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.

Lots of conflicting advice so I’ve contacted the local early years advisory team just to clarify

Best course of action. Only they can tell you if the nursery are allowed to use funding that way.

To my knowledge that is not possible as furlough didn't need to be paid back. That is also illegal as they are not using you're claimed finding as it's for. Since local councils approve/issue funding I would contact them asap. X

@TasteOfPatience

To my knowledge that is not possible as furlough didn't need to be paid back. That is also illegal as they are not using you're claimed finding as it's for. Since local councils approve/issue funding I would contact them asap. X

Furlough did need to be paid back if it was claimed and received incorrectly. As was the case for many nurseries.

They were also told to use funding to pay wages, even if they were closed, as paying staff is what funding is for.

I would contact your local authority funding team to see if this is correct, because it may depend on their agreement for funding, which the nursery must have signed up to so they could receive any funding at all. Doesn't seem right to me!

How did the nursery not think, hey, we’re suddenly quids in here, getting paid twice to employ the same staff staff (once via furlough, once via funded hours)?

I do not think they can do this.
Those hours are to fund your daughters childcare and not for anything else.
HMRC would only “claw back” claimed through the job retention scheme if the claim was found to be fraudulent. I work in HR for a very large employer and have been directly involved with our job retention scheme claims and no clawback has been talked about. I have a good relationship with an HMRC auditor and I know they are auditing all claims.
There is absolutely no way they can use those funds to repay a debt. I would call HMRC first thing tomorrow and explain exactly what they have said to you.

The issues that nurseries have had over furlough and repayment have been explained multiple times in the thread

It is not just one nursery that this applies too. It was a major cock up on the government’s part

It’s also a red herring that the funding has been used to repay HMRC

Had the original furlough terms for nurseries been clear then the funding would have been used to pay for the staff

It still would not be available to be used by the OP

Not sure if anyone’s put this but it went like this;
Nurseries closed and furloughed staff
Govt clarified and said they can’t as places are funded therefore income still there
Staff unfuloughed, many out on short hours.
Nursery must repay furlough.
However, they cannot use YOUR child’s funding to do this, telling you that you must pay. They need to manage their money better. Your child’s funding is for your child. Anything else is fraud.

How did the nursery not think, hey, we’re suddenly quids in here, getting paid twice to employ the same staff staff (once via furlough, once via funded hours)?

Because they may well not have been "quids in" depending on the proportion of income lost and the costs they still had to meet. Especially for those nurseries which remained open caring for the children of keyworkers, often with tiny numbers of children which in no way covered the costs of operating.

"HMRC would only “claw back” claimed through the job retention scheme if the claim was found to be fraudulent"

Nurseries were in a pretty much unique position - they were told they could claim, then told they couldn't. After they had claimed. So many will have made what could be called fraudulent claims and which had to be repaid, but they were made in good faith at the time. The government changed the rules.

@Joeblack066

Not sure if anyone’s put this but it went like this; Nurseries closed and furloughed staff Govt clarified and said they can’t as places are funded therefore income still there Staff unfuloughed, many out on short hours. Nursery must repay furlough. However, they cannot use YOUR child’s funding to do this, telling you that you must pay. They need to manage their money better. Your child’s funding is for your child. Anything else is fraud.

It's been said many times

Nurseries can use the funding for the weeks closed to pay staff. They have been told they can do it by the government. That is what the funding is for - to pay for staff during the 38 term weeks

The issue for the OP is that her weeks are usually averaged out, but there isn't actually any funding given during the summer holidays

Get in touch with the childcare funding dept at the local council and ask for their advice

I have just found myself in exactly this situation. My little boy qualified for 30 hours in March. We obv couldn’t use them - furlough / lockdown, but the account was activated. I was only told Friday morning that I would have to pay for the next week And every week til September in full, even though they knew I wanted stretched hours. I was told as if it was a government / local authority decision for the hours to only be used within term time. THIS IS NOT TRUE! I spoke to the government helpline regarding hours who advised me that the hours should still be available to use over the 6 weeks, they advised that some local authorities had paid the hours in a lump in April. But should still have been spread and to check with local authority. I checked with la - they did pay the hours in a lump with the understanding this needed to be spread to cover furlough hours, but they should have informed parents if they were not going to offer them over the break. This did not happen - in fact every time I’ve brought the hours up in the past few weeks The question has been avoided - though I didn’t realise that until Friday. On Friday I questioned this as they are not the local authorities hours, or the nursery’s until an arrangement is made with the parent how they are to be used. If there was a shortfall on a given month they should have had their business plan as proof and applied for more to pick up the shortfall. We have never had a free hours childcare before now, we have paid every day our child was sick, every bank holiday / Xmas day to hold his place, and now after lockdown - with a much changed financial position I could not afford to work and pay for full childcare, so these free hours are now a Necessity not just a luxury. My child went in this morning and because I did big agree with the managers stance regarding the hours (because she lied) my child’s place was rescinded.. he’s been there since he was 8 months old! Fortunately the local authority understood my side. I do think that the hours should have be frozen for those not using them and nurseries should have had normal furlough pay.. but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have to manage the money in the way it is given.. fight op.. I’ve got mine to use now over the summer!!

If you had stretched hours formally agreed with your LA pre lockdown then you are fully entitled to use them through the summer holidays. What the nursery doing is not correct. Raise a formal complaint and raise it with your LA

your finding from march till july should have been used to pay staff july- september and onwards is a new academic year they cant take your finding away from you when they have only just set it up it should have been the previous months thats what my nursery did that my daughter attends, i could have used her nursery as ive worked all the way through the pandemic, but they used her normal funding hours whilst she isnt there (till september)

I would add that you can't use the unused hours during lockdown - funding was paid to keep childminders and nurseries help to stay afloat. Yes nurseries can claim furlough but bear in mind this only covers their wage bill not rates/rent/other fixed costs etc x

I think furlough is a red herring. How many hours has OP paid for out of her own money? Has she had them all?

Seems appropriate to share this.

Love this.......to my non English friends
It's a national thing!

Dear hard-working parents,
Were going to give you a free tank of petrol to get to work. It seems only right we should do this for you. Unfortunately, you won’t be entitled if you earn more than £100,000 (that’s £200,000 per couple), as we can only afford to support those who really need it.. Dear BP, Esso, Shell, Texaco, Tesco, Morrison’s, Asda, etc, Weve promised a lot of people a free tank of fuel, for which you will be paid 80p per litre, or 75p, 81p, 99p or 52p- this will depend on where you live. Also, there will be two different rates in your area depending on the age of the car being fuelled. Those who are entitled to our free fuel must receive it free of charge at the point of delivery. So if you normally charge a higher rate, you cannot ask customers to pay the difference. However, you may charge for additional services you choose to offer, perhaps providing gloves, paper towels, hand-written calligraphic receipts, washing windscreens, tyre-polishing and such like. Customers must be able to opt out of these extra services if they wish and you must not charge a higher rate for these services to those who receive free fuel than those who pay for non-funded fuel. You will comply with our rules, which may be slightly different from county to county. And we might change those rules from time to time. We know youre just as excited about the scheme as we are, so youll be delighted to know that from September were expanding the offer to allow some people two tanks of fuel! Weve worked out some figures so youll soon be able to find out how much youll get paid from September as it might not be 80p any more (or 75p, 81p etc, ). People who are entitled to two tanks will be given a code, so just make sure you get the code and it’s checked so you don’t give two tanks to those entitled to only one. By the way, customers will be allowed to fill up part tanks at different garages. You agree that if youre ever overpaid, you will pay it back; for example, if a customer has over claimed their fuel entitlement. Therell be a grace period in case anyones circumstances change between the first and second tank. But don’t worry about all that for now! Do tell everyone how keen you are to offer free fuel and it`ll work out in the end. Don’t miss out! Remember, if you don’t offer our free fuel, your competitors will and you won’t have any customers left probably.

Have you heard back Oo?

Hi I work for a preschool and we were told to use funding to pay wages as normal. If they have claimed furlough and received funding that is where the problem lies. so they have in fact claimed off the government twice if that makes sense for furlough and funding?

Sorry thread didn't load properly only just seen this has already been said 🤦🏻‍♀️

Sorry thread didn't load properly only just seen this has already been said 🤦🏻‍♀️

I am sorry to hear this op. What a mess. If you have a contract with the nursery agreeing to stretch the hours I don’t think they can go back on this. Though the government as with a lot of things have really screwed this one up so I wouldn’t be surprised. I am fortunate in that we were never sending our DD’s back (2 and 4 years). My oldest like yours starts school in September and youngest has a place in preschool their starting September. Work are appreciative of the fact a lot of parents are having to work from home while looking after kids. I do count myself lucky. Unfortunately with the current situation we are at risk nurseries will end up closing down and this will further push up the cost of childcare (as if it wasn’t expensive enough). I really hope you get things sorted op. I know my oldest Dd would be devastated if she thought she was going back to see her friends and then was suddenly told she wasn’t.

This! This is my life every day as a childcare provider. But what they don't add is 'that we will also expect your fuel to be of the highest quality and will test it randomly every few years or whenever anyone decides to complain because they don't want to pay you for a different tank of gas. We will then publish those results and publically humiliate you if you are unable to offer graduates at your pumps, expensive brand new machines and record a personal reflective journal detailing every encounter with the customer to prove their satisfaction. We will then judge you against other providers that are not accessing this scheme and charge parents huge fees allowing additional spending on the children and facilities. This is considered fair and is only right for parents choice

We also expect to you to provide 1:1 support with no additional funding for anyone that has additional needs even if that means increasing staff, adjusting your entire forecourt and attending unpaid meetings with us to discuss the said level of care for the individual for 2 hours while you are told your opinion doesn't matter because you only sell fuel. If you have a facility in an area with a higher density of additional needs you will probably receive a lower rate for your fuel too. You may have to employ someone to drive to their house and sit in their car all day just in case they need fuel but remember this will require even more training, probably limited contracts and again for minimum wage. Fortunately is rewarding work for which you should be grateful and your staff excited to take on these additional demands and requirements.

Oh, and your staff must accept being paid minimum wage as a graduate or qualified practitioner because that's all the work is worth. We will expect them to continually train with a sector goal of graduates leading the workforce but pay less than half that any comparable job. We will test them regularly on the types of fuel, where it comes from, the chemical process of creating each fuel and the ecological processes that underpin the entire process. Anyone not dedicated enough to learn this to reach the standard to be paid their minimum wage will cause your whole company to be judged as inadequate and you may have said funding reclaimed.

It's the fact that they normally allowed you to stretch the funding that is making things complex.

I'm a childminder and have had parents want to use the funded hours that they didn't use over the last term, but it doesn't work like that. The funding is gone, it can't be carried forward or to a different provider.