Funding Query

[mrsbat]

Can anyone confirm if this is ok please?

 

We have a couple of children at my setting who use all their funding at another setting. Up to now we have just charged the same fee as unfunded children (£16 for 6 hour session) but I've decided to now charge at the funded rate as we are losing out (funded is £21.09 for the same session)

 

Is this allowed? we are a voluntary run pre-school and need to "earn" money where possible to pay wages, get new toys etc etc (it's not for profit)

 

Hope some of that makes sense.......

[Deb]

Can anyone confirm if this is ok please?

 

We have a couple of children at my setting who use all their funding at another setting. Up to now we have just charged the same fee as unfunded children (£16 for 6 hour session) but I've decided to now charge at the funded rate as we are losing out (funded is £21.09 for the same session)

 

Is this allowed? we are a voluntary run pre-school and need to "earn" money where possible to pay wages, get new toys etc etc (it's not for profit)

 

Hope some of that makes sense.......

 

 

Hi mrsbat

 

There used to be something in a previous agreement that stipulated that we could charge funded children for services over and above their entitlement provided that it was at the same rate as non-funded children. However with the introduction of the 15 hours we had a new agreement, which I'm afraid is at work, so I am not sure. Do you have access to your local authorities provider agreement which stipulates this sort of thing?

 

As a voluntary not for profit organization I understand how difficult it is to make ends meet. We have brought our fees more in line with the funded fee this year.

[HappyMaz]

I charge unfunded children at a different rate to those who are funded. It is bad enough that I lose money for every funded child on roll without losing money on the unfunded ones. I can't see how the Local Authority can dictate what you charge because this will fall outside of the agreements you sign regarding the delivery of the 'free' entitlement.

 

Always worth checking with your Local Authority though!

[mundia]

Just worth checking with your LA, but as far as I can see, its up to you what you charge if? they are using their funded hours elsewhere.

 

My only concern would be suddenly putting up fees quite a bit, how do you think your parents would respond to that, and would it affect your relationship with you and their use of you as a provider? Would it be something you could give plenty of notice of?

[Buttercup]

I charge £3.40 per hr for non funded hours which include hrs over 15 or if someone uses all hours elsewhere. We get £3.22 funding. This is still cheaper than a childminder or nursery. No one has queried it.

 

The only other sessions charged are for 2-3yr olds £6.50 for 2 hr session.

 

I cannot see it a problem why should you loose out.

 

Buttercup

[Inge]

Can anyone confirm if this is ok please?

 

We have a couple of children at my setting who use all their funding at another setting. Up to now we have just charged the same fee as unfunded children (£16 for 6 hour session) but I've decided to now charge at the funded rate as we are losing out (funded is £21.09 for the same session)

 

Is this allowed? we are a voluntary run pre-school and need to "earn" money where possible to pay wages, get new toys etc etc (it's not for profit)

 

Hope some of that makes sense.......

 

 

My one concern with this is that the authority could then claim that the children who are funded are subsidising the other children who are not funded.. or you would not need to charge more for these children...

 

may be better to raise all fees for all children to same amount or by some amount..

 

as buttercup has said they charge more than funding as an hourly rate for the non funded children

 

question I always asked when setting fees was if we had no funding how much would I have to charge to stay afloat?... this was the fee we set for all children.. then no one could claim that funding was subsidising other children which we had to ensure we could show was not happening..

LA cannot tell you how much to charge but could question why the difference, and as a parent I would probably ask about why I was being charged more, how unfair it all was and claim discrimination... particularly knowing that if the others are younger and have a higher ratio needed so cost more anyway..

 

would need to step very carefully I think,

Edited December 21, 2010 by Inge

[kristina]

Hi

we receive £3.70 per hour for funded children and this is what I charge for non funded, in fact compared to other settings our fees are quite low for non funded as they are all 2 year olds so overheads are higher because of staffing!!

Although you would need to check it does state in our agreement (Essex) that additional extras are at providers own discretion and this includes non funded children (not quoted word for word but that's the basics of it!).

 

Kris

[Guest]

You'll save yourself a lot of grief if you can charge everyone the same, as others have said.

 

We have just put our unfunded rates up to match what we get for funded children. Someone on here said about not using funding to support unfunded and I think that is fair.

 

It makes invoicing much easier, and none of the parents have even mentioned it as an issue as it wasn't that much of an increase and they can see we are short of money.

[thumperrabbit]

We also changed our fees last year to be the same as funded as if I'm honest we did seem to favour having funded children attending rather than non-funded.

Our fees and funding are now £3.11 per hour