Not receiving full Early Years Entitlement

[outofbreath]

Our nursery gives us a 12.5pc discount on our nursery fees.

When our child turned 3 we got our early years entitlement, but I've noticed the nursery are taking the "early years entitlement" from our fee before they apply the 12.5pc discount, thus pocketing 12.5pc of the "early years entitlement" claimed from the local authority.

I think this might be a mistake, can anyone confirm that?

For example:
Yearly Annual Early years entitlement: 570 hrs * 3.77 (which is the local authority hourly rate for Early Years Entitlement) = £2148.9
Monthly Annual Early years entitlement: £2148.9/12 = 179.07
Cost of childcare: £1000pcm

The nursery do this:
(1000-179.07) - 12.5pc = 718.31pcm

I think they should do this:
(1000 - 12.5) - 179.07 = 695.93pcm

There's no suggestion of any wrong doing but if a clerical error is costing me a couple of hundred quid a month I'd like to know about it!

Details of Early years entitlement in our area:
www.gov.uk/free-early-education
www.westsussex.gov.uk/living/children_and_families/childcare_and_early_education/free_entitlement_for_2_3_and.aspx

By "are pro-rata-ing the EY Entitlement" I meant "they are effectively pro-rata-ing the amount of claimed EY Entitlement they pass onto me down by 12.5pc".

No, the reason isn't irrelevant because they shouldn't be applying the funding in that way

Let's say you pay £10 an hour but get a discount because you are related to staff or whatever to £7.50 an hour.

There should be 15 lots of £7.50 a week that you do not pay.

A non discount parent should have 15 lots of £10 a week that they don't pay.

Do you see?

It depends whether they are claiming 15hrs for 38 weeks or 11hrs for 51, but hopefully the OPs bill should make that clear.

If you add the amount they should be getting from the LA to the amount you are paying it should show them that they are getting more money than they were before and that your second calculation is the correct one. If they refuse to back down I'd point out the LA will take a very dim view of it. Technically I think they could probably view it as fraud if they thought this wasn't a mistake. They could potentially lose their funding totally if they know this is wrong and don't do anything about it.

Should have refreshed before I posted.

The reason for discount isn't irrelevant. Funding is to do with the number of hours not money. If your discount is for something else, then I think it probably should be taken off after the hours have been subtracted. This is why nurseries are supposed to bill you properly so you can see where the number of hours is coming from.

Although in your case, the reason isn't going to make much difference since you are getting less taken off your original bill than 15hrs at the LA rate.

Thanks for your comments RafaIsTheKingOfClay, you clearly understand my question.

"The reason for discount isn't irrelevant."

Really? If the discount was a discount for my child "being the cutest" how much of the claimed EY Entitlement should they fail to pass on to me? But yeah, I accept it could be relevant if the circumstances were different.

"Funding is to do with the number of hours not money. "

As discussed above due to the cap of £3.77ph the nurseries have to make the cash up on "non-care add ons" so in practice it's about money rather than hours in a large number of cases. But yeah, I accept that the govt present this as 570 hours even if it's really £2148.9.

"Technically I think they could probably view it as fraud if they thought this wasn't a mistake."

Yeah, the nursery are effectively claiming money from the LA and charging me thus being paid twice for the same small chunk of care. However it's blatantly a small clerical error with no intent to defraud so they are 100pc safe from any accusation of fraud IMHO.

"Although in your case, the reason isn't going to make much difference since you are getting less taken off your original bill than 15hrs at the LA rate."

Yeah when I said irrelevent I mean irrelvant in my circumstances. Clearly, if the discount took me below £3.77ph then it would be very relevant and the claimed early years entitlement would need to be reduced and should then not be passed on to me. (I'd have thought that nurseries charging less than £3.77ph might be an edge case. What do they do, get the kids making trainers?)

No nurseries charge less than that, AFAIK.

I don't think you are finding my posts helpful so I'll leave it there. Good luck.

"I don't think you are finding my posts helpful so I'll leave it there. Good luck."

Not at all, I appreciate you taking the time to respond I just don't have time to respond to everything.

In fact, I shouldn't spend all day on the PC so I'll leave it there too. Thanks all.

I think yonic has it spot on when she mentioned how they apply the funding. The calculation I gave was to give a rough idea of the max you should be paying. The nursery can't apply their funding in that way. It has to be in terms of free hours.

They are not allowed to charge anything for the entitled hours i.e. the difference between their hourly rate and the amount they are being paid, and I am almost certain they are not allowed to just subtract the LA funding from what you were paying before. They can increase the hourly/sessional rate for childcare over and above the 15 hours for the over 3s to make up their costs though. But it has to be clear on the bill how this is done.

If they'd been clearer on how they billed for what hours, that first rogue calculation might not have happened.

I've had a couple of chats with the Nursery, maybe people are interested in the outcome.

The nursery take the view that the discount is discretionary and it's up to them when the discount is applied, so they're not going to change anything.

So the net effect is that they get ~£20 pounds a month more since the funding kicked in, and I get all but ~£20 of the amount of the funding passed onto me which still seems wrong.

I suspect that suggesting we get the LA to arbitrate might trigger some movement but I don't want to do that so my gut instinct at this point is to suck it up.

I don't think the discount is discretionary because (I assume) it is in your contract that you will use 45 weeks a year but pay for them over 52 weeks or whatever.

If you asked the LA to step in, the LA would tell them the free hours had to be fully free.

At which point the nursery would have to adjust costs elsewhere, which might well involve them removing discounts or upping hourly prices over all.

Up to you.

The discount is almost irrelevant. The 15 hours are free. That's it.

Exactly hsmmacm
The title of the thread is misleading.
The op is getting the full entitlement
The op can't get a discount on the free hours. 12.5% of zero is zero

She's not asking for a discount on the free hours. She's asking for the free hours to be deducted from the hours she's paying for, not the full time hours.

If she was paying on a weekly basis this would be the equivalent of the nursery deciding a full week was 40 hours, subtracting the 15 hours from that and charging her for 25hrs even though she was only using 35 in the first place.

I suspect this is more mathematical incompetance than a deliberate attempt to claim more money than they should. It sounds like they are not going to change their minds though. Did you try to suggest your earlier suggestion of only paying for what you've used in a month rather than in equal installments.

"I don't think the discount is discretionary because (I assume) it is in your contract that you will use 45 weeks a year but pay for them over 52 weeks or whatever."

Not, sure. Academic really 'cos they can up their prices if they wish...

"If you asked the LA to step in, the LA would tell them the free hours had to be fully free. At which point the nursery would have to adjust costs elsewhere, which might well involve them removing discounts or upping hourly prices over all."

Yeah, I'm deeply reluctant to involve the LA. (Although probably not as reluctant as them so they'd probably fold if I suggested it but I almost certainly won't.)

"I suspect this is more mathematical incompetance than a deliberate attempt to claim more money than they should."

Agree, deffo not in any way underhand. Just annoying. :D

"Did you try to suggest your earlier suggestion of only paying for what you've used in a month rather than in equal installments."

They can't do that because their billing system can't handle it. (Yes, their accounting choices are costing me £260 a year!) Reminding me of that has motivated me to (probably) go back for another try!

do your DC go five days a week?

Yonic is right.
Nurseries aren't allowed to charge anything for the funded hours nor any top up fees.
However no Nursery could balance the books on the £3.50ish they receive (varies from 1 LA to another). They are private businesses, yet heavily regulated over what they can/can't do.

It's a very unusual arrangement to not have to pay for weeks when you choose not to take them, so in the first place you are lucky to have found a Nursery that gives you that discount. If you compare the difference if you had to pay for 52 weeks - as most Nurseries charge, then the £20 you feel you are losing would become quite insignificant.

Of course, I don't know, in your area the fees for this Nursery might already be higher than the one down the road, or they may be more expensive. Sometimes you have to look at the whole package of what you are paying for what you receive.

Oh, and a lot of Nurseries base their staffing on the fact that funded dc are term time only dc - rooms close, staff have term time only contracts, etc. - so, although the theoretical entitlement may be there, the Nurseries don't have to offer it any way other than term time only, as they may not have the capacity so to do.

". If you compare the difference if you had to pay for 52 weeks - as most Nurseries charge, then the £20 you feel you are losing would become quite insignificant."

That's a good point.

"It's a very unusual arrangement to not have to pay for weeks when you choose not to take them, so in the first place you are lucky to have found a Nursery that gives you that discount. If you compare the difference if you had to pay for 52 weeks - as most Nurseries charge, then the you feel you are losing would become quite insignificant."

That's all true, and I'm well aware of it: Other nurseries in the area wouldn't give any discount for the weeks we don't use. And, yes, £260pa is a drop in the ocean compared to the overall cost. Also this is the best nursery in the area by a country mile. Hence my deep reluctance to rock the boat.

None the less I think Early Years Entitlement is intended to provide me with some free care - not to provide me with 87.5pc of the free care and the nursery with an extra £265pa.

However, as I said at the beginning - the Nursery could cheerfully give me what I ask for and put my fees up next month by the same amount so there's little I can practically do about it.

"do your DC go five days a week?"

4 days a week.

Its not meant to be free care for parents
Its supposed to be free early years education for the child