Nursery have used funded hours to repay furlough money

[KittyKat1983]

Hi, just after a bit of advice if anyone knows where I stand with this. My DD was due back at nursery next week as I am going back to work. She gets 30 hours funded by the government which I have been renewing all through lockdown and she hasn’t attended since March. The nursery are now saying we will have to pay for her place as they have used the funded hours to repay the furlough money they claimed off the government. Does anyone know if they can actually do this? It’s left me stuck because I can’t afford to pay the full rate so won’t be able to return to work. Thanks in advance.

@OverTheRainbow88

I would change nursery personally. You are entitled to use your 30 free hours. They cannot use it to pay their staff, that is ridiculous

What do you think its used for if not to pay for staff?

@OverTheRainbow88

I would change nursery personally. You are entitled to use your 30 free hours. They cannot use it to pay their staff, that is ridiculous

Yes they can. That is exactly why the government continued to pay the funding, even if the nursery was closed. They have explicitly told nurseries to pay their staff from the funding.

Yes sorry I phrased it all wrong! It’s ok to continue to get that 30 hours and that to be used to pay the staff who weren’t on furlough whilst closed but not then once they’ve reopened! I would be screwed if my nursery suddenly said I cannot use my free hours now !

@OverTheRainbow88

Yes sorry I phrased it all wrong! It’s ok to continue to get that 30 hours and that to be used to pay the staff who weren’t on furlough whilst closed but not then once they’ve reopened! I would be screwed if my nursery suddenly said I cannot use my free hours now !

I don't know whether this was the case in the OPs situation but if she is only thinking of sending her child back now despite nurseries having been opened for quite a few weeks now, perhaps she's lost her hours that way?

OP said

She gets 30 hours funded by the government which I have been renewing all through lockdown and she hasn’t attended since March. The nursery are now saying we will have to pay for her place as they have used the funded hours to repay the furlough money they claimed off the government

My understanding of this is her child’s not attended nursery since March; however, OP helped them out by renewing her 30 free hours so they claimed that from the government. Now her child is ready to go back they are saying she can’t use her free hours.

If I’ve understood right I think that is terrible.

perhaps she's lost her hours that way?

It's because the OP's nursery normally averages out her hours, but that's not how the nursery are paid for the funded hours

Get it in writing and then phone Ofsted and ask them about it

@kirinm

But they dont need the private income. That's the whole point of my post. Let's say they get £10,000 a month from private fees. They can furlough staff up to a wage bill of £10,000 a month. So they dont need to pay it, since they arent getting the private income.

They still need to remaining staff with the funded hours, which they get from the government.

It is a very complex situation and might involve trading standards issues if consumers (parents) were misled by the Government or by the nursery. Had parents been told you will lose your funded hours lots would have given up the nursery place to preserve the hours to use later in the year when back at work or at least made an active choice just like private payers in some cases chose to pay half the usual nursery fees without any nursery provision to help the nursery (the rich privileged parents) or paid nothing because there was no service and/or moved to a child minder.

Had parents been told you will lose your funded hours lots would have given up the nursery place to preserve the hours to use later in the year

You can't save or bank funded hours

to preserve the hours to use later in the year when back at work or at least made an active choice just like private payers in some cases chose to pay half the usual nursery fees without any nursery provision to help the nursery (the rich privileged parents) or paid nothing because there was no service and/or moved to a child minder.

You can’t save the 30 funded hours to use at another time!

Surely what the nursery did or didn’t get from the government and what they did with that money eg pay staff is nothing to do with the OP getting her funded hours. She is entitled to them and the government is paying the nursery for the OP to have the funded hours. What the nursery needs to pay the government back (eg if they were getting funded hours payments plus furlough for staff so I’m effect being paid twice) is of no concern to the OP.

You also can't change providers within a funding period (and take the funding with you), so no parents couldn't do that either. I suppose they could have not renewed their entitlement but since it would have been of no benefit to them but would have screwed over the people who care for their child I hope not many would have.

I think - and I say this as someone whose toddler has been in childcare since 8 months, so this isn't a working parent/childcare dig - a lot of people want to believe that nurseries are greedy and on the make because the reality that their child is cared for by people making minimum wage and in a setting that struggles to balance the books is uncomfortable.

@Hardbackwriter

You also can't change providers within a funding period (and take the funding with you), so no parents couldn't do that either. I suppose they could have not renewed their entitlement but since it would have been of no benefit to them but would have screwed over the people who care for their child I hope not many would have.

I think - and I say this as someone whose toddler has been in childcare since 8 months, so this isn't a working parent/childcare dig - a lot of people want to believe that nurseries are greedy and on the make because the reality that their child is cared for by people making minimum wage and in a setting that struggles to balance the books is uncomfortable.

I agree. Nurseries seem expensive because you're paying c£1k a month but actually, the hourly rate equivalent is bugger all. Same for childminders. My DD is with a childminder at the moment although trying to get a place at a nursery, and yeah paying her over a grand for 4 days a week feels like a lot but it is about £6 an hour. If lockdown proved anything to me it is that she is worth every single penny and more.

@BrieAndChilli

Surely what the nursery did or didn’t get from the government and what they did with that money eg pay staff is nothing to do with the OP getting her funded hours. She is entitled to them and the government is paying the nursery for the OP to have the funded hours. What the nursery needs to pay the government back (eg if they were getting funded hours payments plus furlough for staff so I’m effect being paid twice) is of no concern to the OP.

The nursery are allowed, in fact were told, to pay their staff using the funded hours.

The issue for the OP is that whilst the nursery normally average out her bills they don't actually get paid outwith the 38 funded weeks.

Absolutely. I asked a colleague who was talking about buying presents for her child's primary school teachers for any tips for what to buy for nursery staff and she looked at me like I was mad and said 'I paid nursery over £1k a month, I didn't buy gifts'. I didn't say anything but for me it's madness to buy a present for someone on a teacher's salary (and I'm married to a teacher!) but to begrudge it for the person who looks after your baby for minimum wage.

OP am I right in thinking that you get part of your childcare hours free due to funding and you pay for the rest? Have you still been paying during lockdown?

If you haven’t been paying then they’ve used your free hours to make up for that, and the money you’ve saved should cover the additional hours you now need to pay?

I think the nurseries were allowed to claim for the funded hours during the lockdown. But surely the nursery will still get funded hours in future. So I can't see why OP now has to pay for future hours.

@Viviennemary

I think the nurseries were allowed to claim for the funded hours during the lockdown. But surely the nursery will still get funded hours in future. So I can't see why OP now has to pay for future hours.

They only get funded hours in term-time. sometimes they average out the cost so that bills don't spike in the summer (and other holidays, but summer is the biggie).

However they can't do that do when the funding has been used in full already.

But the funding shouldn’t have been used in full if OP has continued to pay. If she hasn’t continued to pay then the amount she’s saved should cover the extra charge going forward.

@Viviennemary

I think the nurseries were allowed to claim for the funded hours during the lockdown. But surely the nursery will still get funded hours in future. So I can't see why OP now has to pay for future hours.

But there are no more free hours to claim. We are now outside the free hours period. This is the issue, for the few weeks that are left the nursery will not get paid for but the op doesn't want to pay for them either.

OverTheRainbow88 If she hadn't renewed them, her child would have lost them during that period and she would have had to have reapplied. You cannot 'bank' the hours they are used or lost and can only be used in specific periods. They could not be used by the child during that time so they have essentially been lost, whether by the nursery paying staff or by the government retaining them. Stretching the hours across the year is at the discretion of the nursery.

Private nurseries got told they could put staff on furlough. They were then told, weeks later that they would receive furlough monies for their privately funded hours and not for their 30 free hours money, BUT that they would continue to get the 30 free hours money. For some nurseries, in order to pay wages at 80% this meant no longer being able to stretch the hours as the privately funded hours did not take in to account the stretching of hours.

Then if OP is now outside the funded hours I'd say she will have to pay. I wouldn't have thought you could carry them forward. I suppose it's a private arrangement with the nursery this averaging. Quite complicated.

Fact is the nursery whether knowingly or unknowingly defrauded the government - furlough was so that employees could be paid when a company didn't have any income coming in.

Nurseries DID have income coming in as Local Authorities agreed to continue to pay the 15/30 hours monies

If they had 10 children on 30 hours and 10 not then they should only have claimed 50% of the furlough money because the funded hours would make up the other 50% so the company wasn't at a loss? 🤷‍♀️

They can't use your 30 hours funding to repay the government - they'll have to pay that out of their own pocket as they made the error in the first place.

Honestly it's lack of common sense on the Nurseries part and "grabby" and I'm sure lots of companies will also be caught out soon

@Viviennemary

I think the nurseries were allowed to claim for the funded hours during the lockdown. But surely the nursery will still get funded hours in future. So I can't see why OP now has to pay for future hours.

They don't get funded hours over the summer, at all. Nurseries where they allow stretching of the hours across the year do so at their discretion.

OPs child will get free hours again in September, assuming not school age at that point.