Funded hours- what’s normal?

[LottieandLisa]

If you claim the 30 hours for your 3/4 year old do you get 30 hours completely free or do you get 30 hours at a reduced rate? Ours is charging £4 something per hour for 30 hours which I assume is the funding they receive. Normal rate is almost double that. I’m wondering if this is normal practice now? Years ago we got the hours for free but paid a small extra charge for paint, food etc

Each setting does it differently in my experience. The school hours pre-school was totally free bar a 25p daily snack charge but we had to send lunch. Our private day nursery has a range of options including one which is totally free but that’s afternoons only, term time only. To have DS there for the full day we pay a £16ish daily ‘consumables’ charge. To be honest I am more than happy to pay this as the government subsidy is a pittance and it is a huge reduction from £80odd a day.

We get 30 funded hours but a £15 a day charged for meals and art supplies etc.

Our nursery also stretches the funding across the 50 weeks a year that it is open (so not just term time) so it works out as 20- something hours a week across the year.

They can't charge for the hours but can for snacks/meals/sundries/trips.
Ours charges £8 a day for these things for funded days (we get 2.2days a week as split over the full year)

I pay £30.10 a day with 30 hour stretch all year for three days a week.

@Scottishskifun ours definitely are charging but at a reduced rate for 30 hours. So not normal practice then?

@Lavender2021 is that a daily charge to cover food, art stuff etc? Or does your nursery charge you for some of the 30 hours? Trying to get an idea of what’s normal now

@Buttons0522 yes I’m very happy to pay a daily charge for consumables. I’m just surprised that they don’t provide the 30 hours free but wondered if that’s what all nurseries were doing now

Technically they can't charge.
Realistically its either charge the difference between normal rate and what the council fives them, whether they claim its for meals or supplies etc... or not offer the subsidy. Or not break even.

As an example... minimum wage is increasing (which is obviously good for staff) but they won't receive more funding.and utility bills as another example

The government lied when they said they’re free, but they don’t actually pay enough for them.

We've only just got the 30 hours, autumn birthday! But for full time our monthly bill used to be roughly £1275 and it is now £700. As others that is sharing the hours over the year, can't remember if it's 50 or 51 weeks, but it works out at about 22 funded hours per week I think.

Thanks for your replies- very interesting! We’ll be paying about £40 a day for the funded days (instead of the usual £80) I understand the government funding is no where enough for nurseries to remain viable without some sort of additional charge but this does seem a lot. I’m also confused as to why they are actually charging this as an hourly rate rather than as a consumables surcharge when it appears they’re not allowed to do this

Our nursery charged a top up fee disguised as an optional add on ( it wasn't optional) a decade ago. This is a long term practice.

I strongly suspect if you queried it would be officially labeled as something else.

I get 7.45 hours funded per day so the £30.10 is for unfunded hours, food and activities I guess. Nursery is open 8am till 6pm, 51 weeks of the year.
I think a unfunded day is around £67.

In a private setting they can top up for snacks, trips, art supplies etc. I think it’s completely free if you have them in a school pre-school… 9-3 hours.

I've just had a message about this from the nursery.
current bill is £508 per month for 2 days per week 8-6 (he never stays this long)
new bill will be £0😅

I also asked about a 3rd day per week and the total would be £183.

Current rate is £61 per day. All snacks and meals included.

I'm more than happy with the £183 as with tax free childcare I'm looking at £146ish per month for 3 full days! They only close for Xmas and even at that it was for 12 days.

Nursery was open 11.5 hours a day. The funded hours were spread out over the week so 2 x 2.25 hour blocks per day (not 3 hour sessions as they stretched the hours all year round). You could either just take the 2.25 hour sessions, which were 9-11.15 and then 13.45-15.00 but would have to take kid home and feed them for the 1.5 hours in the middle of the day. Or else pay for a whole or a half day with 4.5 or 2.25 hours free and the rest paid for.

We were using 3 days a week so the max number of 2.25 hour blocks we could use was 6.

Of course, nobody did use just the funded hours as 2.25 hour blocks is fairly useless for anyone needing to work!

If you have concerns about how the nursery is charging you can raise it with your local authority. The LA is responsible for ensuring funded places are properly administered and that invoices are clear and transparent. There are now plenty of examples from the Ombudsman of incorrect charging decisions.

https://www.lgo.org.uk/information-centre/news/2021/jan/ombudsman-s-calls-for-more-transparency-over-free-nursery-place-charges

https://www.lgo.org.uk/information-centre/news/2023/may/council-asked-to-repay-father-s-nursery-fees-following-ombudsman-investigation

https://www.lgo.org.uk/information-centre/news/2022/nov/notts-mum-should-be-refunded-nursery-charges-following-ombudsman-investigation

This.

I think it is unusual for a Nursery to be so blatant about it, but what people need to do is ask their MPs why the Government are advertising "Free" childcare to people without paying for it. Ask the MP how they think it works if Nurseries can't afford to run.
So many Nurseries have had to close in my LA.

The funding rate has never been enough and even at the start was way below what their own advisors suggested. The published rates are not what is passed onto individual settings councils take an admin amount then apportion according to settings with special needs children, deprivation etc. so effective most nurseries get a higher rate than most childminders. There are more settings closing than ever.
It's worth looking at the champagne nurseries on lemonade funding site.
I'm amazed people are not aware of the issues especially if they have young children.

Strictly speaking they’re not allowed to charge an hourly top up. Personally, I think it would make much more sense to allow it - advertise the hours as “subsidised” rather than “funded” and let providers charge the rest!

Nurseries round us do a mix of options. One has a £10/day surcharge for funded days, one has some weirdly complicated system which meant 4 full days a week with 30 hours funding was only £100 cheaper per month than with no funding. I ended up with mine at a term time only preschool, so his hours really are free, we just pay for the 30 min lunch session plus a pound a day for materials.

In my experience it is completely free, but this is very rare. I sourced a private nursery where my son does his 30 hours over 3 long days. They allow me to only put him in term time where the 30 hours are applicable and all of the food etc is free (so I'm not forced to pay in school holidays to keep his place). It is an independent and relatively new nursery where they do have places so probably won't always be the case. I get the impression that they would rather get the funded gov hours paid and get more people in than lose out to a school nursery where it would also be free if that makes sense

We do offer completely free hours as we are meant to but this is for the 15hrs core sessions so 9am-12pm daily or 12-3pm (but you have to pay for the lunch with this option). Most parent opt for our flexible option that does have a small daily charge for consumables, flexibility etc and allows their funded hours to be more variable.

I've always thought it strange we can't just take off the funding amount from the invoice and the parent pay the difference. But then maybe it would expose how little the government actually pay! Many nurseries are private businesses and it seems odd that the government can dictate how much they can charge or put restrictions on how the ask for the top up money.

My son’s nursery calculates the hours for the week then takes away the cost of 22 hours (stretched funding) then multiplies by 51 weeks divide by 12 for my monthly amount. No extras charged for.
I pay £535 for 5 days a week 8-6. No funded hours would be over £900 a month.

families that only use the 15 funded hours just have to pay £1 a week towards snacks