Funded Sessions

[Guest]

Hope someone can throw some words of wisdon my way with this query!

first.......a question.....how much do you charge per hour at your settings?

second......another question....can you/or do you charge parents a top up if there child is funded? As the government funding doesn't come to the same amount if they paid for it can you charge parents the extra.

 

I don't do this at the moment because I wasn't aware you could but I have been told recently that you can!!!???

Is this true?

[Inge]

sorry, being sessional our children tend to be funded so cannot help part one..and being a charity those which attend a few sessions pay the same as we get for a funded session to make sure the funding does not suppliment them,

 

but in our area we are still not able to charge for ANYTHING when it is a funded child.. the session is just that, funded, and must be totally free of all costs.

 

Inge

[Guest]

You can not charge a top up. You can charge what ever you like for any time above the 12 1/2 hours. (or I believe above a 2 1/2 hour session in some authorities)

[Guest]

we get £8.24 for funded children but only charge £6 per session, so our unfunded children bring less money in.

[Inge]

best thing to do is ring your Early years department for clarification

 

Inge

[belle06]

I was under the impression (someone correct me if I am wrong) that within the practice guidance for the NEG funding it says that under no circumstances can parents be charged for the two and a half hours this has to be totally free. Within my settings we lose money on the NEG funding as it does not cover the two and a half hours.

[hali]

yep belle you are correct - we charge £7 per hour for un funded children

[Deb]

You cannot charge parents for any part of the funded session ie the 2.5 hours. However, you can charge for extra services that you provide, provided that you do not charge funded children any more than you charge non-funded children. Parents must also be given the option to only attend for the 2 1/2 hours ie they do not have to take up the extra 1/4 hour in our case.

 

So in our setting we charge for lunch club and the extra quarter of an hour that we are open, both optional services. Currently our fee for NON funded children is £8.00 for 2.75 hours which equates to £2.90 an hour or 73 p for 1/4 hour. So we can charge 73 p for the extra 1/4 hour to funded children. We also charge 15p per child per session for snack.

 

Our NEG will be going up to £8.65 from April for 2.5 hours.

 

Hope that's some help.

 

We are also slowly trying to increase our non-funded session fee to bring it in line with the funded grant per session as the NEG is not supposed to supplement non-funded children. This has been a slow process as nobody likes big price increases. We still have some way to go as the NEG equates to £3.46 per hour and even with our proposed increase to £8.50 per session in September this would only equate to £3.09 per hour. We would need to charge £9.50 per session for non-funded to equal the NEG.

Edited March 8, 2008 by Deb

[Inge]

this is a double post of 1 subject. so advice already given in other one.

 

Inge

[Beau]

I've merged the double post for you.

[Guest]

you should be signing a contract at this time of year for the next years funding. If your LEA follow the government directive it will say that you can't charge any thing for the 2 & half hours but you could charge what you like for anytie after that. You can divide it down to 1/4 hours if you want to.

 

Steph

[HappyMaz]

yep belle you are correct - we charge £7 per hour for un funded children

SEVEN POUNDS AN HOUR??

 

Maz

[HappyMaz]

we get £8.24 for funded children but only charge £6 per session, so our unfunded children bring less money in.

Why don't you increase the rate for unfunded children? If they're unfunded and under three, they actually cost more to provide for... Mind you, that's easy for me to say - of course you might have sustainability issues and raising the fee might cause hardship. I'm going to slink away now...

 

Maz

[narnia]

Maz, that's exactly the position we're in, and the other playgroup in our town receives subsidised rent from the parish council, so they can charge lower fees.......which means we dare not put ours up.It's very frustrating, but we just grit our teeth and hope to get more children in.I had two new children turn up on Friday for a look round........and they are both 3 years old, so if they choose to come to us, I have to give them free sessions until the next term.Obviously, I hope they DO come to us, but in the meantime, it makes us even more short of income!

and yes, in answer to the original post, no top-up is permiited in our area, and we have to sign a contract with our LEA agreeing to that.

[Guest]

Narnia, do you mind me asking if your comment above means that your LA does not allow new starters to claim NEG until the start of a new term?

 

I had thought it was available everywhere but maybe not. Our LA has New Starter Claim forms and extra session forms meaning that if a child eligible for funding starts after the initial claim period of a term we can put in a new starter claim, and if a current child asks for more sessions we can increase immediately and complete an extra sessions claim. I believe we are able to do this at once but in reality we usually wait until the next term and add it to our termly claim rather than receiving drips of money throughout the term.

 

This is my first post on this forum but can I also say thanks to everyone for the informative and sensible discussion that goes on here. It is really interesting.

[narnia]

Holly, welcome to the forum!!

 

Yes, that's exactly what I mean! The flip side of the coin though, is that if a child moves away we don't have to repay their funding, or send it to the next provider.your LEA seems to have a better system though!

[Inge]

we too claim mid term..we have to claim for any children or declare leavers before the end of current funding period.. our next payment is then adjusted accordingly...had this for a couple of years now works much better as we always gain children but seldom seem to lose them!

 

Inge

[Guest]

Hi. Yes we are like Inge in that we rarely lose someone without replacing them so it tends to work in our favour all the time. I wonder if things will change for everyone when the new way of funding is rolled out to cover all maintained and PVI settings. As I understand it a maintained setting will only be able to claim for the sessions attended rather than as is currently the case, claiming for the number of places registered for. I think that this has already happened in our LA as my children's school's FSU changed their admissions radically about the time the New starters/extra session claims started for us (I am in a PVI setting).

 

I am looking forward to a level playing field for all PVI and maintained settings, especially as it was mentioned at a recent training session that the Ofsted inspections would also be moving to be equal in terms of notice given.

[HappyMaz]

This is my first post on this forum but can I also say thanks to everyone for the informative and sensible discussion that goes on here. It is really interesting.

Welcome to the Forum holly - we try to be informative. But not always sensible!

 

Maz

[Guest]

I had thought it was available everywhere but maybe not. Our LA has New Starter Claim forms and extra session forms meaning that if a child eligible for funding starts after the initial claim period of a term we can put in a new starter claim, and if a current child asks for more sessions we can increase immediately and complete an extra sessions claim. I believe we are able to do this at once but in reality we usually wait until the next term and add it to our termly claim rather than receiving drips of money throughout the term.

 

We have these forms. You fill them in when needed, however you will not receive the funding until the next term.

 

If a child leaves and goes to a new setting you proportion the funding and send on the remaining funding to the new setting (if requested) or fill the space with a new child.

 

If a child leaves before half term, you are supposed to send back the funding, however if a child leaves after half term you are eligible to keep the funding.

 

Like everyone else, our area does not allow you to top up your NEG grant.

[narnia]

Holly, where did you hear about Ofsted giving notice.....do you mean to ALL settings (eg preschools???)

[Guest]

I was at some training over the last week through LA but I can't remember who said it now, and we were told that the Ofsted framework for inspection was being revised. This makes sense as we are switching to EYFS. but it was also said that as part of the revisions they are looking to make things more equal so as PVI settings get no notice of inspection and maintained settings usually get a few days notice, this was meant to be changing in the revisions but as to how it will work they were not yet sure. I must say it has been a bugbear of mine that a school FSU gets notice and we don't, not that I am suggesting the dress the place for inspection...although I did watch it happen once!