Nursery Taking advantage of 15 Hours

Cavouranth

Morning,

Looking for some opinions please on a situation I'm in.

My wife works at a nursery and is eligible for a discount (only way we can afford to send a child there).

Using example numbers to make this simpler. Before the new 2year old funding kicked in. We received a 40% discount on fees.

Lets say
£1000 invoice.
£400 discount

£600 payable

The nursery is now taking the year 2 funding off of the total bill before discount. In this example  the funding is worth £300.

£1000 invoice
£300 funding

£700 sub total.

£280 Discount (40% of £700)

Total Payable £420

I know how this looks. The total payable is less for me. Which in theory, is lovely, shouldn't grumble. But it means that the nursery is taking £120 more for the same month (£420 from us plus £300 funding).

Feels to me like they're taking advantage of the funding situation to reduce the discount, at our expense so they can make more money.

I was looking forward to the funding so we could afford to send child in 1 extra day a week and not need a grandparent every week for that day. So in our situation the funding is not really doing what it was designed to do.

What would you do or say in this situation?

These are example numbers to make the maths simple.

maman

It's difficult as it's also your wife's employer. 

Personally, I'd ask them to explain the maths and whether perhaps they'd made a mistake. Show a copy of the current invoice and ask 'innocently' why it seems they were working it out differently.

At least, this way they'd have to be honest and tell you up front whether policy has changed or there's something different about these new hours. 

Also, does another employee use the nursery? You could check whether the same applies to them and perhaps approach the finance person together. 

sheramber

Their argument  could be that the discount is on what you pay. You do not pay for the funded hours so there is no discount on these hours.

saajan_12

Is the 40% discount a contractual perk of the job or a benefit she's entitled to by the govt? If contractual, it's just whatever she and the employer agrees, there's no "right" way to calculate. They could offer 40% off your out of pocket expenses, or 40% of the listed price.. seems they're only willing to give the former. Your wife can either take it or move elsewhere which will give her a better package.