Recordings on contact order. Does my ex have to abide by what they say?

[kiddell]

My ex and i are separated. Its a long story but even though my ex was having contact for 3 days a week he took me to court for more contact and joint residence. By this time our DS was 2 and i asked the court to agree for our son to have 2 sessions in Nursery a week as he is fairly bright and ready for it. My ex was dead against nursery and objected to this strongly but the CAFCASS worker and the judge agreed that this was in our childs best interests.
The recommendations from the court was that the 2 nursery sessions would be during my EX's contact time, as i had argued very strongly that my ex did very little with our son and he had no social interaction with other children during contact with his dad.
The court agreed just for a contact order for dad.
However the judge put the fact that my ex should take our son to nursery between 1-5pm as a "recording" on the order and not as part of the actual order.
Since this date last Autumn my ex has not taken our son regularly to nursery and has missed about 30% of all the sessions. On the days he does take him he often arrives as late as 3pm and if he does arrive on time he is often picked up after only a couple of hours.
I have challenged my ex many times about this and he just shrugs and says it isn't in the order and as its only a recording, he doesn't really have to take him if he doesn't want to.
To add insult to injury we had been paying for one session each, but recently my ex has refused to pay, meaning i am paying for 2 sessions of nursery a week - almost £50 for my son to attend just a couple of hours if he is lucky.
I really do not want to go back to my solicitor as i am a working single mum and i am still paying my very large legal bills from last time, but would really like some advice on where i stand legally with this bit about nursery in the recordings on the court order.
Is my ex right when he says he doesn't have to do what it says and is a return to court the only option i have? If so will a court see a 70% attendance as reasonable? Are the courts likely to insist my ex takes our son to nursery if i do go to the expense of going back to court, or will it just be a waste of time and money?
Any answers will be gratefully received! Thanks!

Think you'll have to take it back to court. The recording is the record of the basis upon which the order is made - ie that he'll have contact on those days provided he takes your child to nursery. Ask the court to reduce his contact. Maybe he'll offer an undertaking then to take him to nursery promptly.

Anyway, why are you paying for the nursery? Shouldn't dad be paying?

How important is it to you and why?

It seems just on what you have posted that this is a fairly minor issue. Many (most?) two year olds with an available parent don't go to nursery - my four year old has a nursery place for afternoons but his attendance probably isn't wildly better than this due to bugs/exhaustion etc.

Could you compromise? Have the child go to nursery once in your time and once in ex's time?

The courts can only do so much. You have asked them to make a parent do something they are strongly opposed to, that reduces their time with their child, and to pay for it! no-one can tell you for sure what a court might order but if the rest of the contact order is working I'm not sure how much they would change for the sake of 30% of nursery attendance.

Would you consider mediation?

But isn't the point that the court has already found that the nursery attendance is in the child's best interest, and didn't the court give him the contact it did in the knowledge of and perhaps conditional upon the child being in nursery for two of the days he's with dad? That would suggest that, as you stand back and look at it, the court envisaged The child spending less than 3 days with dad.