Nursery funding help!!

[sophiesmum06]

My daughter who is 4 attends a nursery who adds a shortfall payment to our nursery biils for example if the government gives the nursery £3.00 an hour and the nursery charges £5.00 an hour they are adding the £2.00 onto our bill, does anybody know if they can do this as I thought the 15 hours were meant to be free?
Sorry if I havent worded it very well!
Thanks xx

No they cannot do that!!! It's tough to the nursery if there's a shortfall.

Thats not quite right - the nursery is entitled to be paid their normal rates. If you want the "free" sessions, then its up to you to find a local provider (usually council run play groups etc). If you're sending her to a normal private nursery, then you have to pay the difference. In my area (this is going back 18 months or so), we got 5 funded sessions - each session is 2.5 hours I think and we got £7.50 or something for each session - so we got £42.50 or thereabouts each week towards the childcare. However, the children were at nursery for 3 days per week, standard nursery days (8 until 5.30) and the normal daily rate for nursery was £50 per day (so £150 for the 3 days). We therefore had to pay the difference of £107.50.

I think thats pretty standard.

No, if the nursery want the funding they can have the funding but they cannot charge for top ups, it's FREE entitlement.

If they don't want the funding they don't have to fill in the head count forms.

I could understand if the OP was putting child in 8am - 1pm and paying for 2 extra hours, but just because the funding is a shortfall is not the OPs problem.

Apologies, it does depend on the area, as some areas have been given permission to charge top up fees.

Where are you OP?

Im in Warwickshire

www.warwickshire.gov.uk/Web/Corporate/pages.nsf/Links/EA2DAC621EBD931B8025720A0034AA87

"They should be free at the point of use."

Therefore for the preschool education you should not have to pay a thing, any extras such as trips or snacks there may be a fee.

You could always give these people a ring:

Nursery Funding Officer
Early Years
Saltisford Office Park
Ansell Way
Warwick
CV34 4UL

Tel: 01926 742235

Email: [email protected]

thankyou for that i will have a look!