30 hours free childcare

[dimdarkashian]

Hi

Hoping someone might work in a nursery and be able to explain to me how the fees work.

My DS does 30 hours a week but the free hours are pro-rata over the year meaning I pay for 8 hours a week.

However, I don't seem to be just paying for the extra hours as they charge is close to £400/month.

I have checked with the nursery and they say they don't charge extra for meals.

The invoice doesn't give a breakdown but it's clearly not as simple as just charging per hour for each hour over the free entitlement.

I have queried this with the nursery and they agree the charge seems to be too high but they can't explain how it's worked out. It would seem they are using some sort of software that calculates the invoice...not sure if there is an industry standard?

Anyway they are looking into it and getting back to me but I wondered if anyone had any experience and could shed any light in the meantime?

Thanks

How much do nursery charge per day?
How many days does he go?

Sometimes nurseries do the ‘free’ hours in seasons, so 9-12 or 1-4. If your child is there for a whole day you have to pay for ‘wrap around’ care, so you have to pay for the hours 8-9, 12-1, and 4-5. Is your nursery doing something like this?

You are well within your rights to ask for a full breakdown as to how the 30 hours is applied.

Ask them full breakdown of the invoice.

The 30 hours is term time only ie for 38 weeks of the year. Does your child attend all year round? If so you'll be paying for all the hours in the school holidays.

14 weeks where you are paying for 38 hours a week plus 38 weeks where you pay for 8 hours could well equal around £400 per month.

Nurseries would usually work out the whole year of fees and divide by 12 so you pay the same amount each month rather than have a different bill for term time and holiday time.

Thanks for the replies.

He attends all year hence paying for 8 hours a week as pro-rata the free entitlement is 22 hours/week.

For his age group it’s £55 a day (8am-6pm).

He attends three days a week.

Under the local authority’s funding provider agreement, the nursery will be required to show the free hours and charges on a clearly itemised invoice.

Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, you are entitled to know what you are being charged for asked to pay for a service.

Tell them you will pay for the service but not until provided with an itemised invoice. If they won’t provide one, you will inform the LA funding team and Trading Standards, and they seriously do not want that. Back up this converting writing: you may need a paper trail.

These are your rights. Don’t let the nursery make you feel bad about this. This is not you being difficult: it’s them being incompetent.

Where I work your fees are worked out as 3 x £55 x 52 divided by 12 to give the monthly fee
This would be £715
The 30 hours for us pays for 2 days a week all year round
You would then have to pay the difference which for us would be £238
But our fees are not as much as yours and the funding rate may be different

If they are invoicing you they must know how they are calculating it. I would want to know exactly what I am being charged for

@insancerre that’s how I’m working it out but being charged £385

So where I work I would be taking your funding for 2 whole days=20hrs then 2hrs on day 3 to make your funded 22hrs. You would then be charged the remaining 2 hrs of that morning plus lunch and an afternoon session (it would be approx £40 a week)

You are paying £88 a week!! That’s about a day and a half because it’s only £55 for a whole day!! You definitely need to find out what is going on here and something is not right!

Thanks everyone. I was feeling a bit like ‘that parent’.
I think I’ve been overcharged since March but it suddenly jumped by £100 a month in September when the fees increased.
And, with DS2 starting next month I thought I should do some sums for budgeting purposes and realised this just wasn’t adding up!
The nursery agree something is wrong but are still looking into it.

I would advise them that you are suspending payments while they look into it. They’ll look into it a whole lot quicker.

@itsaboojum I don’t really want to go down that road. Not when they are caring for my children. DS2 is starting next month and will only be 9 months.
They really have looked after DS1 very well and they have been flexible with swapping sessions and not charging more in the past - other nurseries around here make you book extra sessions.
I honestly think it’s a genuine mistake, I just don’t really know enough about the system and how it’s calculated.

My LG attends a year round nursery for 3 days a week and so wrap around fees apply. We are only entitled to 15 hrs a week and below is how they explained our fees....

3 days (NEG Funded3.65 hours day) at 45.10 = 135.30
Monthly Charge = 135.30 * (52.00/12) = 586.30
Total = 586.30 per calendar month

May help ?!

If it’s computer software something may have just been input wrongly and they are probably looking into it.

Check which session times include your funded hours, you may be being charged for hours outside these and check if there are any food/consumable charges.

I think you are being overcharged, speak to nursery tomorrow with your concerns and ask for a breakdown of it

Oh sorry just seen your speaking to them already

I don’t understand why you’ve been paying since March without seeing a breakdown of costs? I would never pay an invoice I was 100% sure was correct.

You need to push them for the breakdown ASAP. They have to be able to provide it.

Have you been claiming since march?
That might be the explanation
The fees might have been worked out to the end of august and then recalculated from september

Still no update from the nursery.

I'm dropping DS later today as baby had a late night and is still asleep.

Hopefully I can catch the manager when I go in.

Update! The nursery are due me over £1k!

They are sending me details of how it should be calculated going forward. They say it was an error and someone had entered a flat fee on my record by mistake.

Result!