Nursery not utilising funded hours

[norfolkfalcon]

Hi,

My oldest son is 3 years old and due to start getting childcare funding starting in Sept 23. We also have an 8 month old son that will begin at nursery in Oct 23.

In recent months I've been attempting to understand the costs for when they are both at nursery together. They will both be going for 1 and a half days each (our oldest was going 2 days a week but we have scaled back to save money ahead of our youngest joining).

We know how much we will have to pay for our youngest as it's what we currently pay for our eldest. However I've been trying to get a clear answer on our oldest son's costs. We have decided to proceed based on 30 hour childcare strecthed over 52 weeks (total 21.9 hours per week).

Our nursery has confirmed that for an 11 hour day they will only be able to claim 7.3 funded hours and for a 5.5 hour half day they will only be able to claim 3.65 funded hours. What this means is that for a total of 16.5 hours, they will only claim 10.95 hours from the government and the remaining 5.55 hours will be non-funded therefore the full amount.

The difference between paying for essentials & extras only (food, crafts etc.) vs 5.5h non-funded hours plus essentials & extras is around £100-150 extra.

My frustation is about paying for extra hours when we aren't above the strecthed allocation. I've questioned this with our nursery who have said their policy means they only utilise the full 21.9 hours if your child attends 3 days a week minimum. I've had a look at the nursery terms & conditions and I cannot see anything that states this.

I totally understand paying for essentials and extras at the nursery, and fully on board with this, but having to pay for additional hours when we should be entitled to them for free does not make any sense whatsoever to me. It's hard enough in times like these let alone when you're having to pay £1k+ a year on something you should be getting for free!

This is at a Busy Bees branch in Norfolk.

Has anyone else experienced this? Any words of advice would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.

If I have understood your post correctly then yes our nursery is the same.

To claim the 30 hours you must do 30 hours so 3 days. My son goes for 2 days so I can only claim 15 hours and then that's only term time. So over the weeks with the extra 5 hours / paying full for the holiday weeks / lunches etc, it does still add up. A lot better than it was though!

Any concerns about how the nursery is administering the funded hours should be raised with the team in your local council that oversees the funding - they have a responsibility to ensure nurseries are invoicing correctly and transparently.

Many settings offer the funded hours based on sessions so 3 hours morning 3 hours afternoon or similar. If you want to do more outside those sessions then it’s extra.

if he isn’t attending for 30 hours they won’t be able to claim the 30

This unfortunately is common due to the underfunding the nursery gets from the government. They aren't allowed to charge a top up, so they restrict when you can use funded hours so they get more money for some of the time.

Nurseries can allocate the funding as they wish - as long as it is clear.

DS1 was 30 hours over 3 days term time - nice and easy. Pay for the school holidays and the other 2 days.

DS2 nursery offers it as 22 hours a week year round, which only works out as 7 hours a day over the 3 days a week. any hours above 7 a day are paid for. any full days over 3 are paid for.

Yes I experienced the same.

Nursery will only apply the funded hours to 7.3hrs a day (9-3.30pm ish). If we wanted to drop her earlier or pick up later, those were “add-ons” and paid.

Very frustrating and not useful for working parents, which is who the 30 free hours is supposed to benefit.

I would send them on an extra day to make the most of the free hours (and perhaps pick up early on that day so you aren’t paying the “add-on” fee).

We paid several hundred pounds a month to nursery when our daughter was three and had “30 free hours”, which annoyed me greatly.

FWIW you can use the 80% tax free childcare scheme to pay the add-ons, which helps a bit.

There was an AIBU post yesterday explaining nursery costs.

But to sum it up...
The nursery likely receives less money per funded session than it actually costs. So to breakeven, they need to somehow charge the parents. They can't charge a top up, so they have to be creative... food charges, session times etc.

Basically.. the Government lies to parents (once again)

This has always been the case, I’m afraid - mine are teens now and did 3 days a week in day care at 10h a day. The 15 free hours (as was then) applied to 3h sessions in the morning and 3h sessions in the afternoon. (No option back then to spread over full year)

So unless you did at least 2.5days at day care, you could not use them all, and for every 3h free you had to pay 2h to cover the whole “half day” session (say 9-12 were free in an 8-1pm session)

I sympathise with nurseries as the government rate in England is practically always below the hourly rate that nurseries charge and therefore they cannot afford to operate without some approach like the above or as you describe

I believe the original intent of the 15 free hours was not childcare support for working parents but early years education support. Therefore school- linked nurseries or similar that ran 9-3pm were actually free to a child attending for 5 half days a week (which is what I did when I went to nursery school, and I’m 40-something)

every private nursery does that.
different policy but share the same goal to make you pay more anyway.

you can find a state school nursery.
luckily, I have one nearby. My DC goes there.
6 hours a day, 5 days a week, a total of 30 hours a week, and nothing to pay.
and so nice that they have a breakfast club and afterschool club to extend the hours, at a good price.

The government gives state school nurseries additional funding, which is why they can afford not to charge extra.

In addition, they pay no VAT, business rates or rent.

It’s not like the extra money charged by private providers is profit - it is literally paying for the expenses that state nurseries don’t have.

When funded hours were first introduced (12.5 hours) you could only use them as an afternoon or morning session so max 5 hours a day and term time only. They have got more flexible with the 30 hours by letting you stretch them but essentially you can only a certain number of hours per session, if you exceed that number of hours eg the session is longer then of course you have to make up the difference.
I know nurseries that only allow you to use 20% of funded hours per day

Yes, I believe all private day nurseries charge like this. You might have more luck with a school-attached nursery (but obviously then you have to cover non-school hours and holidays).

My friend's child goes to a school nursery three days a week and she only pays for an hour of lunch cover. She has various family members who help out with after school and holidays. My child goes to a private nursery four days a week (which is open 7.30am-6.30pm) and we pay about £600 per month. But we need the longer hours and holidays, so we have to pay it. And it was over 1k before he was three, so an improvement!

Well said, User

Busy bees are notorious for this. Loads of extra charges( that are supposed to be voluntary but aren’t really as they can just take your childcare away)
nurseries can pick and choose when to allow funded hours. Some don’t accept them at all.

I would find a different nursery

I very much doubt that OP will be able to use the full allowance at any nursery if only attending 1.5 days a week. Not to mention the difficulty of finding a place in the next 7-8 weeks that can take both children on this low schedule (some nurseries will have a higher minimum than 1.5 days)

@SheilaFentiman
the nurseries around my area accept this. There are some children that attend for funded hours only with £1.50 a week towards snacks. I obviously needed full time hours for my son so it doesn’t apply to me but as I said nurseries can pick and choose when to allow the hours but busy bees is a big chain and they find loads of ways of charging extra.

Hmmm. Ok.

I am well past the nursery years and not in Norfolk, so I don’t know. But there are many posts on here about extras and funded sessions etc.

Also, the 30h is supposed to be in term
time - for cash flow reasons, the funding can be spread but the nursery may well have to demonstrate a minimum of 30h attendance to get the full funding for any given child.

Lots of private nurseries you have to do a minimum of three or even four days to get the 30 hours funding. We use 3 days and will be paying around £400 - currently just under £920 a month. They spread the hours all year for us.

My nursery also has a minimum of two days for any age.

@User8646382 school nurseries do not receive additional funding.

You are right that their overheads may be covered by school, but that's not always the case. It depends whether the nursery provision is set up as 'governor led' or 'school led'.

They do - they receive supplementary funding. This stopped a couple of years ago in an attempt to achieve ‘a level playing field’. But they get it again now to deal with the cost of living crisis. The rest of us have to suck it up, of course.

It's standard. Anyone who delivers funding can choose how to implement it across their business. As others have said school nurseries usually give you the hours, however they too have their own rules. For example ours does 15 hours Monday to Friday mornings only, you couldn't do 2.5 days. Childminders usually let you do the hours but might also charge for consumables in addition.

Our nursery are only able to claim for 30 hours if the child attends a minimum of 2.5 days per week (policy set by our local council).