Nursery keeping full term of funding even though we left mid-February- what can I do?

[AngeloMysterioso]

We as a family have been loyal to this nursery before it was even a nursery (started as a childminder who opened a nursery). We stayed through all the growing pains, the revolving door of staff, the last-minute closures, everything. 4 and a half years in total.

At the beginning of January I gave notice that our two DC would be leaving at Feb half term as we were moving house. Before this I checked over the updated policy pack that was sent before Christmas, so I knew I was giving enough notice- in the pack it says a refund of fees is not given if the contract is ended without notice, but otherwise no mention of refunds of fees or government funding.

The DC had a settling session at their new nursery last week. Whilst there the manager mentioned to me that she had submitted the funding codes for them but was told the old nursery had already received the full allocation for the term, and asked if I could contact them and ask them to transfer on what's left for the second half of this term.

Except they won't. They're saying it's their policy that they don't release any funding once they've claimed for it. I've gone back over the policy pack sent in December and can find no mention of this anywhere. This is in spite of me giving the required amount of notice and them knowing we were leaving halfway through the term.

If we can't get the funding released then DH and I have to pay full whack (minus the TFC 20%) between now and the start of the summer term, which we simply can't afford to do.

Do I have any recourse here?

What exactly does your contract say that the notice period is?
I'm also not sure if the funding issue is separate but hopefully someone here will.

The old nursery should do an adjustment form but are quite entitled to keep the funding. As far as I can remember, the funding only transfers over to the new nursery in exceptional circumstances, i.e., a forces child whose parents have been posted.

I always used to tell people that if they left at a half term, they would have to pay the new nursery until the funding kicks in at the start of a new term.

Yeah as a provider, they're encouraged to pass it on but there's defo no recourse if they want to keep it.

Have you moved within the same Local Authority?

In any event, some LAs eg Harrow specifically flag that they do not transfer funding part way through a term. It may not be the choice of your provider.

I've just read our funding guidance and it does say it can be moved at a half term. It's been a while since I did funding.

I would contact your local authority and ask the question.

Different areas have different rules. In my local authority, the funding doesn’t follow the child. It’s up to the setting if they’re happy to transfer any funding amounts left over to the new setting. This is also stated on the parental declaration form which parents complete.

different areas have different rules though

My understanding is (in my area anyway) that the nursery are correct, I'm afraid: I don't think they do have to refund your funding in these circumstances. I work in early years admin, and had a similar request last year. In our case, we were fine about it and I transferred the remaining funding over to the new nursery. But I believe we were under no obligation to do so.
This is partly because of the timing of funding. Assuming your funding works the same as in my area, I would have already put in my claim for your child's hours, and received the money last week. It's done on a termly basis. The county council would help out if there were exceptional circumstances - for example, a move because of a social housing issue (where they often only get a couple of weeks' notice).
Where I work, we'd be keen to do the refund as the optics really aren't great otherwise - and at this time of year, we'd be able to fill your space fine. But there is no obligation to refund the funding. Sorry not to be the bearer of better news...
(edit for typos)

The nursery doesn’t have to refund the funding money if you switch part way through a term.

It may be worth putting the nurseries in touch with each other, to see if they can work something out. I am sure you won't, but probably best to not go in all guns blazing. Maybe focus on any exceptional circumstances there might be for the move? Good luck.
You should be okay for Summer term though - which starts on 1 April.

(this is all how it would work in my area anyway, maybe it's different elsewhere)

As everyone else has said, the original Nursery are under no obligation to hand the money over. They get a term's worth of money for all the children in / on role on head count day.
Some nurseries will, as a goodwill gesture, if there is (as said above) a good reason for moving. But they are not obliged to.

In our Local Authority, settings cannot claim full funding for the term if parents have given notice on the space before headcount week. You may need to look back and check the date you gave notice and see if this falls before or after your authorities headcount date.
If you gave notice before headcount then your previous setting should have only claimed for six weeks (up to half term) or the amount of weeks you attended, leaving the remaining six open for your new setting to claim on a supplementary form. If they have claimed when they shouldn’t have done, you might be able to get the funding transferred.
If you have given notice after the headcount date then your setting can chose to retain all fees for the remainder of the term and don’t need to transfer it over to a new setting. Hope this makes sense.
Not all authorities have the same policies, but worth a try.

Each local authority will have their own rules about this and it is them who decide how this works for funded hours, not the provider.
I would contact the funding team at your local authority to check the rules in your area.

So I checked with our LA and apparently the nursery is legally allowed to keep the funding- and they're going to! They told me they'd email a copy of their policy shortly- that was yesterday and I have yet to receive anything, but I know for a fact that there is no such policy in the pack we were sent before Christmas so I suspect they haven't sent it because it doesn't exist.

Apparently she doesn't care that it completely throws me and DH in the crap because we now have to find almost an extra £1k for childcare, and not having any until summer isn't an option because I work nights and need the time to sleep. I'm mostly just upset that after nearly 4 years of loyalty, this is her parting gesture. It's basically, fuck you we're keeping the money.

You've had it confirmed that they are correct to keep it so why are you taking it so personally? It's not a fuck you at all, it's one of the ways of keeping costs down, reduce admin. Can you imagine how much extra work they'd be if you had to do this every time. Funding is claimed for termly, it always has been.

It's only 6 weeks anyway, not the end of the world.

Of course it's personal- she knows that by keeping the money DH and I have to somehow find the full amount of fees for six weeks of childcare for two children- it's a not insignificant amount! It's not the end of the world if you're earning a shitload of money but we aren't. Just because they can keep it doesn't mean they have to, but they are, and she clearly doesn't care a tiny bit about the struggle this will put DH and me in.

It’s not personal, it’s a business and they have costs to cover. They’ve received the money already. It’s pretty common for them not to transfer it once they have it.

But you've taken the funding spaces for the term. It works both ways in that she can't fill that 6 week slot with funded children until the summer term now either.

The LA write the funding rules, not individual providers.

Blimey, how much do you pay in childcare each week if you’re £1000 down over 6 weeks?

It really isn’t personal, it’s how nursery funding works.

I agree with everyone else.
It isn't personal at all. It is how the funding works. It is business.

This is how it usually works, the funding is done by term. I moved my DC at October half term and absolutely didn’t think the funding would move until Christmas. I get you’re frustrated but this is unfortunately your mistake assuming it could move mid term without checking

Easily! Our funded hours are worth around £800 a month per child and we have 2 x DC in nursery as well. If we lost ours for 6 weeks, it would cost us probably something like £2400 extra?

This! Our nursery rate pre free hours is £100 a day per kid. Yes we have tax free childcare but this is all nurseries in our local area. South east but not London. The bill is £2500+ a month for 2 kids, funded hours (30 for eldest, 15 for youngest) and TFCC bring that down to £2000ish depending if it’s a 5 or 4 week month but without funded hours we’d definitely be down well over a grand.

That said our LA form is clear that funding may not be transferred part way through a term. Sorry OP. It’s shit. I think it’s more frustrating that it’s at nursery’s discretion and they’re choosing not to - it’s what makes it feel personal. I’m sure they’re just scraping to survive atm but so are many of us.

We had a similar situation and it never even crossed my mind! Luckily our nursery were more than happy to transfer over. They did say we could keep our place at the original nursery at first but it was over an hour from us. Is the nursery close enough to continue to use the funding until the end of the term?

No, during rush hour it's probably about a 45 minute drive each way.