15 hours of free nursey per week - Not getting the benefit

kitch

Hi - I'm sure some of you will be aware of this on the government website.

We currently have our 3 year old with a registered childminder who we pay with childcare vouchers that we receive from our employer.

Our daughter is due to receive the 15 free hours of nursery from September this year meaning it almost halves the time that she spends at the childminders. So we were rubbing our hands together at the prospect of reducing our salary deductions for the vouchers and having that money back in our pay packet. However, the childminder has said that we still need to pay her for when our child is at nursery (she will be dropping our daughter off and picking her up) because it means the childminder is out of pocket because she can't take another child on for just three hours a day to make up the money.

I totally understand where she is coming from, but it seems like we are getting the unfortunate end of the situation in that we are not benefitting at all from the government scheme.

Is there anyone else in this situation that knows what I can do? Or do I just have to swallow it??

Thank you

James.

silvercar

If your childminder has these rules you need to put up with it or find a childminder who will charge for only the hours she works. I can understand the childminders point of view if she looks after the child before and after the session but not if she is only required to "start work" from after nursery.

daska

Sorry, this is a pretty standard approach taken by childminders and it's not unreasonable. It's highly unlikely that she could fill those hours. Your only solutions are
a) to look for another childminder who is happy to only do the hours you want but would be happy to take your child full time during the school holidays.
b) to switch to a nursery/pre-school who will provide full time care including the 'free' time.

Mupette

Check at the nursery for any childminders already dropping children off in your area

dmg24

There are plenty of childminders who will offer their services before and after the school/ nursery day. Whilst it is unfortunate that your current childminder may lose out, there is absolutely no reason why you should pay her the extra - it is not your job to find a replacement for the lost hours.

samgeordie

this is what most childminders do if they take/collect your child fom nursery, they are there incase of an emergency and will also look after your child when the nursery is closed. This happened when i used a childminder for my DD and I think its very fair, they are after all running a business as well as caring for your child.

The only way round this is if you take your child to the nursery every morning, be the 1st emergency contact and get your childminder to collect the child when nursery finishes, so the contracted hours would start when nursery finishes.

kitch

Don't get me wrong, I don't have an issue with the childminder at all and she does a fantastic job. My main issue is that if this situation is so wide spread as people have mentioned above, surely the government are aware that a lot of people are unable to make the most of a particular scheme aimed at helping families out.

Deepmistrust

kitch wrote: »

Don't get me wrong, I don't have an issue with the childminder at all and she does a fantastic job. My main issue is that if this situation is so wide spread as people have mentioned above, surely the government are aware that a lot of people are unable to make the most of a particular scheme aimed at helping families out.

Your childminder will have a limited number of vacancies (3) for children under the age of 5. She runs a business, most of them will charge a minimum daily rate to give up that vacancy. She will most likely be unable to fill in the 2.5 hours per day with another child, hence the place needs to be paid for. In addition I assume you want to revert to a full day in the school holidays? Then you are effectively paying for the place, not just the actual time your child spends in her care.

One alternative is to enquire whether your childminder can become accredited in order to accept the vouchers (some already are).

An alternative is to use the full entitlement over two days at a registered setting for pre-school education.

But I don't think this is the governments intention either. Though the way you can use the vouchers has become more flexible to allow you to do this, the important thing here, is that these vouchers are NOT childcare vouchers, they are for nursery education. The criteria from Ofsted is different for childcare and pre-school education (even when the same setting can provide both) - although both have to meet standards under the EYFS (Early years foundation stage).

Deepmistrust

silvercar wrote: »

If your childminder has these rules you need to put up with it or find a childminder who will charge for only the hours she works. I can understand the childminders point of view if she looks after the child before and after the session but not if she is only required to "start work" from after nursery.

The problem lies that if the parent also wants the morning session retained for the school holidays. If the parent doesn't want to pay for the morning session, then the childminder may make other commitments and the parent would not have this part of the day in the holidays.

In addition, many will only give up a full time under-5 vacancy for a set or minimum number of hours.

Deepmistrust

dmg24 wrote: »

There are plenty of childminders who will offer their services before and after the school/ nursery day. Whilst it is unfortunate that your current childminder may lose out, there is absolutely no reason why you should pay her the extra - it is not your job to find a replacement for the lost hours.

The childminder is well within her rights to charge the retained hours. Especially if the parent wants the hours in the school holidays when the pre-schools are shut.

So if it is contractual agreed and set in their policy that the hours are charged (be it at full fee or discounted fee), then that is the reason why she would have to pay the extra. Or alternatively she could indeed go elsewhere. But if the child is settled and the care is good, then that is the balance the parent has to take into account.

But the childminder is unlikely to lose out, as she will then be able to offer out a full-day place to another young child from the 0-5 age group.

SuziQ

If it was me i would just be glad to have a wonderful childminder, as so many are not happy with their childcare. I certainly wouldn't change childminder in this situation! Back when I was using a childminder, there was no help at all via the benefit system with the cost. I was in the same situation with paying the CM for the time when my child/children were in nursery. She tok and collected them for me which meant no disruption to my work.The number of times the nursery had to close or she was unwell, it was an absolute blessing to know that I always had that CM on the end of the phone-plus once when my child was ill after arriving she raced down there and collected her for me so that I could finish a meeting and then collect her an hour later. Just look upon it that nothing has changed financially and don't sweat what you can't change!