Has anyone successfully challenged their nursery over charging top up fees with early years funding?

[bangersmashandbeans]

Just that really! Mine have told me in an email they charge top up fees but state that in the bill it will be shown as the cost for the compulsory fourth hour per day so it is therefore allowable. Has anyone any experience in successfully challenging such a situation?

[itsaboojum]

I suspect it would very much suit governments to force children into school earlier. They seem to have an agenda to create a compliant, dumbed-down population of worker-consumers ruled by institutions.

I’m not sure that complaining about individual nurseries is the way to make change happen. Such complaints will only have two outcomes. Local authorities' first step is to 'coach' the nursery’s management: essentially, they show them how to stay within the rules whilst still charging parents the same amount by other means, or shift the burden to non-funded children (anybody fancy double fees for the under-3's, for example?) It could ultimately in nurseries being refused funding, in which case parents lose out and/or that particular nursery loses business and eventually closes.

None of this puts any pressure on central government to fix a system that was clearly already eve, but before he political parties turned the 2015 general election into a bidding war for fools who were prepared to sell their vote in exchange for an empty promise of under-funded 'free' childcare.

The government has already got its quid pro quo for this ridiculous policy, and is very happy for childcare providers to take the unpleasant consequences whilst spinning how "successful" it has been.

IMHO the only way providers could put pressure on government would be if they all organised a mass boycott of the scheme. But that’s not likely to happen. Providersreally don’t want to hurt families, not even in the short term; also, some nurseries would lose too much business if they boycotted the scheme whilst other local nurseries participated.

[jannier]

Councils have two jobs one to administer the funding and make sure rules are followed and the other to work to ensure enough spaces are available. Because funding is less than the actual cost of childcare too many settings are closing - exactly what was predicted by the sector and ignored by the government in its vote winning strategy, so now councils are being forced to come up with ways around the funding problem and support the settings. Complaining and taking it further may help everyone as the government may have to review the money they have allocated to the scheme to it may force children into higher ratio classes at an earlier and earlier age as there will be no option send children to school even younger.
I can see a day where we go from maternity leave to school see you at 18 when I drop you to Uni. No real social development just institutionalised children. School from 7am to 6pm 5 days a week age 1.

[itsaboojum]

An old thread, but a current issue nontheless.

Some rules have changed, indeed, but not to the point where top-up fees are permitted. My local authority funding Provider Agreement reads "The Provider cannot charge parents 'top-up' fees(the difference between a provider's usual fee and the amount they receive from the local authority to deliver funded places) or require parents to pay a registration fee as a condition of taking up their child's funded place."

Funding levels have never truly been high enough, because childcare fees have never truly been high enough to support private sector childcare providers in any long term sense. The real crisis point came with the 2015 general election con-trick of increasingly to 30 'free' hours without sufficient money to pay for it.

Since then, successive Children’s Ministers have deviously insisted nurseries must act within the rules whilst "finding creative ways" to raise the shortfall needed to stay in business.

[Tanith]

This is a very old thread and the circumstances and rules around top ups has changed.

The funding now does not cover fees for the majority of settings and they are now allowed to charge for extras to cover the shortfall.

[Pinkprincess1978]

Itsaboojum - oh I do think it's more the governments fat if they only funded £2.50 per hour as that couldn't be enough even 5 years ago. Our nursery was cheap even for this area at £29 per day (most were £32/£35 a day). There wasn't an option to be totally free I don't think as their sessions were 7.30-12.30 and 12.30-5pm and the bill never reflected 'free hours' just 12x£2.50 for however many term weeks were in that calendar month.

I was probably lucky I was able to be given 12 hrs funding in two days and it did reduce our bill in term time. The only other options would be a school nursery for 3 he sessions then childminder/wrap around nursery care which would work out as much as a full day.

[itsaboojum]

I doubt whether your nursery was breaking any rules, Pinkprincess.

Nurseries are allowed to define 'funded sessions' based around set times which are free of charge to the parents. You pay for the extra non-funded hours as an additional service. This is not a top-up fee.

The nursery must be able to demonstrate those hours are provided free of charge and that they are offering the funded hours on a 'no strings' basis. They should show the hours deducted from the bill, rather than deducting a cash amount.

You must have the option to take up only the free hours and not pay anything. Note that the nursery has no obligation to offer free sessions that fit your work or other commitments, so you can’t argue you’ve been 'forced' to pay for particular hours because of your working hours, etc.

Ultimately you were getting a full day’s childcare for £14 (which wouldn’t buy 20 minutes of dog walking where I live.) Meanwhile, the nursery was struggling to balance the books due to being seriously underpaid by the government for delivering those 'free' hours.

[Pinkprincess1978]

I never knew about this top up rule, I wish I had (my youngest finished nursery in 2013). The nursery we used to use (they went from 1 year old so before funding) only allowed us to use 12 hours as they only went 2 days a week (fair enough) and used to deduct from our bill 12X£2.50 per week of the term times.

They charged £29 for a full day 7.30-17.00 and would deduct £15 so we were paying £14 for 3.5 hours (6 free hours, 3.5 paid). I didn't really question it as assumed it was correct but reading this it wasn't!

[jannier]

Sophjj1 Wed 23-May-18 14:14:18


"Is it ok for my son's nursery to turn him away just because I couldnt pay £12 on parent pay that in the morning as I was waiting for a new bank card the fee was from just stayin for his pact lunch I provide anyway so I said I would collect him for lunch they refused him to go I had to take him into town and pay it in a paying in slip then had to take him back and they still had to see if it was ok my son is 4 just and gets too full days at nursery and one morning free funding"

If you haven't paid the full amount and leave your child what guarantee have they got that you will pay it on pick up? In your case the amount maybe small but they have to have a universal policy for all customers otherwise discrimination could be claimed by parents trying to get childcare and not pay. The industry has suffered from parents who don't pay up so now all parents are asked to pay in full before care.

[HSMMaCM]

Quite a few places operate a no pay, no stay system. If you've signed a contract to pay in advance, then that's what you need to do.

It sounds harsh, but you'd be amazed how many parents don't pay.

[Sophjj1]

Is it ok for my son's nursery to turn him away just because I couldnt pay £12 on parent pay that in the morning as I was waiting for a new bank card the fee was from just stayin for his pact lunch I provide anyway so I said I would collect him for lunch they refused him to go I had to take him into town and pay it in a paying in slip then had to take him back and they still had to see if it was ok my son is 4 just and gets too full days at nursery and one morning free funding

[matchmade]

Thank you peukpokicuzo for this useful summary. I too find this old thread via Google. My wife and I currently have to fund our 2-year old's childcare ourselves, using vouchers and now the new Taxfree Childcare scheme. We will be very grateful for the 30 "free" hours when our daughter turns 3, and think it entirely fair that our childminder and nursery charge top-up payments, so they can continue to receive the right overall income to pay for the level of service they give us.

A good analogy might be with social care for elderly people: the State will pick up the tab for a care home or nursing home once someone runs out of money (or most of it), but this is at a very basic level and family members are allowed to top this money up and send their loved one to a higher-quality home if they can afford it.

I see no reason why parents should not be allowed to purchase a higher quality of childcare if they wish - to insist otherwise is to force every child to receive exactly the same type and level of childcare, at the low level of funding that the Government is currently able to offer. Instead of complaining about the funding level, we should be grateful we are getting any help at all, at a time when the country is struggling financially and is taking out £60 billion of extra debt every year.

[peukpokicuzo]

Hi Leighanne This is a zombie thread from 4 years ago so I guess you found it from a Google search which would also have found the other hundreds of theads we have had on the subject. Overall these tend to be about 20% of people wanting the thing they want to be cheaper and 80% of people patiently explaining that isn't possible.

There are nurseries that do genuinely offer the 15 hours actually free. These tend to be nurseries attached to primary schools which offer only hours during school hours and only open during term time (the 15 hours is only for 39 weeks a year so is actually only 11.25 hours a week if the nursery is open all year round) - or sometimes nurseries attached to sure start centres/places where sure start centres used to be before being cut. These nurseries offer a level of service that fits with the funding they have and will have lower staff ratios and less good resources.

Lots of people want to choose a nursery offering a level of service - in terms of staffing and resources - that costs about £5-£7 to provide. Those nurseries cannot stay open as a viable business if they are forced to provide the service for the much smaller sum of the government subsidy. It is not reasonable to resent them for whatever they need to charge in order to cover the cost of the service they offer.

Your charge of £200 per month is £2,400 per year=£46.15 per week. I don't know how much your nursery get from the government (it can vary) but if the actual cost of providing the service is around £6.50 an hour but the government subsidy is only £4.50 then they have to charge that level of additional fee (2*6.50 for the full price hours plus 15x the difference) one way or another or they will make a loss and go out of business.

If you can't afford it then unfortunately you need to look for a cheaper childcare option elsewhere which you can afford. You can't demand that this nursery must become cheaper.

[Leighanne89]

My daughter is in nursery 17 hours a week. She receives 15 hours free. The nursery she attends is charging me 200 a month for 2 hours a week and meals.. please tell me what I can do as I can't afford this.
I have tried to challenge the manager and she told me they charge me top up which they can do...

[keele]

We are a private nursery and we offer just 15 hours to be taken 5x3 hours or 2x6 hours and1x3 hours. parents can opt to extend the day and just pay for the time over the 15 hours but its no where near £17.. That is our morning session cost!. If the nursery want to be in the scheme they have to adjust their day to accommodate it!

[EldonAve]

I've not challenged ours
I fully expect the nursery would withdraw from the scheme so I'm £500 a term better off by leaving it

[jdey1969]

Nurseries are always claiming that one of the reasons for spiralling nursery costs in the UK is that they're subsidising the early years funding, yet it's working parents who are actually doing this by being charged a higher rate for the unfunded hours than they were charged for the same hours prior to the early years funding kicking in.

In addition to this, even for the 15 "free" hours, they're trying to profit out of that by making it really difficult for parents to put their children in for 15 hours or less and/or charging top up fees for additonal services, which is illegal.

With spiralling nursery fees and no evidence that their costs are going up, it's clear that private nurseries are making very large profits from working parents, and are not on the verge of bankruptcy as many of them suggest.

[jdey1969]

I'm trying to do that right now. I've taken the complaint against Merton Council to the Department of Education for failing to ensure that the nursery my child goes to doesn't charge a "top up fee".

Merton have colluded with the nursery to try to establish a loophole in the law by introducing the concept of a 2-tier fee structure, where the funded hours are allegedly normally charged at a lower rate than the unfunded hours.

I first complained to Merton Council in December and the Department of Education in January. Merton have just concluded their investigation, so I've escalated it back to the DofEd.

[Bobothebuilder]

Hi
I have sympathy for both sides here to be honest. Whilst I think it is unair of your nursery to make up their true hourly rate by makingnit appear that the fourth hour costs £17 (which it clearly doesn't and goes against the spirit if it the actual rules of EYF), on the other hand it seems to a well known fact that nurseries don't get anywhere near enough funding to cover costs in terms of these alled 15 hours 'free' grant.

In the nursery my son goes to they do empower a fully qualified graduate Early years teacher whose core hours are 9 to 4, so It makes sense that the vast majority of the learning activities will occur during these hours ie from 9 to 12 or 1 to 4 in this case. It seems very fair to expect parents who want extra hours to pay a reasonable rate for them but I agree it should be whatever the usual going rate is, not an over inflated price.

That said most places offering the EYf hours are in fact privately run businesses and lets face it if they don't make money they will go out of business won't they, and if the local authorise clamp down too much then it follows less places will accept children for the funded hours which won't be good either.

[bangersmashandbeans]

They've got me over a barrel though as I only need them for the rest of this school year as DD has a place at a proper pre school in September. I just don't see how they can get away with it now they have fully admitted they charge top up fees?

[Tanith]

Makes me cross, too, Littlefish.

If I, as a childminder, can manage to stick to the terms laid down, why should the Council turn a blind eye to the private nurseries and prep schools?

Not sustainable isn't good enough. They should lobby for more funding or resign from the scheme.
Defrauding parents out of their entitlement is, in my opinion, the sign of a poor nursery - what other rules are they disregarding?

[SlumdogMummy]

Our nursery only charges for 'educational' time and have said DS can just attend for these hours. Still feel like it's a bit of a con though.

[bangersmashandbeans]

That was my understanding as well. I've emailed the EYFE dept of the council but their reply suggests to me that they turn a blind eye..

[Littlefish]

In order for nurseries to be eligible to offer the 15 hours funding, a child must be able to acces just 15 hours completely free. I get so cross when I hear about nurseries charging top ups, or insisting on additional hours. this is completely against the terms of their agreement with the local authority. They should either refuse to take the funding, or fully comply with the terms. Grrrrrr.

[SlumdogMummy]

We requested a breakdown as DS goes for 5 hours (8-1) twice a week; we beieved these would be free when he turned 3.
Turns out, instead of paying 55% of what we initially paid
We are charged for meals (fair enough) and the hours 8-9 and 12-1 as these are "non-educational" times. Somehow that works out to over half of our monthly payments with 3/5 of the time now being "free"
It has taken a lot of emailing to find ut what we are paying for and to get monthly breakdowns of our payments.

[bangersmashandbeans]

Thanks Tanith, that gives me some confidence. I think the fact that the nursery have laid it out very clearly in their email to me means they shouldn't have a leg to stand on in theory? It just annoys me that they are blatantly flouting the regs in order to remain 'elitist'