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.

You haven't read the thread, have you @ivfdreaming?

@ivfdreaming

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

They didn't defraud the government at all. The government, incorrectly, told them that they could use the furlough scheme and then told them, several weeks later, that they could not and that the 30 hours funding would continue even if the nursery was closed.

They are either going to use the money to repay the government or repay the government and use the funded hours, as directed, to pay wages for that period. Either way the 30 hour funding was used during it's allocated weeks rather than averaged out.

The nurseries have done nothing wrong here other than not alerting parents to the government cock up sooner.

This is a government cock up and it won't only be the OP and that nursery affected.

Somewhat ironically the parents who use less helpful nurseries who don't allow averaging out of bills will be in a better position as they'll have been expecting to pay full hours during the summer

Furlough wasn't for companies who had no money coming in! Why do you think only some people were furloughed and not everyone?

I don’t mean to be rude but you’ve paid nothing for 4 months. I wouldn’t expect them to be claiming 30 hours, use 22 & then still ‘save’ the other 8 for your return, considering you weren’t paying anything during that period, and considering no one had a clue when that return may be, if at all.

Most nurseries were just trying to stay afloat & not go under, with no good guidance from the Gov.

Whether it’s correct or not, there’s only 5 weeks left. Just suck it up & pay, or send her less hours that you can afford. Or don’t send her back at all.

The LA won’t assist because 1. Nurseries are not obliged to offer to spread 2. Nurseries are a private business 3. They won’t care to get involved.

Surely 4 months of no payment balances out with 5 weeks

@kirinm

Furlough wasn't for companies who had no money coming in! Why do you think only some people were furloughed and not everyone?

Ok then it was to make up for the reduction in income due to covid Where a company couldn't afford to pay some/all it's staff where there has been an associated drop in turnover

FACT is nurseries still had income - I don't see how the government has misinformed them when it's surely common sense? You don't claim furlough if the income hasnt dropped because you are still getting the 30 hours payment 🤷‍♀️

My child's school as a nursery class and one parent managed to reclaim her 30 hours in the nick of time to use elsewhere while it was closed (places were only available to children with two keyworker parents).

Parents who didn't do this don't have a 30-hours entitlement they can use this summer either - and would normally have access to reasonably-affordable holiday clubs etc which now don't exist.

I'm really sorry for the OP. It's rubbish. The whole funding system is poorly-conceived in any case - how many people have term-time only jobs, other than teachers? I appreciate the formal rationale for funding is for 'early years education' rather than to support childcare costs but as we've all found, schools have an important childcare function. It's sophistry.

The sector needs proper support and funding, rather than being seen as a luxury used by women who, for some selfish reason, aren't at home socialising and teaching their own children.

Nurseries work on insanely thin margins and they were hardly going to have reserves sitting around to get through a pandemic - and the summer period is always the 'hungry gap'.

I don’t mean to be rude but you’ve paid nothing for 4 months
OP hasn’t said whether she was still paying or not.

@lyralalala

This is a government cock up and it won't only be the OP and that nursery affected.

Yup.

Nothing was paid during Covid period

@ivfdreaming

Totally wrong. Any company affected could use furlough. It isnt just for those with no money coming in.

Also, nurseries are allowed to furlough staff with a total wage bill up to the value of their private fees income. So, if they usually get 10K a month in private fees, they could furlough staff with up to 10k a month in wages. The remaining staff would be paid from the funded hours, which were still being paid by the L.A.

The nursery probably claimed furlough for all staff (because at the beginning they were told they could then the treasury department changed it) and now they need to repay the furlough above the private fee amount.

so If I get this right

They took furlough money by the sound of it, but were not entitled to it as they get government funding, so have to pay it back, so are using the funded places money instead to pay for staff?

Are you expecting these funded money to pay for more hours than normal? If so I would say you can’t, the money is there to use weekly at a set amount and if she doesn’t go you lose it, the nursery gain it and pay the staff

However moving forward you should be able to use whatever funded hours you get as normal

*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*

Yes we weren’t not able to access furlough until we had used all our funding money first. So we used the funding money to pay all but one more we of staff and we furloughed one.
But contract your LA who hopefully will be able to help.

We were made to claim for funding. We also had to prioritise the funded children when we returned. Meaning the children who were paying who pay at a higher rate had to be turned away.

Look at champagne nurseries lemonade funding and you will see how many nurseries have closed

WHilst I agree that the OP probably has no recourse to the nursery she is perfectly entitled to feel hard done by. She had a contract for spread hours and the nursery has claimed the funding for this. SHe also has already dleayed her return to work by 5 weeks because, despite claiming her daughter's funding the nursery wouldn't have her back as she would have made the bubble size too big. Despite all the PPs saying that the situation was bad for nurseries, as far as I can see this was a win win situation for the nursery in question as they have claimed the funding whilst refusing the place. In the meantime the OP has deferred her return from ML (which presumably had negative fnacial consequences for her - and possibly career ones too) because she was refused the nursery place for her child that the nursery was claiming the funding for.

OP it really sucks - my advice would be to have a chat with the nursery and see if you could agree to split the cost or pay in installments into the next academic year given that they have had the funding for your daughter but not let you use the hours. Whilst they were entitled to do this they may see the inherent unfairness in the position, especially if you have a contract for the spread hours.

This is most definitely not happening at our nursery. I hope you get some resolution.

Surely its no different from usual for the nursery - they get their summer term finding in a lump, and if they allow stretch hours, they stretch them. Covid makes zero difference to that and for the private hours, they can claim furlough payments.

I can see it might be an issue if the OPs child will be attending more than 3 days a week, as there would be private days on top of the stretched, but if it's in her contract that they are allowing stretch, surely that's the nurseries problem, not the OPs. And whilst it's a loss for the nursery ) equivilant of about 8 private hours a week, there are loans etc which the nursery could take if needed, or the nursery should have asked parents to continue paying for some of those hours (to ensure funding can he stretched in the summer)

I also don't get why we are supposed to feel sorry for nurseries with the rules 'changing'. Surely it was pretty obvious that if you receive public income and that continues, you can receive furlough for that as well... Surely it would be grabby to even think you could get both for the same thing.

also don't get why we are supposed to feel sorry for nurseries with the rules 'changing'. Surely it was pretty obvious that if you receive public income and that continues, you can receive furlough for that as well... Surely it would be grabby to even think you could get both for the same thing.

Early on we were told to access the furlough scheme. No one told us initially that there would be any funding for the summer term. We were told that we could keep the last two weeks of the spring term and then access furlough.
It was only a good few weeks later that we should apply for summer term as normal.
Other LA may have been different. However once they were told they could have funding they should have stopped their furlough claim.

Op, some LA’s are double funding children so they
Maybe able to help you out there

My understanding is, the government /councils said they would continue to make any education grant payments to nursery, which is what pays for funded hours. When furlough was brought in, nurseries put staff on furlough, so essentially they were being double funded by receiving both payments (not completely but for ease of explanation).

They then said that they wouldn’t be entitled to the full furlough payments, so some are being clawed back / have to be repaid.

I’m not sure what this means for your hours, but we’re still receiving our full stretched funded hours.

@KittyKat1983

They have said the government are now clawing back the furlough money *@RemyHadley*

...only if they have claimed it when they are not entitled to....

Unless it was changed, nurseries weren't allowed to furlough up to the value of their private income, they were allowed to furlough in proportion to it. So if they get 50% income from private then they could claim furlough for 50% of wage bill.

The timing of the announcements was an absolute nightmare. Given the fact that they were required to do it on a proportional basis it was likely also proportional to when they receive funding rather than when it is 'spent' to pay for childcare. Many nurseries had already made decisions to furlough which they wouldn't otherwise have made.

I believe you should still be able to have the stretched hours. The money should be on a like for like basis but there is a good chance they simply don’t have enough money left due to underfunding anyway. Are they still opening over summer?

"Surely it was pretty obvious that if you receive public income and that continues, you can receive furlough for that as well... Surely it would be grabby to even think you could get both for the same thing."

The public money doesn't cover all income; it only covers funded children. Not every child claims for the 30 hours or is entitled to it.
For those that are entitled to claim, in a lot of areas it doesn't cover the fees. In some areas, the shortfall can be substantial. Nurseries and childminders were struggling with underfunding before lockdown. They had no resources to meet further cuts imposed.

I think @Raimona is onto something here - what has happened with OP's top up payments?

OP hasn't said whether she continued to pay during lockdown. If she did then the nursery has been paid twice for 8(?) hours a week - once through government funding and again from OP's top ups. If she didn't then she has (or had) that money to put towards hours over the summer.

Also, are payments averaged over a full year? If so then some of the top up payments OP made before lockdown will have contributed to her hours over the summer because it's such a long break with no government funded hours.

Our nursery told us not to pay the top ups as these were covered through their insurance. And In fact they re credited us for April, as they asked us to pay for April to keep the cash flowing and said they would repay what they recovered.

Thanks to the people who’ve corrected me - I had no idea the nurseries were supposed to be paying furlough money back. All seems to be a mess!