Nursery not told us how 15 hours funded childcare will be applied yet

[PurplePetalPip]

We are due to get the 15 hours of funded childcare for DS from April as he is already 2. Nursery have confirmed they will be offering it but have stated they are still reviewing their model as to how it will work and how we can use the hours. They currently offer the 30 funded hours for 3 and 4 year olds but have stated they are reviewing how that works as well and this is likely to change.

As things stand, I currently have no idea how much our childcare will cost from April and am finding it impossible to budget! Is anyone else in the same position? Is this normal?

I appreciate the local authority only issued their figures a couple of months ago so the nursery hasn't had much time to prepare but it's causing me stress not knowing!

Does anyone have any real life examples of how their costs changed when their funded hours kick in? DS currently goes 3 full days a week all year round and we currently pay £650 a month (before the government 25% top up - the actual fees are more like £800).

My la told us rates 2 weeks ago some authorities still haven't published them. They are also still looking at the guidelines they are giving providers.

They have left it right until the last minute to let nurseries know the rate and criteria so now they are desperately trying to work out budgets too. Quite often funding rates don't match what nurseries need to manage on.

Parents need to check they are eligible too as it isn't universally applied like it is with 3/4yr funding.

We were given our rates a few days ago, still unsure of payment dates. I would be extremely surprised if the nursery have had their rates for a couple of months, extremely surprised. What is more likely is they’ve only just had the information and are now scrabbling around trying to make things work and keep the business afloat

Our local nursery neither have the spaces nor the staff for any extra children. They are full.
I imagine many are in this situation?

You also find some LAs pay in arrears so a lot of children wanting funding means no income for up to 3 months.

I don't know if this helps but when we got no funding we paid ~£740 for 3 days a month. When we moved to 3yo funding 4 days a week is ~£550. Fees will go up from April when they try to balance the books but we haven't had the draft invoices yet and normally they give them out jan/Feb time so families can budget.

Not been told yet but have made some assumptions based on pieces of information.

nursery have said the 15 hours becomes 10.8 hours across the whole year (rather than term time only). The nursery is open 11 hours per day so it’s the equivalent of one day per week. There will be top up each day that sounded like it would be £5-£10ish (unconfirmed yet).

It’s £76 per day so I’m expecting about a £250 reduction per month. Yet to find out how accurate my assumptions are though.

Ours is £60 a day so I think £780 a month before deduction for tax free childcare. I’m expecting to pay about £560 with the 15 hours. They don’t charge a supplementary fee x