Help Pleeeeeaase!

[Guest]

How are people in full day care (nurseries) managing the new funding system. We are now offering 15 hrs per week. I am really struggling to ensure we do not end up at a loss. For example if I have a parent that chooses to attend 9-5pm and use 8 hrs of funding they will expect to pay zero, yet 8 x £3.54 = £28.32, whereas our daily rate is £36.00????

 

Apologies if this has been covered already, I'm sure there's a simple solution but I can't find it and im now in panic mode as I need to invoice next week for september.

 

Any advice would be great xx

[sunnyday]

Hi Kate - I'm sessional pre-school so can't give you any real advice.

 

I can't see that there is a 'way round it' as charging 'top up' is now completely out of the question.

 

This is one of the main issues behind the 'saveournurseries' campaign.

 

http://www.saveournurseries.org

 

Hope someone comes along soon with a more helpful response.

 

Good luck

Sunnyday

 

Just a quick edit to say - that link doesn't take you anywhere very useful - apologies for that - they used to have lots of great info. on their website

Edited August 20, 2009 by sunnyday

[Cait]

Do you charge for the lunch hour? Would that help a little bit?

[fimbo]

in my area they are only allowed to claim up to 6 hours per day according to the parents guide (see attatched)

the guide also says that we can charge the parents the extra hours over the 6

 

on the back of our parent declaration forms it states ---"GCC will fund a NE place for your child to attend a maximum of 2 settings for up to a maximum of 15 hours per week/ a mamimum of 6 hours per day - you will be responsible for paying any additional daily attendance over 6 hours regardless of whether your childs toatl weekly attendence toatls 15 hours or less"

 

does it say something similar on the back of your decleration forms?

__Free_for_3__4_____Parents___Guide__2_.pdf

__Free_for_3__4_____Parents___Guide__2_.pdf

Edited August 20, 2009 by ROLYMO

[Guest]

To help you, they can only claim 15 hours over 3 days. Ie 7+7+1. Therefore you can charge what you like. Also you can charge for food. Ie you charge £36.00 per day and the grant is £24.78 you have £11.22 to charge them for Lunch and the extra hour.

 

Simples

[Guest]

Just also to add I know a local nursery to me who now has a different price structure for '3+ Grant children'.

 

Nurseries used to charge more for 2-3 years and less for 3-5 because of the staff ratio's, well, just increase the price for the 3 year old grant earners.

[chasrosam]

Hi, we have been offering the 15 hours for over a year now and as previously mentioned parents can only claim up to 6 hours in one day so we charge our hourly rate for any additional hours. We also ask for a donation towards the tuck for each session which helps to pay for the fruit/snacks.

 

Hope this helps :-)

[belle06]

Hi

To avoid losing out as much we sought advice and have been told the way to do it is to get your daily rate eg £33.00 which is for 10 hours divide by 10 to get an hourly rate eg £3.33 and if parents clain 6 hours funding for that day they get a reduction of £19.98 on the days fees this is done the same for a child doing a full time weekly rate. This way they get there free hours but we do not lose out as much. Hope this makes sense

Edited August 20, 2009 by belle06

[Cait]

This doesn't mean that you are charging parents a 'top-up' for their free entitlement time does it? Charging them the additional and true cost of their session?

[fimbo]

Hi

To avoid losing out as much we sought advice and have been told the way to do it is to get your daily rate eg £33.00 which is for 10 hours divide by 10 to get an hourly rate eg £3.33 and if parents clain 6 hours funding for that day they get a reduction of £19.98 on the days fees this is done the same for a child doing a full time weekly rate. This way they get there free hours but we do not lose out as much. Hope this makes sense

 

We were told we couldnt do it that way - we were told our invoices could not show the full cost of the total hours with the deduction for the free hours, the hours above the allowed had to be clearly shown and charged for seperatley.

its all a bit confusing really -as the way you do it makes sense to me, and it would make sense to a parent -and i cant see what difference it makes to the Govt as to how the invoices are made out as long as the entitlement is met.

[Guest]

That's rubbish - most, sorry ever single parent views the NEG as a 'DISCOUNT SCHEME' so we treat it as such.

 

The only people that dont are parents who use purely the hours alone, term time only. Of which in two nurseries I have 1 parent.

 

We work out the hourly rate, times it by 15 hours, times by 38 school weeks and divide by 12 months. We then have a discount to offer a parent of our monthly fees. This formula is the same for all hour session.

Edited August 20, 2009 by Guest

[belle06]

we have been told this is fine the Neg guidance states that parents can not be charged a top up of the 15 hours which we do not do any parents accessing 15 hours does not pay anything for their hours only for lunch if required. And we give them 15 hours of their hourly rate free which was the way we where advised to do it by a local LA advisor. We where told that as long as we could show that parents where getting the 15 hours free how we invoiced was our bussiness as long as we adhered to the NEG guidance we where fine. The problem is there seems to be different interpretations at each LA

[Buttercup]

I do not want to get too deep into this debate as i am not nusery but I know our county is really strict on top ups and charges for extra hours and 15 hours free should mean that. One thing that I thought was the same everywhere was the 6 hour rule.

[Guest]

7 Hours in Hampshire & no max in Surrey planned for 2010 when they goto 15 hours.

[Guest]

I think what you need to keep in mind is that any charges for the NON funded hours MUST NOT be used to subsidise the low NEG levels. The funded hours are free at the point of delivery including no additional charges added to the non funded hours. ie: The non funded hours tariff should be the same for everyone irrespectve of whether they receive funded hours or not.

LEA's may, when they review your accounts ask how you have calculated your fees structure to ensure that fees paid for non NEG times are not used to finance the NEG sessions. This is the nightmare because realistically the NEG does not cover the running costs!!

 

Peggy

[Guest]

Agree to a point BUT in Hampshire we have had a huge rise in the NEG and therefore it has allowed us to have our price increase to. With the increase from the NEG and us having a £2 a day fee increase the parents are still saving.

 

You need to differ between a pre school/community or a Day Nursery 'Business'.

 

Neil

[HappyMaz]

I think what this thread illustrates very clearly is that when you have a query about what you can and cannot charge parents for it is great to canvas opinion here but the final arbiter will always be the Local Authority who is responsible for administering the nursery education funding and who sets the terms and conditions that settings must comply with.

 

Some rules will be nationwide, but others may be at the discretion of the Local Authority. In order to fulfil the obligtions that are attached to claiming NEG funding it is really important that you get clear guidance about what you can and cannot do. The implications of having that funding withdrawn from your setting doesn't bear thinking about!

 

Maz

[Mouseketeer]

well i'm hoping you guys will have this all ironed out before we go to 15 hrs 2010

[debs1]

Hi there

 

We offer the 15 hours over three 5 hour sessions per week for those wanting only term time hours. We do give some flexibility if somebody is doing full days, then we just charge an hourly rate for additional hours.

If we let parents do only a few hours a day, i wouldn't be able to exist.

If parents are full time, we actually deduct the funding off for them.

 

At the end of the day, you have to make your business sustainable. It's okay saying offer 15 hours per week, which is good, but you have to do what's best for you. They should actually offer a bit more of an insentive for losses during holiday times.

 

 

Hope you decide what to do, as i know it can get quite complicated.

 

Deb