Childminder claimed incorrectly for funding- £2k bill

[Newstart2024]

My childminder just contacted me saying that my eligibility code for my 2 year old has been declined and she hasn't got the funding. She said for the term just gone and the term ongoing I owe her £2k.

I've looked back at my text messages, her claim for September onwards I gave her a temporary code that the childcare service gave me. In October and again in December I sent her the permanent 11 digit code on text. All my eligibility has been up to date and my funding/tax free childcare has been paid for my other two kids and tax free going through for my 2 year old. I've asked her which code she used and forwarded when I gave her the permanent one but not heard back (she's busy with all the kids today!).

I have contacted the childcare service who said all looks good. So I have contacted the council and asked if there has been an admin error and waiting to hear back.

If she has used the wrong code does anyone know if they will reclaim using correct one? £2k because of her admin error seems mad but I will have to pay she's only a sole trader and not fair she takes the hit either really... maybe she'll suggest we go halves on the error. (She's a great childminder too).

@Sofiewoo Clearly and thankfully I don’t align with your beliefs about nurseries/childminders.

If a building firm fixed your roof for £2000 but accidentally invoiced you £2, you’d stick to your guns would you?

CM’s and nurseries don’t have to accept funding precisely because they’re a headache. One false move and this kind of thing results.

The CM did the hard work and needs paying and doesn’t deserve not to be paid because of a mistake.

Clearly you and another PP gleefully would expect it to be free, and say to the CM well it was your mistake, so the childcare is free.

That’s fine, we’re all different. Thankfully I have a conscience and am not expecting my kids to be cared for for free or very little like you (as evidenced on your other threads).

So we can agree to disagree

Is she pulling fast one?

“If a building firm fixed your roof for £2000 but accidentally invoiced you £2, you’d stick to your guns would you?”

Not remotely comparable. Op has been invoiced exactly what was agreed and she paid that amount.

Your bizzare anti childcare finding agenda is clouding your rant. You’re just using this thread as an excuse to whinge about it and not adding anything of value to the OP. You barely even understand what code she’s talking about for god sake!

@Sofiewoo

You have form for twisting words as you tried to on the last thread. Anti funding rant? My god you are so funny.

First you said I wasn’t an expert on funding - never said I was and the point I was raising was nothing to do with it. So irrelevant.

The fact that I don’t use codes is irrelevant as that’s not what I’ve had issue with you for. The issue is the admin mistake and paying of the funding doesn’t come through but you knew that didn’t you.

You are incredible mean spirited and try to gaslight and try to twist the words of anyone who disagrees with you.

I’ve agreed to disagree so please do move on.

Thankfully the OP, even though incredibly frustrating for her, is reasonable on the issue at hand.

It's hardly gleeful. I doubt OP has £2k kicking around going spare. She was invoiced an amount and she paid it. Now due to an error of the childminders own making then they are in effect asking for more. For clarity l don't have beef with childminders but l do with people trying to pass on the consequences of their mistakes

A more direct comparison would be if a builder told a client they were eligible for a cashback offer on their new boiler and so they agreed & invoiced a price of £1,000 but the builder forgot to apply for the cashback and then tried to charge the customer an extra £1,000.

I guess the OP could try and put her foot down and not pay for the last term gone but the coming term if left without funding (OP said 2k for past and future invoices) would need to be paid out of her own pocket presumably in advance, so a decision would need to be made about whether to try find alternative childcare now. It’s a very awkward situation.

I imagine more cases like this will occur with mistakes inputting codes every three months if the system doesn’t automatically reject wrong codes.

That would be ridiculous, would you expect someone to pay the fine if a builder, or childminder, was late with paying their taxes and got the £900 penalty?

It would be different if they were lying about being eligible for the funding, but when they are eligible, have taken out the service based on the cost and the childminder has messed up her paperwork that's not the clients fault.

@AnnaBalfour I remember making a colossal accountancy error at an accounting firm I worked for when I was young. Human error, and thankfully I was shown mercy!

You might have been shown mercy but if you caused a financial problem through an accountancy error then someone had to take the impact of your mistake. If it wasn’t you then who was it?

I claim the funding for a childcare setting and if she had tried to claim funding and the code was incorrect she would have had a message from the council and would have had a chance to rectify it. The code doesn’t change under normal
circumstances- it’s the end date that does when eligibility is reconfirmed- but when the system initially came in temporary numbers were issued. This sounds like her mistake not yours!

@Sofiewoo

The boss, who upon seeing my absolute horror and shame, proceeded to tell me about significant mistakes he has made too. He explained human error is inevitable and that’s proved so true in life and in other work.

The boss, so the business, the exact same scenario people are suggesting here?

Interesting it was fine for you to pass the cost onto someone else when it was your mistake. I guess that’s why you think the OP should pay for someone else’s incompetence in running their business.

@Sofiewoo

Sigh, you’re like a dog with a bone.

Comparing a boss with a very successful limited company to a sole trader self employed childminder is stupid. But he we are.

The CM has already done a terms work and yes it was her mistake, so we’ve come to the conclusion, I’d be the parent to understand an error is human and that she deserves to be paid for services rendered. The OP although frustrated mentioned that being ‘fair’ to her too.

And we’ve established that you’d the parent who says your mistake, so you don’t get paid for your work.

Cool. We don’t agree and your insistence is strange, on other posts too you seem to have an axe to grind when it comes to paying childcare. I told you a few times upthread to leave it now and agree to disagree but you keep grinding that axe.

We view our childcare and childcare costs/staff very differently so we won’t agree. You can’t change my mind and I can’t change yours.

This is a decision for the OP in the end, not us so no need to get so invested.

I really don’t think you understand how this works and your example isn’t even remotely the same

To be comparable it would be like a building firm coming and quoting you £2k to fix the roof. You agree the quote and they do the work. They then invoice you the agreed amount of £2k.

However, they miss a deadline to recoup taxes on a scheme for having a few apprentices. Their admin error. This means the job has cost them £2k more

They then come to you asking for an extra £2k which they were expecting to get from the government but due to their error they haven’t. £4k was never mentioned as a price but they now expect you to pay it as ‘services have been rendered’

That is a more comparable scenario and I doubt any sane person would think this is a reasonable request of the builder

Regardless of what happened I wouldn’t pay as it’s her error.

I had a similar, but not quite the same issue, where my nursery had filled in the funding form incorrectly. Thankfully I had queried it with them in writing and they confirmed that it was right.

It was only the next term that they realised that what they had to me was ‘right’, wasn’t and they tried to bill me £700. I had to put up a bit of a fight, but no way was I paying for their admin error.

It's the childminder who needs to claim so it's the childminder that should have sorted the mistake. You shouldn't have to pay anything because the funding would have been there if the childminder claimed it. Those people saying that you will need to pay are wrong, the money is there, absolutely not your fault if the money doesn't get taken. She is affectively refusing payment.

The parent has effectively paid by supplying the code.
The childminder is entirely at fault for not then claiming their payment from the council.

The childminder does not get to then just go back to the parent and say whoops sorry I didn't claim the money you arranged to be paid to me, you now have to pay it again!!!

Are you crazy? This is entirely the childminders fault!!

Lordy some people are very hard of thinking aren’t they 😂.

I think you need to find out what exactly happened OP. Did the childminder try and claim but fail because of an error on her part? Forgot to claim? Is suddenly ineligible for some reason as a provider? Or is there a glitch with your account? Have you become ineligible ? ( sounds the least likely of you have confirmation all looks ok your end)….

More than all this, can it be quickly solved so no-one is out of pocket?

If you paid your electricity bill and the energy company mistakenly did not assign your payment correctly, would you think you would need to pay again?

Of course not. You'd expect the energy company to sort it out, it's on them.

Sorry for the acoidnce of doubt the hard of thinking comment was not aimed at the OP but at @AnnaBalfour. Jesus wept.

@AnnaBalfour Imagine you pay for a meal in a restaurant branch with a discount voucher valid in all branches of the chain. Then they come back months later to ask you to repay the voucher amount because they didn’t claim it properly from the main office? No customer would pay.

It doesn't matter what your weird and unhelpful opinion is @AnnaBalfour Legally the OP owes the childminder nothing whatsoever.

Sounds like it's a her problem, not a you problem OP. I definitely wouldn't be paying anything else.

The agreement for funding is between the childminder and the council.

As a childminder I would not expect a parent to pay for my mistake.
The parent has done all they should - the cock up is either on the part of the childminder or the council.

Where I am this situation couldn't have happened as I check all codes are eligible before the start of the term and then submit the details of parents/children/codes to the funding team. There would never be a situation where it would get to the end of the term and the council would decide the code was wrong.

I did have a slightly similar situation with a parent with a temp code that I didn't update when they were given the new code (my mistake) but as soon as I was notified that the code had run out I called the funding team and corrected it, all was well.

It sounds like as well as the childminder making a mistake, the council is running the funding scheme incredibly badly if something like this could happen.