Fee Increase

[thumperrabbit]

Hi all

 

Has anybody had any thoughts as to how much you are going to raise your fees for September?

We usually have an increase of £1 per 2 1/2 hour session, but as we are going upto 3 hours this will obviously need to be more.

To actually cover our staff wages bill we need to raise it by £3.50 per session!!! a lot to do with the fact that we are still playing catch up from a few years back when funding was good, so fees weren't raised

[Rea]

Oh good grief, I hadnt thought of that!!!

 

 

Unless the funded children get the 3 hours and the others start later or finish earlier?

Edited March 12, 2010 by Rea

[lynned55]

Oh dear. that's going to be difficult isn't it? Wee're lucky as we increased our hours (and fees) 2 years ago, so wont have to increase staff time or salaries in April.

[thumperrabbit]

Oh good grief, I hadnt thought of that!!!

 

 

Unless the funded children get the 3 hours and the others start later or finish earlier?

 

talked about this one until we are all blue in the face!

 

starting late or leaving earlier would be so much disruption as we are only in 1 room.

i could imagine if we start the 2 year olds later that all the mums would arrive early

if we finish them 30 mins earlier (so still keep at 2 1/2 hr session) then they will probably pick up late!

and what about childminders who are collecting a couple of children in different age ranges.

 

We just don't know what to do, 3 hours is going to mean such a huge £ increase parents may not pay it, but unless staff don't have an extra 1/2hour of pay

 

Anymore thoughts anyone?

[Panders]

Do you mean you are raising your fees to £3.50 per session, or to £3.50 per hour?

 

I own our pre-school, we have always done 3 hour sessions, but as we are only open 4 mornings per week, some of my sessions will need to be 4 hours long in order to offer 15 hours in September.

 

My intention is to keep fees in line with what my LA pay for 3 year olds, that is going to be about £3.90 per hour. I do find that our 2 and a half year olds generally only do the term before they receive funding, however, we have some parents who still start their child at 2 and half and pay the full fees. That's our fee - they know that before registering and they make up their minds to pay, or go elsewhere. I have to say though, that we are probably one of the cheapest in our area at the moment.

[Guest]

Ours are going from £6 to £7.50 a session. Parents were quite happy with the % change as they can see what they are getting and are over the moon about the extra time.... even tho we already do 2 3/4 hours. Bizarre!

[thumperrabbit]

Do you mean you are raising your fees to £3.50 per session, or to £3.50 per hour?

 

I own our pre-school, we have always done 3 hour sessions, but as we are only open 4 mornings per week, some of my sessions will need to be 4 hours long in order to offer 15 hours in September.

 

My intention is to keep fees in line with what my LA pay for 3 year olds, that is going to be about £3.90 per hour. I do find that our 2 and a half year olds generally only do the term before they receive funding, however, we have some parents who still start their child at 2 and half and pay the full fees. That's our fee - they know that before registering and they make up their minds to pay, or go elsewhere. I have to say though, that we are probably one of the cheapest in our area at the moment.

 

Sorry Panders I didn't make it clear - to pay for the extra 1/2 hour we need to increase the fees by another £3.50 to cover just the staff wages and extra rent, we are very worried that it will price us out of the local market and even with that increase we have to fundraise like mad to pay for insurance, resources, snacks etc

We pride ourselves on having a low adult:child ratio and it is a real selling point however, I don't think we can keep it up much longer

Unfortunately we can't rely on the funding anymore (which is going down for us) as many of our children leave as soon as they are funded and go to the nursery at school, as they have opened 'wrap around care' in an afternoon.

Our outlook is getting bleak

[Guest]

Hi, just a thought, we have done the 15 hours flexible for awhile now, (we were a pilot area). We too wondered how to do this. At first we started doing the extra half hour at the end of the session and parents paid for the extra half hour if they wanted it. This didnt work at all, it only lasted a term. We then changed it to an early bird session (half an hour) for people to drop off early, pay an extra 1.75 for the half hour then the normal session fee for the session. This works really well now, those on vouchers come early, those children who are paying generally come for session time only.

 

The fees do look a bit messy as we have the early bird then the 3 hour session (Monday, Wednesday and Friday, under 3s 7.75 over 3s £10 per session if claiming vouchers elsewhere) Then a 2.5 hour session Tuesday and Thursday under 3s 6.60 over 3s 8.30 per session.

 

So dont know if you can make your extra half hour look attractive to parents to be able to charge them.

[Guest]

I'm interested in this post because we have only just - since half term - gone on to the pilot scheme. The advice in our area has been to move to an hourly rather than sessional rate. As we'd just put our fees up after Christmas we've not sorted it yet. We are doing 9 - 12, 12 -3 each day and have changed it so that sessions for everyone are noe 3 hourly. This meant we didn't charge for the extra 1/2 hour on our paid-for sessions which kind of negated the January increase. We'll need to review it again for September. Have to say it's easier just having the one pick up/drop off time at 12. We used to be very flexible between 11.30 & 12.30 but now billing is also simpler. The downside was that some of the children initially found the extra half hour a bit hard to cope with but they seem to be coping well enough now.

[Inge]

we changed out fees to an hourly rate a couple of years ago.. made it clearer for parents as to how and what they are charged for.. and easier for us too when billing

 

Inge

[dottyp]

Our sessional pre-school charges £11.35 per 3 hour session for non-funded children plus;

 

£1.50 for half hour optional breakfast club

 

£3 per hour optional lunch lunch club!

 

dottyp

[Guest babyjane31]

sorry to hijack a thread but I am getting very worried as we are not moving our sessions to 3 hours, as we used to do this and found that it was just too long for our younger children instead we are sticking with two 2.5 hour sessions with a lunch club in the middle daily. I have been told by our advisor that this is fine as the 15 hour entitlement can be 6 2.5 hour sessions or 5 3 hour sessions anyone else heard this or have I got a lot of re-thinking to do? I'm in cambridgeshire by the way if that makes a difference, have put a call in to advisor to check again!!

[Guest]

we run 2 sessions per day 5 days per week and in order to try to keep all happy staff and parents/children we are opting for the am session to be 2 1/2 hours and the pm session 3 hrs so to be able to include the 15 hr the pm session is aimed at the children 3 1/2 an upwards so should be able to cope with the longer session it means we can still keep to our working day and not disrupt staff and parents having to get to the local schools to collect older children, we start this in september and hope its going to work! its been such a hot topic and we have tried to take into account all options and go for the one that suits us the best. we are all getting tired of thinking about it!

[eyfs1966]

babyjane31 don't panic. You ARE right!! The entitlement is to 15 hrs (preferably flexibly) so actually 6 x 2.5 hrs is more close to the prefeerd model than 5x 3.

That said, were going with the 5 x 3 as we are only open in the mornings.

[Guest babyjane31]

Thanks eyfs 1966 was beginning to think I has missunderstood something again!! and apologies again to thumper rabbit for interrupting your thread

Edited March 15, 2010 by babyjane31

[Guest]

On this subject, could I ask if we are going to be okay to offer the 15 hours?

 

We open 5 mornings a week. Sessions run either 9.30-12.00 or 9.30 - 1.00. We include lunch club as part of 'session time' so those getting funding can use this for either 2.5 or 3.5 hours each day. Those who do more than their funded hours, and any not yet getting funding, pay a rate of £3 an hour (which definitely needs to go up looking at what others are charging).

 

We don't offer it 'flexibly' though, everyone arrives at the same time and either leaves at 12 or 1pm. Is this okay or are we meant to start letting parents arrive when they want? This would make it a bit of a nightmare to check people in and out. We'd basically have to abandon freeflow as this is through the main door.

[HappyMaz]

I think the best thing is to check with your Local Authority about what they consider 'flexibility' to mean. In our LA before the SFF was postponed, we were offered funding enhancements based on how flexible we could. However for us the lowest level of flexibility was 5 x 3 hour sessions.

 

If your sessions are either 2.5 or 3.5 hours long, then in order to get their full entitlement, parents would have to pay for the extra half hour unless of course you're going to let them leave at 12.30. I don't know if you're working in one of the newly created pathfinder authorities for EYSFF, in which case it may depend on the model they have adopted.

 

There may or may not be local rules about what you can charge for, and whether you can insist on parents taking extra hours in order to access their free entitlement. There will definitely be rules about what you can charge parents for, outside of the 15 hours.

 

Is your head hurting yet?

 

Maz

[HappyMaz]

Definitely talk to your Local Authority - I've just been reading the newly issued Code of Practice which you can find here.

 

On page 11 it says:-

 

2.7 The free entitlement is a free, part-time place for each eligible child. Therefore, local authorities should ensure:

 

o No conditions of access / completely free at the point of delivery. Local authorities should ensure that providers which they fund to deliver the free entitlement do not impose on parents conditions of access to which they must agree in order to take-up their free hours, i.e., parents must not be obligated to purchase additional hours or pay lunch time charges in order to secure free provision.

 

The red bits of text are in the document and denote what Local Authorities should do, but not what they must do. So there is still some flexibility it would seem.

 

Maz

[Guest MaryEMac]

We have been offering the 15hrs flexible funding since September and have found it fairly simple. We are open from 9 -3 on a mon.wed.thurs,and friday. Some children come from 9-3, some do 9-12, some do 9-12.30 to include lunch, some do 9-1, some come at 12, have lunch and stay till 3, some come at 12.30 -3. For non funded children we charge £3 per hour. We had to have a cut off point for morning arrivals which was 10 am. This was to allow us to go out on walks and to book in music sessions and Monkeynastix sessions. the hardest part for myself was actually devising a way to make sure with the comings and goings that we didn't exceed our allotted numbers. We charge £1.50 for lunch if parents don't want to use it in their 15 hours allowance.

 

Mary

[Guest]

Thanks Maz and Mary, I will speak to our EYA, she is very helpful with this kind of stuff.

Yes my head IS hurting.

Owwww!

[thumperrabbit]

So is mine SuzieC8 - we have talked about being flexible until we are blue in the face and don't come to any agreeable conclusion by anyone!

We have been told in our area (Midlands) that we aren't charging enough for our 2 year olds as we are only £2.60 per hour and we have to fundraise like crazy, now i know why judging by some peoples fees!

If we do manage to get our 2 year old fees up to a decent rate, then they will be paying much more than our funded children, which will mean less fundraising, hoorah

[Guest]

We offer provision very similar to Mary. It works well but does need some planning when you initially start off. We too have a cut off start time of 10am as it can impact on not only the flow of the day but during settling time with new children the door constantly opening can cause distress. Our hourly rate is £3 but we receive £3.52 for NEG funding (15hrs), we are also on the 2yr old pilot and receive £4.95 per hour for up to 10 hours.

[Guest]

Spoke to our EYT today and they were very helpful.

 

In our authority we are fine to keep going as we are. No problem with setting a start time and asking that all parents come at that time to drop off. Also no problem running over the 3 hours a day and asking parents to pay top up if they stay, so long as they don't have a problem with this.

[thumperrabbit]

Just to update, we had our committee mtg this afternoon, the decision was made to raise our fees from £6.50 per 2.5hr session to £9.30 per 3hr session.

 

I have decided to focus on the hourly increase with the parents as it seems a little less harsh

We are slightly worried though as it is such a huge jump, but needs must.

[SazzJ]

Were based in the north east and we charge £9 per session. We are open from 09:20 am until 12:30 pm

 

These hours were agreed before I started and as far as I know the difference bewteen a 2 1/2 year old attending full time to a 3 year old is nearly £200. Should we be charging more?

 

Our children are only entitiled to the 12 1/2 hours funding but all attend for 3 hrs 10 mins at no extra cost

[Panders]

SazzJ - you should check with your local area authority - but down here in the South, - any time over 12.5 hours the children attend, is charged for at the hourly rate, from the wording of your post - have you been missing out and providing care over the 12.5 for free??

Not good for the old cash flow -

 

I decided that all families would pay the hourly rate which is set by my local authority, so when they start at 2 and a half, and once they receive their grant funding if they are here any longer once they have used up their 12.5 hrs. funding then we charge at the hourly rate.

[SazzJ]

You read correctly Panders. I did mention it when I started but nothing was ever done about it. Little late now lol

[Lyanne]

You read correctly Panders. I did mention it when I started but nothing was ever done about it. Little late now lol

 

Dunno, I'd say now that 15 hours funding is coming in would be a good time to at least get it back to 3 hours rather than 3hrs 10 mins.

[lynned55]

It's not too late. For a number of years we were 'giving; parents 15 mins a day free, when we realised it was costing us somewhere in the region of 7/8k per year we changed it. To soften the blow a bit we extended our hours to the full 3 and charged for the additional 30 mins. This was around 3 years ago and it also meant we didn't have to increase our staffing costs (staff were paid until 12.45 for a 12.15 finish anyway) it gives us 15 mins to pack away (we just have to push everything to one end of hall). So we ended up quite well off financially. Since April we have been funded for 16 hours, so now doesn't matter. But I would always charge again for any additional service. as Lyanne says, with 15 hrs coming in I would either knock off the 10 minutes or charge for them at the funding rate