Applying for free 12.5 hours nursery care?

[MrClaypole]

MY DS was 3 in May this year so qualifies for a free 12.5 hours of nursery care (nursery education grant). As he's in a private nursery 3 full days a week, the owner told me that she knocks 12.5 hours off my bill for 30 hours per week.

Well today I got my September bill- we pay in advance- and she hasn't taken any money off. She told me that this is because she can only APPLY for DS's grant in September, and as our local authority is slow to process applications, it could be months before I get any reduction in my bill.

Can any nursery owners or staff tell me:

1. Is it true that the grant can only be applied for on the date my DS becomes eligible?
2. Will the government have to backdate the grant to 1st sept when it does arrive?

Bit concerned as I went back to work on the bloody proviso that my childcare costs would drop from sept - as it stands I'm losing money by working LOL!

Milly44
I may be mis remembering but I can't recall it ever being a means tested grant and my eldest is Yr 6 now and it definitely wasn't
means tested when she got it.

Are you on the SLFF in London - we aren't yet but when we are go live in April our funding will drop from £3.70 to 3.52 per hour. What are the London rates?

toomanyprojects
It was means tested once, remember nursery vouchers under the last tory government? I expect it was this that milly44 is referring to.

Yes purepurple is correct as I was referring to the nursery vouchers that were originally introduced by John Major. Our local authority is hinting that the whole thing is a mess (as us owners agree and know)! Parents need to be made aware of the terrible dilemma nurseries have and how this government policy is actually reducing quality and places across the country.

Yes purepurple is correct as I was referring to the nursery vouchers that were originally introduced by John Major. Our local authority is hinting that the whole thing is a mess (as us owners agree and know)! Parents need to be made aware of the terrible dilemma nurseries have and how this government policy is actually reducing quality and places across the country.

Sorry forgot to say my london rate of funding is currently £3.71. My full daycare provision costs me £6.50 so quite a shortfall there.

that explains it then - before my eldest was about! We are a voluntary parent run setting so are not trying to make a profit in the first place and the SLFF still means that we need more children in the building than now to cover our costs. Have to admit that when I looked at the figures I can't see how the private settings will manage.

Once SLFF comes in funding is aimed more at the deprived areas of our county - the aim is apparently to "close the gap" between the children from non deprived versus those in deprived areas. Easy to close the gap by reducing funding from the higher achieving areas...

Therefore our funding drops because we are not deprived and do not have a graduate running the setting which would attract a premium. (Our leader is just starting out on a degree)

Your child is the right age to have qualified for the 15 hours since September. If your nursery is registered to claim it then those 15 hours should be 'free' to you now.

I agree with other posts that the amount of funding doesn't really cover the true cost but settings should not be taking off the amount of funding they receive from your bill - it should be free at the point of delivery to you.

I run a PVI setting and it's interesting that this year our LA have moved the maintained nurseries onto the same payment basis as us - i.e. they are paid termly for the number of children actually on roll. They are not happy bunnies at all and were gobsmacked when they realised that the parity of funding meant that they were coming down to our level, not the other way around.

Yes pvi settings in london get the same funding as maintained setting elsewhere and are just expected to swallow the cost for the extreme loss of income. We are fortunate enough to have a very good local authority who understand our private daycare costs and have agreed that as long as pointed out to parents that we are 52 week of the year full daycare setting offering meals and additional services (french, yoga, ballet) and additional hours throughout the year that we can charrge for these. Parents must choose the setting that suits their requirements. For examples, if they are looking for an entirely 'free' place they must go to a maintained preschool and not a private full daycare setting open for 52 weeks. It does make this clearish on the government website suggesting to parents to choose correct setting in the first place. It causes so much confusion this 'free' childcare spin and poor parents are being very misguided by the advertising of the scheme. I feel relatively lucky that I own a full daycare provision as I am allowed to charge for my additional services, meals and hours but a friend of mine owns a small private pre-school and has just signed the new provider agreements which now effectively forces her to run at at a loss of £2000 per week from january! I don't know how she will survive. As I said our local authority have made it clear in our provider agreements re extra charges for services and have not once mentioned the word 'free' in the parent agreements. The nurseries in my area couldn't sign anything anything until these agreements had been changed (after big meeting). I urge all owners to talk to their local authority in order that the provider and parent agreements are clear to the parents so as not to cause problems and confusion in the future. My friend described above has just started out in the nursery business so felt she just had to sign. In my opinion, she has just signed away her business and nursery places will be lost as a result.

Sorry also forgot to mention the answer to one question posed at start of thread. Currently nurseries receive funding half way through the term and with an optional part interim payment slighly beforehand if opted for this method. Each local authority is different and ours will be changing the payment date to us to bring it forward so that we receive payment earlier in the term from january. As I said, our LA seem to be very understanding of the cashflow problems late payment of (fees) the funding causes settings. Essentially the answer is that nurseries do not receive upfront funding for the 'free' place and have to wait for this from LA. This may surprise some parents as most nurseries require fees to be paid upfront in order to cover staffing, premises overheads, food, rates etc etc. This was also part of the problem that nurseries faced - cashflow problems as they are expected to offer the place 'free' at the point of delievery but with no funding for weeks!! Nurseries will do what they need to survive so each nursery may be different as to how they are explaining this to parents. If only the government explained all of this beforehand - life for everyone would be so much easier and we could all go back to concentrating on the children in our care.

In Northants though the part payment is 50% and we will get that by end of Dec for the Spring term. The rest won't be paid until approx 8 weeks into the term.

Hi just some advice if poss, my daughter qualifies for the free 15 hours in january 2011, at the moment we're paying £250 a month and goes down to £120 in January due to the free 15 hours. As we're paying alot less a week for nursery fees, will our child tax credit be lowered from january? Thanks!

SCOTTY75......YEs is the answer you will have to work out how much you have paid in childcare from April 2010-april 2011 and then divide this by 52 to get an average, you may find its reduced quite a bit as they will have overpaid for the last few months as you didnt factor in this 50% reduction for 4 months.

Thanks Bonkerz, hopefully don't have to pay too much back to them, all gets a bit confusing sometimes! Give you with one hand take with another. Thanks again.

you shouldnt have to pay back but payments will be reduced to reflect what they have apid already.....for example if you had been paying 250 a month (3000 for year) and declared that, you would be getting say 80% help towards cost so total for year would have been getting 2400 for the year, your actual cost would now be 9x250 and 3x125 which is 2625 for the year so would get 2100. so where you would have been getting 200 per month help before this would be reduced to 100 per month till april as you would have been paid 1800 already for this year.........that probably confuses you even more! LMAO

Ha ha, be reading that over and over,yeah i see what you mean, it doesn't help that nursery fees going up throughout the year and not knowing what the average we would be paying from jan with the 15 hours knocked off, so i've just been telling them the changes as they've come up . Thanks for getting back to me.