Funded childcare hours: Mumsnetters share their experiences

[LibbyMumsnet]

From September, eligible working parents can access up to 30 hours childcare per week for children aged 9 months up to school age.

If you’re a parent who’s already using funded childcare - or planning to later this year - we’d love to hear from you.

Sharing your experience could make a big difference to another parent trying to figure it out.

Whether funded hours have helped (or will help) you return to work, take on more hours, or simply support your family life - let us know how it’s working for you.

We’re also keen to hear how your child is getting on - is childcare helping them settle into a routine, build confidence, or try new things?

Post your experience by 31st July 2025 and you’ll be entered into a draw to win a £100 VEX gift voucher (T&Cs apply).

Prize draw now closed - thanks to everyone who entered!

Our nursery have gone from charging £21 supplementary fees a day, to only allowing 3 funded hours to be used in the morning and 3 in the afternoon, meaning that instead of now paying £21 a day, we have to pay £25 for the non-funded morning hours and £23 for the non-funded afternoon hours. Our fees have more than doubled over night, for something that we're told is "free".

One of the childminders I have spoken to has said when she goes on holiday we have to pay her, would this be correct? The funding would cover our usual hours but

You are not financially savvy I’m afraid. You need to look at salary sacrifice schemes/ paying more into pension as well as reducing to part time hours.

Rules now say consumables must be listed and voluntary, they can not include items needed to provide the EYFS....paper, glues, paint, crayons, cleaning items....they must be allowed to opt out of meals and allow you to bring food with no artificial breaks in the day...such as lunch hour....but they can say funding is between say 9 and 3.

When funding for 3 year olds came out authorities pushed the ideas that the shortfall in income could be made up by charging more for private hours and younger children...
Amongst other ideas in my borough like take in ironing(seriously) ask parents to do free voluntary work, pay all staff from junior to senior minimum wage....
Now virtually every child is eligible the non funded hours to cover the shortfall are very small so the hourly fees. Have to be an awful lot higher. At the same time the rules on charging extras have been tightened up. With most areas paying £4 to £5 for funded 3 year olds it's not financially viable to take them when you look at just the labour cost let alone everything else.

I am financially savvy thanks.

I can’t work part time without torpedoing my career, and am beyond the point I could salary sacrifice.

What hours are you using? Funding is for 38 weeks a year do over a year it's 1140 hours ....if you are doing 30 hours a week all year they are free to charge you holiday pay on any unfunded hours ....this could be if it's term time only and she takes holiday in school holidays..the full weekly rate. Or if she stretches it she could charge the non funded hours for time she takes off....so if you got 22 hours a week you would pay 8 hours a week. Basically more information is needed....does she use funding on set days like Monday to Wednesday....then you pay Thursday/Friday...is it 9 to 3 and you need to 6....

Stretched funding over 48 weeks (that what childminder has said) and I need two and a half days so I am only using funding hours and not paying any additional. So I only have to pay money during her holidays if that makes sense- can’t seem to find an answer whether this is usual/fair. I know in the grand scheme paying for four weeks isn’t so bad but it seems a bit odd as I’ll have to pay her and then pay for alternative care

So really your paying 10 days, can you match some or all of that? Typically some of that would be Christmas for example when most want time off.
But strictly she can't charge if the hours she's off are the normal funded hours. If you like her do you feel paying third 10 days is worth it for her care?
I do charge my holidays for non funded hours it's never been an issue if it were parents could choose to go elsewhere.

and pension contributions?

She may well earn too much to do that. I had the same problem. Impossible to salary sacrifice enough to get below the limit.

There’s also a big issue with pensions now they are included in IHT calculations and may well also have the 25% tax free withdrawal curtailed in the next budget. It’s no longer such a simple choice to chuck 60k in each year.

So if she earns well above 125k there is no point in doing salary sacrifice or paying extra pension contributions to try and qualify for childcare free hours, At this point it needs to come out of her own pocket. It’s only if she is borderline 125k that it’s worth all of this.She needs to stop complaining.

I totally disagree with that.

Why should anyone suffer an effective marginal tax rate of around 100%? It benefits nobody as people will just work less and pay less tax.

I once received a 20k bonus while my DS was at nursery and I lost the lot as it took me over the 100k limit after max pension contributions. It was taxed at 71% due to 60% income tax plus NI and student loan. I then lost all funded childcare and tax free childcare. I was literally worse off receiving a 20k bonus than not receiving it. That simply can’t be the product of an appropriate tax system.

No so this is where you have misunderstood me and clearly misunderstand the tax system. There is a window of 100-125k where the tax free personal tax free allowance is lost until over 125k so effectively its 60% tax at these pay scales. Wher you go over 125k it’s 45% tax.
so when you got your 20k bonus over 100k you should have put this into pension contributions or salary sacrifice while under 225k, or else try to earn 5k more would have made you more well off.
This op who I was responding to obviously earns well over 125k so there is no incentive to reduce it down just to get childcare free hours. The maths don’t add up.

To clarify my points

• This means by £125,140, you lose the entire personal allowance.

So effectively, between £100,000 and £125,140, you pay:

• 40% higher rate tax (normal higher-rate band) plus
• An extra effective 20% because you’re losing your personal allowance.

That creates an effective 60% tax rate on income between £100k and £125,140.
After £125,140, the personal allowance is fully gone, and the rate drops back to 40% (higher rate) until you hit £150,000, when the 45% additional rate kicks in.

I can assure you I know the tax system inside out.

When my DS was at nursery I was earning just over 160k.I used salary sacrifice to put 60k into my pension each year. I also used salary sacrifice for a few other minor bits to keep my net salary just under 100k.

I was then awarded a 20k bonus. I couldn't salary sacrifice anything more so had to take it as income or give it all away.

The 20k attracted 60% income tax as it all fell within the 100k-125k band. On top of that there was 2% NI and 9% student loan resulting in an overall tax rate of 71%. That accounted for 14.2k of the 20k.

I then also lost 30 hours funded childcare and access to 20% tax free childcare. Those 2 lost me more than 5.8k meaning I was actually worse off as a result of receiving a 20k bonus.

Please explain to me how that is in anyway an acceptable tax system. It is no wonder that higher paid parents with young children are deciding to work less. The system pretty much forces you to do so.

Well this makes sense now, you didn’t explain the prior 160k earnings and that you were already paying the additional pension contributions and salary sacrifice, you just jumped to the 20k bonus bit.

So of course, your situation is very frustrating. I never said this was an acceptable tax system, if anything I think it’s ridiculous and targeting high earners. But don’t get me started on that!! My DH and I have been forced to work part time as well until kids are in school at least.

Childminders are also able to accept the government funding, and can offer an alternative to nursery care. It can often be cheaper than the cost of nursery and offer a smaller home-from-home environment, with all of the regulation and learning opportunities of nurseries