30 hours free child care - can anyone explain?

[phon]

Hi, I saw some people questioning about this topic and read them but still have got doubt how it works.. Could someone explain me to understand fully please?

I and my partner are going to apply 30hours childcare from Sep.
My daughter attends nursery 5days, 8am/5pm. The daily rate is 56£.

nursery told me that hourly rate is 4.65£.
Where does this '4.65£' figure come from?

Thanks!

Hourly rate for what?

All nurseries calculate it differently. They are not allowed to charge "top ups" but can charge for extras, like food or nappies.

So for us, they do the thirty hours over three 10 hour days, and we pay £5 per day for food for those three days. And then the other two days a week, and in school hols we pay full whack. Ask for a breakdown of how they work it out.

My twins currently attend 30 hours in nursery. All day Monday Tuesday and Wednesday. We pay £13 each per full day so £78 per week for the pair of them. This covers food, snacks, craft supplies etc, which are needed. That's my understanding anyhow.

Is the £4.65ph what they want to charge you, or what they receive from the LA for the funded hours?

Thanks everyone!
4.65£ is hourly rate they are charging us.
Calculation is: 4.65£ (hourly rate) x 30 hours x 38 weeks = 5301
5301£/12months = 441.75£

So that means 441.75£ will be deducted from monthly fee.

How nursery decide the hourly rate of 4.65£' ?
our current hourly rate is 5.60£.

Apologies! I should have written 4.65£/hour is what they are funding!?
I'm getting confused..

The hourly rate is the value of the 30 hours the nursery receive
The rate is decided by the LEA not the nursery
It’s lower than the actual rate the nursery charges so it costs the nursery money to deliver the funded hours

The funded education hours should be provided at zero cost to you but there can be charges for supplies.

In a day there may be periods of time where funded education is not provided, for example between 12:00-13:00 and there can be any charge they like for that period of time.

It sounds that they are doing a deduction of money worth, not of hours. That I believe is not permitted, however check with your local authority early years... some have a provider guide to the funding on their website.

The LA decides the rate that is paid to the nursery for funded hours. You get Up To 30 hours of funded education/care. The nursery does not have to provide all 30 hours if it is not viable for them to do so.

We have applied for DD from September. Our nursery are going to spread it over 52 weeks, she goes three days a week for a total of 31.5 hours. So spreading it over the 52 weeks means we will recieve 22 hours per week and pay for her to go one day. Our nursery have stated food is provided in the price.
It knocks £328 a month off our £1176.50 pm bill (DS goes same days).
We could of almost immediately saved her fees every month if we chose the 38 weeks but I would rather not have to get used to the saving them find the extra in the holidays.
All nurseries are different however.

Our nursery just deducts the funding from our monthly bill, as you've suggested in a PP.

The council hours also cost money if used in a council setting- a full nursery day at ours is 6h50mins so we were billed for 50 mins childcare per day. It also cost us £2/day for lunch and 70p per day for snacks/craft materials. Plus contributions to fundraising events to cover costs. The funding doesn't cover much!!

(I should clarify, we use both council.and private settings)

We will be worse off when we apply for our funding .

Ds1 currently only goes one day a week and is with grandparents 2 days. Our nursery has a rule they must go 3 full days if claiming free hours. £10 a day for food and supplies. Spread over all year Vs term time only means it only actually works out as 21 hours per week... Ours charge about £6.50 for the additional hours...

So although he will go 3 days not 1 - this isn't necessarily our choice and we have to pay more per month :(

The government really screwed over nurseries with this ‘free’ funding. They give much less than it actually costs per hour, so a fair few nurseries went under at the time.

It will probably give you a reduction in your bill, but it won’t be 30 hours out of your total free.

@Charis1503 as you are allowed to split settings I doubt that is allowed. See if you can have a word with your local council.

30 hours is only for school term time, so if you are doing additional weeks you pay the extra hours, works out around 22 hours per week , any extra hours you pay for.

Nurseries are not supposed to just knock off the amount they get in funding, though many do.

As a childminder I charge £4.50 per hour for care but get a lot less from the government . For this reason I only offer funding term time only and charge £1 per funded hour they use with me. This covers all the activities, crafts etc we do. As funding is only for care and does not cover food, arts, crafts, trips etc. I also do not offer funding for 1 day as to be honest it’s not worth my time with all the paperwork we have to complete. Parents are welcome to choose a nursery or preschool to use some of the funding with as well as me, but if it’s on the days they are with me as well , I charge them my full hour rate for the time they are there to hold the space as they will need it in the holidays. Parents who don’t want to pay don’t get a funded space with me as I can’t not afford to subsidise there childcare.

They're telling you they need £5.60/hr to cover all their costs. The LA is giving them £4.65/hr for the 'free' hours.

The government should never have advertised them as free if they weren't going to pay for them.

@Charis1503
Then don’t claim the funded hours then
You don’t have to

I believe 15hrs have to be offered completely free as this is an entitlement for all children after the term they turn three. But nurseries can offer this how they want. For example, we have families who don’t want to/can’t pay anything so can do a three hour am or pm session five days a week and they can’t change their days or sessions for the term.

For those who want more flexibility with those hours they pay £1 an hour (which is the difference in funding and our fee per hour) but can change sessions and the 15 hours can be outside 9-12 or 12-3. So the fee is for flexibility and so parent choice.