Is this how the 30 free hours childcare works?

poppy10_2

I have two kids in nursery, the oldest of whom has turned three and is now eligible for the government funded 30 free hours. Our nursery charges by the day rather than per hour but my oldest attends three days a week for less than 10 hours each day so I expected that the 30 free hours would cover her nursery fees and that my monthly bill would fall considerably. I was aware there can be additional charges to pay for meals, nappies etc, but thought that nurseries were not allowed to charge "top-up fees" on top of the money they get from government.

In fact our monthly bill has only gone down by a few hundred. They are just calculating the money they receive from the government and deducting that from the monthly bill, and charging me whatever is left over. Isn't that essentially asking me to pay a top up of the nursery fees?

The calculation they have sent is as follows

Child 1: 688.50 per month

Child 2: 688.50 per month

Minus: government funding 4.89 per hour x 30 hours x 13 weeks divided by 5 months summer term = -381.42

Plus: meal charges 58.50

Total charge is £1054 compared to the £1377 I was paying before.

sheramber

If you pay by the day- how many hours 'a day'?- are you are paying for hours your child does not attend.

Free child care will not cover these extra hours so you will still need to pay for them.

They should not be charging extra for the hours covered by the free childcare. which they seem to be doing.

A google search for 'who to complain about nursery charges for free child care brought up several hits.

e.g.


https://www.lgo.org.uk/information-centre/news/2021/jan/ombudsman-s-calls-for-more-transparency-over-free-nursery-place-charges
https://www.nurseryworld.co.uk/news/article/local-government-watchdog-warns-nurseries-over-top-up-fees-for-free-entitlement

spaniel101

It wouldn't surprise me.   We once went to look around a nursery.   

Our requirements were 3 full days per week of 10hrs each;  30hrs.
The nursery only 'allowed' use of the free 30hrs spread equally across the week, i.e 6 hours only per day max (M-F) during term.
This left the other 4hrs per day needed (x 3) to be paid for.   
We needed it all year round (minus our hols), so 13wks no free hours. 
Payment was by monthly invoices, spread 'equally' across the financial year only.

This would have left us with an equally as large bill each month as yours, for one child, given we would have only been 'allowed' access to 60% of the 'free' 30hrs in accordance with the Nursery's terms and conditions, even though we would have been attending for the 30hrs per week only (+ out of term).


In the end, we found a wonderful Childminder, much less restrictive in their business model, less overheads, less staffing etc, and much much cheaper, with full access to free 30hrs when and where it suited us.