30-hours free childcare and private hours

[Mum445]

Hello,

I have a quick question about private hours at a nursery. My daughter is three and qualifies for the 30 hours free childcare. She attends nursery 2 days per week. Our nursery opening hours are 7.45-6pm which is 10 hours and 15 minutes. Nurseries can only offer 10 hours per day so we receive 20 free hours per week and have to pay for 30 minutes. Our nursery charges £120/hour for private hours if you attend 2 days per week (and £14/hour if you attend 3 days per week) so even though my daughter attends 2 days per week we still have to pay £60/week for that extra 30 minutes!!!!

The nursery never provided a price break-down and only released their fee structure when asked over and over again via email. My question is: Are they allowed to charge this staggering amount per hour? Is there an organization that can advise us on this and should we contact ofsted to complain?

They aren’t ‘free’ hours, they are partially funded hours. The government doesn’t fund nurseries or childminders enough money per hour to make taking the older ‘funded’ children viable for them. They have to charge extra somewhere just to stay afloat. Some nurseries here have stoped taking children over 3. Others have had to close their doors completely.

You can complain to Ofsted if you want to. They will probably have to close as they can’t afford to pay their wages/bills and you’ll have to find another nursery.

Ofsted dont deal with contractual complaints.

Maybe you should direct your anger at the government who pay piss poor rates for funded (not free) hours and force them to charge such high rates for additional hours to stop them going under.

That is the harsh reality. If they don't recoup their fees from the woeful underfunding then they will close.

Why not do the three days and pay £42 a week but get an extra days education for her

I’ve just googled the hourly rate for our county for early years funding rates and providers get £4.86 an hour. if you do the same for your area and add the £60, does it roughly equal the daily rate you would normally pay? That seems a lot to me, but depends on which part of the country you are I guess.

def write to your MP and complain about the low rates of pay for providers though.

It might help to think of it as £60 for 2 days of childcare rather than £60 for half an hour - that is what you are actually getting. I hope it isn't £120 an hour if you are not using funded hours though (e.g. under 3 years).

The hourly rate is what the government pay the LA not necessarily what the LA pay the nursery.

Can you shorten the hours by that 30 minutes?

Does she need them 30 mins?

Can you take her at 0800 instead?

Agree with above, think of the £60 as for the two days, they are having to charge it to make it viable to care for children like your DD who use only the funded hours.

Or, move nursery, if the money bothers you or you can't afford it.

I can see they are doing it to counteract the low amount provided per hour by the government but woww that seems an unusual and pretty unjustifiable way to do this. They would be better to say they are minimum of 3 days a week nursery. Can you explore other local options?

Can we do that? She is never there for 10 hours and 15 minutes anyway, she goes late and gets picked up early. I thought you pay for the hours they offer not the hours you want...

She doesn't need the 30 minutes but I didn't know we can choose not to take them??? Whilst I realise nurseries are underfunded I'm angry at the lack of transparency about the whole thing - I had to fight to get any answers from them about the 30 hours :(

Attending 3 days per week makes it more than double per month and we can't afford this. We have obviously thought about it but it's too much money.

I'm a childminder. Local authorities are not letting us charge much needed "top up charges" for 3 year olds. The government has branded this as FREE so it must look FREE. However we cannot afford to look after three year olds on the funding rate. The only legitimate way and acceptable way to do a top up charge is to make you sign a minimum hours contract and charge a stupidly high rate for other hours. We used to be able to invoice these top ups as "consumables" but as many local authorities are demanding how this top up is spent on each individual child, settings are having to do the hourly rate thing. There's no way I have time to write invoices for 2 potatoes, 3 bits of loo roll, 1/45th of paint tube and a piece of paper every day. Lots of minders and nurseries are thinking of closing to three year olds if the government does not provide decent funding rates.

I didn’t know about this change on consumables etc. Thanks for explaining.

I hate this government. Just call it a subsidy of £5 an hour or whatever and then everyone knows where they stand.

By the way I am totally with parents. I'd rather that the government pay most of my wages but currently they don't. It's not possible to provide decent care and education to three year olds with current funding. Increasing ratios isn't the answer. Other countries fund childcare properly and respect the people who care for and educate their preschoolers, toddlers and babies. I have a masters in education and won't look after a child for under a fiver an hour. Please write to your mp. Tell your nursery to charge the extra hour at lunch/nap time as people are less likely to want to take their child out then,

I agree with this - £60 a week is your bill for two days.

@SheilaFentiman each local authority is different. We all got letters saying we had to show parents and auditors receipts as proof of how the extra money is spent. We were told we could ask for "voluntary contributions" no way I am not a charity. So it's silly hourly rates or no three year olds in order to stay open.

They are not allowed to make additional hours a condition of funding. The maximum hours a day is 10 so I don't see how they can insist on 10.5

Thank you so much Jannier. I will ask and see what they say! Xxx

Wouldn't 3 days be cheaper though? Sorry I'm struggling with the maths

Is it not possible to ask for an 8am-6pm contract?

Failing that, is it possible to ask for 8-6 for 2 days, then 8-4 for the third day? Youd be getting 28 hours for free then. And a spare day to yourself.

If it’s £60 for the two days (£30per 15minutes) would it not be cheaper to do 3 days?
3 x 15 minutes (£4 per 15 minutes) would only equal £12?

Nurseries don’t usually allow you to pick
hours like that, as they can’t fill the space of the unused hours. They might allow half days 8-1 and 1-6 or whatever.

i highly doubt the nursery will let you do a shorter day so it’s free, they literally need that money to be able to afford taking your child. Without it, they’d be making a loss by looking after her.

£30 for over 10 hours of childcare is a bargain in my view. When you view it like that it’s much more palatable. Clearly £120 per hour is ridiculous, but the government have created this situation by not funding their well advertised policy properly.

you may be able to find a cheaper nursery locally who allocate the hours differently and it may work out cheaper.