AIBU to be miffed by preschool nursery’s approach to fees?

[CrankyFrankie]

Hello, just wondering if this is normal as I’ve never come across it before and I feel the nursery have been quite sneaky about it. I thought their monthly fees sounded high given we’ve just become eligible for 30h childcare.

I’ve finally worked it out (with no transparency/help from the manager or accounts person) that they’ve multiplied the ‘funded’ hours by the amount the gov/local authority pays them, and then just deducted that amount from their fees and billed us for the remainder.

So, for the extended 30h funding, stretched from 38w to 52w, my son who is in 2x p/w, is only eligible to claim the equivalent of 15 ‘funded’ hours per week. This leaves 6h per week for us to cover. And the bill is nearly £300 pcm (their daily rate is

Yes, unfortunately that’s my understanding of how it works.

Yes I think this is fairly standard practice for a private nursery.

I’m not sure what you’re s describing is actually legal. Most nurseries get round it by giving a certain number of free hours (possibly limited to 6 per day) and insisting you pay an increased rate for the remaining 4 per day plus £10 for lunch or similar. It might look different on the invoice but you’d probably end up paying the same amount.

If the nursery just let your son attend for 15 hours a week and charged you nothing they would literally make a loss.

Their fee doesn't get less because the government funding is less.

The same for our private nursery, we used a public run preschool in addition to get some hours that were totally funded (except lunchtimes)

Yes, it isn't all as it seems unfortunately because of how tight the margins are for nurseries.

I don’t see the problem
You are getting a reduction in your fees and the nursery covers it’s costs

It's normal

The free 15 hours or 30 hours is a bit of a myth.

That’s how it works?

This is the "fault" of the government,by not paying the Nurseries enough through the funding scheme.

Entirely normal. If you wanted to get the full free hours entitlement you needed to pick a nursery that charges that per hour.

So, for the extended 30h funding, stretched from 38w to 52w, my son who is in 2x p/w, is only eligible to claim the equivalent of 15 ‘funded’ hours per week

they only get funding for the equivalent of 38 wks how many hours are you using a day?

Same as my sons preschool, which is private, I understand it might be different for state ones. If it helps when I was talking to my sons childminder before he started with preschool she worked out her funded children exactly the same way, so essentially charged a top up, she basically said she couldn’t afford to operate if she didn’t, as the amounts differ so much.

The hours are not "free" they are funded. The government does not give nurseries enough to cover their costs, so either people pay the difference, or the nurseries go bust. You dont get something for nothing.

It’s how our Nursery did it too otherwise they’d be running at a massive loss.

It’s standard, the funding doesn’t cover their costs.

I’ve been very lucky because at the private nursery I used 30 free hours = 30 free hours. My youngest is in 7.30-5.30 Monday to Friday and I just pay for 2 days.

I didn't realise this is how it worked.

We were very lucky with our nursery then.

Yes it's normal that it covers 39 not 52 weeks of the year.

Sounds normal to me.

Thanks all for confirming. Good to know it’s standard practice, I think my heckles might be up as we’ve not got off to the best start.

Shame the more highly regarded, more expensive nursery down the road isn’t doing viewings at the moment as their monthly fees work out at £70+ less!

My youngest is in 7.30-5.30 Monday to Friday and I just pay for 2 days.

For 52 wks of the year? That doesn't make sense as the funding is only 30 hours x school wks (38 or 39 can't remember).

@modgepodge

I’m not sure what you’re s describing is actually legal. Most nurseries get round it by giving a certain number of free hours (possibly limited to 6 per day) and insisting you pay an increased rate for the remaining 4 per day plus £10 for lunch or similar. It might look different on the invoice but you’d probably end up paying the same amount.

If the nursery just let your son attend for 15 hours a week and charged you nothing they would literally make a loss.

This is how our old nursery did it (but we’ve recently moved to a new area).

They are not allowed to charge top up fees. They can charge for food, or they can make only certain hours funded, but they are not allowed to charge top up fees.

It sounds like your son is doing 21 hours, is that over 3 days? Are they saying that 5 hours a day are funded but you have to pay for the other two hours?

Funding is 30 free hours over 38 weeks. But a lot of nurseries are open for longer.