Inflated fees for a child receiving 15 hours of "free" entitlement

[moniuhna]

My son will soon be eligible for the government funding for 3-4-year-olds and the nursery he goes to takes part in the scheme. When I look at their fees I've discovered that even though they say he will receive the "free" hours (12 in any week as he is in the nursery only for two days), they inflate his hourly rates from £5.8 (paid by non-funded children) to £7.50 for any other hour above that so in fact we end up feeling they top-up his "free" hours by doing that. They claim that they do not operate on hourly basis but I calculate that if their daily fee is £58 for 10 hours of childcare then it comes to £5.8/hour but they don't accept this and say I can't calculate it this way. They say they only charge monthly and that the fee reflects the needs of the business. And in fact they can't tell me why I am charged more than I should as "businesses do not need to tell why they operate in the way they operate". Is this a common practice? Do I stand any chance challenging that or is there a loophole allowing them to do so?

You are missing the point multiple people says about organising wrap around care. I have pointed out other parents do that with a nanny. They obviously work too! It's not you who work only. Both DH and I also work full time.

I did this with a childminder
We arent all sat at home on benefits you know

I helped run a (charity) nursery for a while. The 'free' hours are a total nightmare. The refund rate paid for our core staff, but not for the additional cover staff you need for breaks, illness, prep time. No utilities, rent. No equipment.

We debated how to manage this so so so often - up the hourly rate for EVERYone, with the consequence that it's even more expensive for the under 3s, but the over 3s genuinely do get their hours 'free'? Or charge a different rate for the wrap-around, as is the case with yours.

We did the same as your nursery, as we decided in the end that it was 'fairer'. Kids could just attend for the funded sessions, so there was real free education available, but if you were using it for childcare then most did have to pay out of pocket (some totally free places).
It meant that everyone did see a discount once their child reached 3, but it wasn't as big as it might have been. But fees up until 3 had also been less than they would otherwise have been.

Refund rate needed to be at least £1 more for real 'free' care to be delivered.

PS the free hours are for education, not for childcare while you work.

(which I think is wrong - but it's how it is...)

I do agree OP, FT working parents seem to be subsidising other parents all the time, firstly in the baby rooms which are inflated to subsides the over 3s then with the additional hours.

It's the governments fault but I do find it frustrating that free hours aren't means tested. I know people who use them who are very wealthy sahp. It does gall a bit!

The 15 hours "free" system, IMO, only benefits those who can use school nurseries ie those who don't work or who use grandparents for childcare to do the wrap-around. That's been my experience/observation.

I used the 15 hours at school nursery with DS but my childminder who did the wrap-around) and all of those locally) charged the normal full daily rate for this, so it wasn't any better financially using a CM. Although I understand some do accept the funding & that might be a cheaper option for OP.

But for the vast majority of working parents, who use nurseries, or have to pay a nanny or CM for warp-around as they need a full day of childcare, the "15 hours free" isn't really that at all. But the funding does bring down the overall costs.

It has been like this for years. I had the same issue 8 years ago and I tried to speak to the local authority and the department of education about daily rates being charged and that the supposed 15 free hours was only a contribution to costs. So I am sympathetic towards your feelings.

The DoE and LAs know nurseries do this but choose not to deal with it. I was told I could complain to them if I felt that my son's nursery was not complying with the rules. My son's nursery was fabulous and there is no way I was going to complain about them.

But also I can totally see that nurseries couldn't manage on the govt contribution alone so they are trying desparately to run a business and keep going.

I think if this was rephrased as a contribution towards childcare costs, we would all have less of an issue.

The nursery can charge different amounts for different sessions if they want to.

Our nursery has a weekly rate, a long day rate, a sort day rate, a morning session rate, an afternoon session rate and an hourly rate. If you used each rate and session duration to calculate hourly rates then you'd end up with many different hourly rates! They do it to encourage parents to book patterns that suit the nursery business.

Nurseries are not allowed to charge a top up. Basically this means there should be some way of your child attending 15 hours completely for free. That might be 5 sets of three hours, 3 sets of five hours, whatever, and it is up to the nursery what they allow. You can choose to take it or go elsewhere.

Just as an example, at my nursery a full 11!hour day is £44.50 but the hourly rate for an adhoc hour is £5.25. You pay a premium for the convenience of booking short slots because they employ staff to cover whole days, not to come in between 11 and 12 because Mrs Smith booked a single hour.

bombadier how can I missed out childminders! DD1 goes to one after school. I'm sure she can do pick ups from preschools too.

After a bit of research I think I start getting to the bottom of the matter.

The problem lies here: regulations specifically forbid childcare providers charging "top-up" fees in order to cover the difference between the amount they get from the government and the amount they believe covers their costs. ("An early year's provider cannot charge for any part of the funded hours or 'top-up fees' - the difference between what a provider would normally charge and what the provider receives from the Council" - this is a fragment from my council's FEE handbook). - let's call it Rule 1.

BUT, the "Early Education and Childcare Statutory Guidance" for councils also has a paragraph stating that "this document does not provide guidance on how providers operate their private businesses, including charges for provision over and above a child's early education place. Local authorities should not intervene in providers' private businesses outside of a child's early education place." (p.5) - let's call it Rule 2.

These two points are conflicting and create a loophole for providers who use it to impose "premium" charges over and above the free entitlement. In other words they use Rule 2 above the Rule 1. The question is: which Rule is more important, or in other words, more binding? As CLEARLY "premium" charges are in conflict with Rule 1 although they are allowed under Rule 2. Can you also see where it comes from?

The two rules can work alongside each other. The free hours are free and the other hours are £x. The nursery is free to choose what £x is.

What are you hoping to achieve OP? You will find that EVERY nursery does this. We do this thread over and over on MN. You are wasting your energy getting worked up about it.

HSMMaCM, I think you are wrong in this one. If they charge me £5.90 per hour and then, when my child starts getting the funding, they charge me £7.50 per hour for no obvious reason then it IS a "top-up" fee! Why else would they start charging me "premium" fees? My child does not all of a sudden start getting lobster and champagne for lunch.

I don't want to take my child out of the nursery, I want it to charge me fairly. If the nurseries do not agree with the funding they can complain to the Department of Education, appeal the amounts or just accept lower profits, not pass the "unfairness" further, onto hard working parents in the form of concealed "premiums".

They are charging you in the fairest way possible for everybody, to cover the costs of running the nursery.

The government are never going to give an amount that accurately reflects the hourly cost of every childcare setting.

As someone else down thread has said it would be better if they said it was a contribution towards 15 hours of childcare.

It's the government you have a problem with, OP-not the nursery. Try writing to your MP.

If your nursery (along with every other nursery) doesn't charge extra somewhere, they will be forced to close and you will have no childcare.

OP if your logic was rational then you could use the same logic to demand that tesco should be legally forced to sell you their individual serving 220g tins of heinz baked beans at 26p instead of the standard price of 60p on the grounds that they sell 1kg fridge packs for £1.79 and also have them on a 3-for-2 offer and that's the same cost per 100g.

If you tried to fight for the above you would be considered batshit crazy but it's exactly the same argument as you claim should be applied to nurseries.

When you extend a "free sessions" place to a full 10h day you are buying 1h 8am-9am, 1h 12-13 and 2h 16-18 because the free hours sessions are 9-12 and 13-16. These 3 spread-out mini-portions of the product are obviously and logically more expensive than when you bulk buy a 10h stretch.

commercial businesses are allowed to charge any price a customer is willing to pay so long as they are upfront about the cost. If you don't like it you have every right to go to Lidl instead and buy their non-Heinz beans for 26p or indeed go to a nursery that bases its service level on keeping everything as cheap as possible for you.

What the heck are you babbling about? Your post doesn't make any sense.

If the nursery told me that from the 1st April (when he becomes eligible) my son would start getting better food, they would hire more staff or my son would all of a sudden require more attention I would not mind the increase in price. But NOTHING magical changes on the 1st of April - he still will be there on the same days, the same 10 hours, is looked after the same staff and plays with the same toys. He would do exactly the same things he would have been doing there for months. Yet all of a sudden I pay significantly more for EVERY hour he is there. I don't see any logic in this, rather a canning way to get more money from working parents.

If you really want to compare it to cans of beans, I would imagine it's the same as if you go to Tesco and need to buy 10 cans of beans that have always cost 26p and you hear now hear they give you six for free but you have to pay for the other four cans 50p. Yes, you pay a bit less in the end but where is the logic? You don't feel you got the six cans for free at all.

Anyway, I know now what I deal with here. I have written to my local council and If I hear anything from them I will post an update.

You were getting a discount or a capped rate when paying for full days. You are no longer paying for a full day so are no longer entitled to that discount. You can't have it both ways!

To carry on your beans analogy, if you used to buy a 10 pack for 10x26p = £2.60 but are now getting a 6 pack for free and choosing to then buy a 4 pack for £2 then you are absolutely still getting 6 tins for free.

You wouldn't expect the 4 pack of beans to cost the same per can as the 10 pack you were previously buying, because you get a discount for buying a larger pack

If the nurseries do not agree with the funding they can complain to the Department of Education, appeal the amounts or just accept lower profits, not pass the "unfairness" further, onto hard working parents in the form of concealed "premiums".

or the nurseries can just stop offering the 15 hrs - in some areas you can't have the 15 hrs unless between 9 & 12 at a school - No other nursery will offer them, as they cant afford to

So if you want 8-6 care (or whatever) you have to pay for the full amount

TBH it won't be a problem for long - once the free 30 hrs comes in most nurseries will opt out or go bust

HappyAsaSandboy, you completely miss the point. You go to Tesco and see a poster "Buy 10 packs of beans and we'll give you six of them for free". You were expecting to pay 10x£0.26 so £2.60, you think "Great! So I'll pay only for four can instead of ten, so £1.04" You go to a checkout and turns out the four cans you have to pay for cost £0.50 each instead of £0.26 even though those are exactly the same beans that normally cost £0.26 per can and there was no mention of the higher price. Surely you would feel cheated and that the advertisement was misleading?

The nursery just have to offer you the 15 hours free. If they wanted they could only let you have 3 hours free a day, like lots of nurseries. So long as you can access just 15 hours a week for free (e.g. dropping your child off at 9am and picking up at 12pm every day) then the nursery have complied with the scheme.

Any nursery can choose to offer reduced rates for whole days and whole weeks. That is a separate issue.

They dont have to offer anything. We just had school nurseries (which is why i used wrap around care). I actually valued the time there as 'education' rather than 'free childcare' but i expect thats an old fashioned view now

They gave you a discount for a full day and now charge full fees for a part day.

Would you rather they didn't do it at all and you could pay full fees every day ?