30 hours child care rates

[InTheTriangle]

I've got a bit of a dilemma regarding the amount we'll receive as a discount as part of the 30 hours child care, and looking for a bit of advice, or if anyone else has experienced this.

So from some research...

The Gov pay our council £5.80 per hour for the 30 free hours. Found here:
www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-national-funding-formula-allocations-and-guidance

Our council then pay our nursery £5.13 per hour from that £5.80. I got this through an FOI request.

So 30 hours a week x 38 weeks = 1140 hours (which we are eligible for)
£5.13 x 1140 = £5848.20 a year savings

However.... we've been given a £345 discount per month for 12 months (they average the 38 weeks over a year) but that works out as:
£345 x 12 = £4140 a year savings

I'm at a bit of a loss as to why the discount is so far below what the council pay. I'm guessing there may be further admin fee's, but ~£1700 a year for one child's 30 hours seems a bit excessive!

Am I missing anything? How would others approach this?

OP, you need to get a breakdown of how the charges are worked out from your nursery. There is a lot of incorrect information on this thread, for example some posters are saying that you only get 30 hours if attending 5 days a week. This is totally wrong for some parts of the country. All local authorities have thier own rules, as do each nursery.

No one can guess what your nursery policy is, you need to ask. Don't be fobbed off with 'it's correct' ask for the breakdown of how they have worked it out.

They may only accept the funding for certain hours each day, they may have a consumables charge, perhaps it's a mistake, or one of many other options.
Please just ask.

Then if you still don't understand, please come back to this thread and we can help you further.

The 30 free funded hours are only term time and they are spreading it over the cost of your yearly bills? Assuming she just isn't in for school terms?

Gov pays £3.60 an hour to our childminder, but she charges £7 an hour so I have to pay the shortfall of £3.40 per hour so she is able
to make a profit. I also have to pay for meals that my DS has while he is there and the full rate during term time and summer holidays as well so in reality I am not saving that much money.

Hi OP the issue is that you are applying logic to this situation :-)
I agree it's complex and I've also had issues with this (ultimately got no funding at all - long story)

As PP advised, only way to get clarity is to ask your nursery.

If a private nursery, they can basically use the govt funding given to them as they wish.

Let us know how you get on

Your funded hours could be only for parts of the day so if your booked in 8-6 the funded part is only 8-3 so you have to pay for the 3-6 part.

For you you may be using nursery for 30
Hours but you could very well be using the hours that are not funded so while you have 30 hours funded you may not be using these on the funded hour slots. This btw is perfectly legal and most nurseries have funded and non funded hours.

You cannot use 30 hours when ever you like they have to be when the nursery offers it’s funded hours

Rules for the nursery DS attends are as follows - If you claim the 30 hours our nursery charges £7.50/day for food.
The 30 hours are only allowed as 3 full 10 hour days, and they only allocate funding during term time.

So example my DS attends this nursery 3 days a week - during term time our bill is £96 (7.53 days 51 weeks / 12 months) This month ourbill has been about £600 as there is no funding in August so we are paying full fees of £47/day.

It plays havoc with my budgeting but I like it as our bill is always broken down showing days funding is received and days paid in full.

I have no idea how my DS’s nursery work it out and I haven’t asked. He goes 4 days a week and before he got the 30 hours we were paying £1050pcm, now we pay £665 so £385 saving. I don’t begrudge the extra charges, they clearly aren’t rolling in profit, they provide a great service and my DS is very happy there.

Also I should mention 30 hours funded is term time only so 38 weeks a year and usually a stretched offer is 48 weeks of the year only.

You surely shouldn’t be billed the same every month though because there are different numbers of 4 day weeks depending on the length of the month (28-31 days), what day the 1st is on and how your 4 day weeks fall in that month, whether there are bank holidays, Christmas closure, you take a holiday and are charged at a lower rate, etc.

My nursery bill is different every month so the what your funded hours are applied would be different too. This month I paid £877 (long month, way the days fall, etc.). Last month was like £730. We are in 4 days a week all month, nothing changed but how the days can be billed month to month. So it’s odd you get the same funded hours per month because that would assume every month is the same. Funding is supplied hourly with a weekly cap, not per calendar month the way they are applying it, so somewhere someone may have screwed that up and not accounted for funds that should be there.

Thanks @Theemojimovie, that'll be my plan of action, a full bill breakdown. Then I can go from there.

Thinking about it more, it's from the benefit / tax payers perspective this is frustrating me.

Gov pay £5.80 to our council. As much as £5.80 as possible should get to the claimant, that's who the benefit is for paid by the tax payer. The council and nursery need only take their admin fees, there should be no loss making for anyone.

We pay around £1200 a calendar month for 4 days a week. So a £345 reduction in our bill when we're claiming the full amount of hours just seems £100-200 wrong from my calculations.

The hourly rate of the nursery matters as it is 30 free hours, not a deduction of the funding received. Often the funded rate is below the nursery's date. They are not allowed to charge a top up for these hours, but are allowed to charge extra for wrap around hours, and for consumables used during the hours (food and craft supplies)

Without knowing the hourly rate and their billing policy it is impossible to answer your question

An interesting thought to think about though is why the tax payer and nurseries are subsidising nursery fees for parents earning £100000.00 a year.

and futhermore OP what happens to the funding that isn't used? Do the councils return it to the Govt?!?!?!? (eg we got no funding, no suitable nurseries available who had funding in place - so what happened to our funding allocation?!?)
Keep meaning to submit a FOI for this one......

and futhermore OP what happens to the funding that isn't used? Do the councils return it to the Govt?!?!?!? they also keep some money back in case they have the amount of children needing 15 hours funding wrong.. very few councils give any left over money to providers or return back to the government... most don’t and the council keep it

I expect they're now charging you more for the hours you are paying for, so instead of £6/hour for your 40 hours, you're getting xx hours a day free, term time only and they're charging you £7/hour (or whatever) for the rest and/or you're now paying for lunch/snacks/drinks/wipes/anything else they can think of.

That's why you're not getting as much off your bill as you might think as you're seeing it as money off your pre-free-hours bill. It's not comparable. They've got to make up the difference between the money from the government and what it actually costs, and you will be paying that. So you'll get your £500+ pounds off the bill but then those extras will be added on top (so it'll look like you're only getting £300 off).

I was wondering if the nursery model means preschool (with a 1:8 ratio) subsidises the baby room (with a 1:3 ratio) so they can't give you the full discount. I can't quite work out the maths tho. But dd's nursery is about £70 for babies and £65 once they turn two, then no further reduction despite ratios continuing to fall.

You need a breakdown from the nursery of what your actual charges are.

Are you being charged a supplementary charge on top o our fees (which nurseries are allowed to do with the 30 hour scheme).