Just received our letter and proposed fees for when Daffy Jnr’s 15 free hours of nursery care start in Jan.

We currently pay for 50 hours of care (but honestly use around 35) at approximately £5 per hour. The math savy amongst you will have worked this out to be £250 a week. Now, one would assume that by reducing his hours by 15 would equate to a saving of £75 a week for the 38 weeks of entitlement… Not so, their fee rate is £194 per week.

So instead of realising a 30% saving, it’s now more like 20% or only receiving 10 hours. They state in the small print that an admin fee will be applied, but this is ridiculous; over £1000 of admin fee!

Is there anyone you can go to about this?

yeah so called admin and “penalty” clauses have to be fair, they cannot “fine” you only ask or payment of their losses. So this admin fee sounds like a fine to me. I would seek CAB advice or see if a solicitor will do a 1/2 hr free for yu to get you going in the right direction.

Sounds like you have things mixed up?

You were paying £250 a week for 50 hours of care.
Now you’ll be paying £194 for 35 hours of care?

Out of that price an amount will be fixed (all the paperwork, overheads, etc) and the rest is variable. If Jr only does 1 hour a week or 100, theres still going to be a certain about of fixed cost to cover.

If you dont like it shop around and take your business elsewhere?

Seem to remember you don’t get 15 hrs a week for the whole year but only for term time, So works out a bout 10 or 11 hrs per week spread over the year.

The free entitlement Is only for 38 weeks, but the statement categorically states that during term time rates will rise to the full amount; this weekly bill is not averaged over the full 52 weeks.

If you dont like it shop around and take your business elsewhere?

Fair point, but I shouldn’t have to uproot the munchkin because his nursery are being somewhat mercenary.

I spoke to a friend of mine who owns a nursery, and he advised me that the rules around the 15hrs have changed to be more flexible in the nursery’s favor.

For example, ours go 3 days per week – he said don’t be surprised if they allocated 3hrs per day as “free”, hence we’d only get 9.

He did say that a call to Ofsted can ask them to investigate whether the rules are being enforced on your behalf fairly or not, and the nursery could be made to do so if not.

Child care is a nightmare money fest. I thought the 15hrs would save us loads, it didn’t. It’s worse now they are at school as need to invoke friends and family to look after them while we work. We’d almost be better off not working. Where’s the logic in that?!?!

Rant off 🙂

Do we have an enemy list on here? I’m not here that much but would like to not have to read oldmanmtb any more after that comment.

The man has a point though in my opinion.

No my wife is part time for exactly that reason, I just live in the real world and realise these things are difficult. Your ‘troll’ bracketing doesn’t (In my opinion) allow you to behave like a dick.

My phone originally wrote ‘duck’… maybe I should have stuck with that

Daffy, I feel your pain. Our nursery has a formula so complicated I doubt Stephen hawkin could work it out. I work for a local authority and know people in early years. Had a chat. They said they know its an issue with that particular provider, but, “what can you do”….i am sure we were not getting 15 hours free, but 15 hours at a slightly reduces rate.

AA v1 also went to a church run playgroup. They openly had 2 rates, one for cash and a higher rate if using Feee

Why does life balance have to mean giving up work! Stupid bloody comment that always rears its head on these threads. Nurseries are taking the proverbial, parents have a right to work without being fleeced or abused by pond life on here.

Note, he has been deleted now.

I was wondering where my post had gone suggesting he/she was a second login!

40hrs a week costs us £110 a month here in Sweden

I wonder who pays for this “free” childcare? If the parent cares for their own children (there’s a novel idea these days!) at home, can they claim the equivalent amount from us taxpayers?

Do you use your salary sacrifice vouchers thing?

These people spouting the ‘subsidised children’ guff do realise that those will one day be the wage earners who subsidise their bottom wiping service don’t they?

Lady Gresley – Member

I wonder who pays for this “free” childcare? If the parent cares for their own children (there’s a novel idea these days!) at home, can they claim the equivalent amount from us taxpayers?

Please tell me you aren’t so stupid that I have to explain it to you?

If it helps, the subsidy from the government is barely enough to cover the wages of the staff required.

I apologise for my post (which has been removed) and it was designed to provoke a reaction (no apology for that approach) – I am sure that the average nursery is not taking anyone’s eyes out more than any other business and the old adage of ” the market will pay what the market will stand” holds true and frankly if you can afford a £1000 of net income a month on child care then you probably have financial room to make different decisions? I am sure there are people on this site that only earn the minimum wage and I am not sure how they would view some one having a rant (not my words) about paying £5 hour for child care.

Please try to keep up – my child is 3 years old, meaning that my £5 per hour is 1/6 of the child to carer ratio.

This is also a national chain. The only reason I can “afford” £1000 per month is because we don’t spend money on almost anything else. Are you a homeowner? I’m not, my limited funds get spent on my Son.

Careful Oldman thats the sort of thinking that got TJ removed.

Never got a penny for child care. Ours are 12 and 9. Why are you moaning? You had the kids etc etc

Oh wake up you self righteous taunt. 12 years ago property prices were 1/4 of what they are now and childcare wasn’t 60% of take home.

Perhaps it’s still my fault, *facepalm* I should’ve thought ahead and been born earlier!

Never got a penny for child care. Ours are 12 and 9. Why are you moaning? You had the kids etc etc

In some ways a fair point. But the op has a right to make sure he’s being treated fairly regardless of the services he’s paying for.

Could always look after them yourself

over £1000 of admin fee!

How are you calculating that?

The difference between what the reduction per week should be and what’s actually being charged (~£20) multiplied by the number of weeks I have to pay it. 52*20 = £1040.

Could always look after them yourself

Carefull, I imagine you’re the sort to be expecting children to look after their parents in old age rather than dump them in a care home for others to look after, still…..I’m sure a few visits a year to show off the new car and how well they are doing in their career will provide comfort to the parents.

#thisisfcukedupnoexcuseforit

This is turning into one of those depressing threads where some folk out themselves as arses 🙁

No its just the general reaction you will get on here. You had the kids, learn to pay more for holidays, your choice, suck it up princess etc etc

38*20 = £760?

The difference between what the reduction per week should be and what’s actually being charged (~£20) multiplied by the number of weeks I have to pay it. 52*20 = £1040.

Should it not be £19 (75-56) x 38 (number of weeks the discount is applied) = £722

aracer beat me to it

I am, and do generally just suck it up. I did make the choice to have children, I also made the choice to keep the little fella at home for as long as we could (15 months) before having to send him to nursery. We have NO family support, and so it’s quite a heavy burden. We’ve delayed buying a house until the point when the 15 free hours kick in, at which point he’ll also be going down to just 4 days. The idea was that 1 day (10 hours) + 15 free hours from the government would cover exactly half of the of the fees for 38weeks of the year, with childcare vouchers almost making up the rest…

The fact that the fees actually drop from £1065 per month to only £670 and not the £532.50 is somewhat irritating from a maths point of view.

I’m an engineer by profession and as such, maths and facts are the tools I use to do my job – equations should balance.

Therefore, if 50Y = X
Then by same same rule and when all else remains equal, 25Y must and should = 0.5X.

15 hours free no probs in the nursery within our local school and additonal hours or sessions are also very good value , £25 for a full school day.Breakfast and after schoolclub on offer too providing decent food and recreation and only costs £10 for four hours.Free school lunches now too.Before ours could go to nursery/school we took three years off work between us thanks to our employers and the relevant family friendly legislation,no childcare costs and no salary but we’d budgeted for it.
Struggling to find anything to complain about with the current childcare provision round here.
*edit* which is no help to you,sorry

Therefore, if 50Y = X
Then by same same rule and when all else remains equal, 25Y must and should = 0.5X.

50Y + overhead = X

Okay the figures are as follows:

Current = £1065 PCM = £12780 per year, or £245.8 per week

Going down by 25 hours for 38 weeks and 10 hours for 14 weeks should come to £7412 (38*122.6 + 14*196.54)

What it actually comes to is £8833 (38*160 + 14*196.54)

A total difference of £1422 which is ~£120 a month.

Who is stealing from you exactly?