new funding arrangements

[finleysmaid]

Hi All

sorry been busy so not been on much! Has anyone got any ideas as to how to stop us all going out of business? !!!!

we are a not for profit charity in a sole use rented property currently offering 32,5 hours care and education, 38 weeks a year for the grand sum of £32.50 a week. This is claimed from a charge for lunch club of £6.50 a day in between our two sessions. We do not demand people attend it and they are welcome to take their children out for lunch ! the new government rules will expect me to 'put' this half hour session somewhere else in the day but we run after school club so cant jiggle much. Anyone have a get round/good idea/solution?????? getting rather concerned this small change in wording could remove 33k from our bottom line and put us out of work!

[sunnyday]

Hi fm

So good to see you posting ❤️

So sorry that I can't help you, as you know I am long retired, can't believe that you haven't had any responses, must be so many in the same position, hopefully this will 'bump' for you...

[finleysmaid]

Thanks Sunnyday. Always pleased of support even if it is from someone as old as you ! 🤣❤️

[sunnyday]

On 13/07/2025 at 13:29, finleysmaid said:

Thanks Sunnyday. Always pleased of support even if it is from someone as old as you ! 🤣❤️

Cheeky! (but very true!) 

[Erin]

Im not sure if it helps but we are a maintained nursery school. We have core funded hours of 9-3 then offer the following add ons:

breakfast club 7.45- 9am £5

mini afterschool club 3 - 4 £5

after school club 3 - 5.30 £10

We currently charge 2's, 3's & 4's the same price but we are due to start taking from 9mth in October but will need to review staffing costs to accommodate taking younger children.

Could you maybe change your first half hour to be a breakfast club?

[Cait]

That sounds a good idea if it’s do-able.

 

We operated 9-3 and charged if children stayed for lunch time.  This meant we had some children staying all day and others for morning and lunch and different children for lunch and afternoon.   Is this not allowed under the new funding? 

Edited July 21 by Cait

[finleysmaid]

Thanks for the replies.❤️

Unfortunately Cait  thats the problem we have just been told we will no longer be able to do the lunch club as we did.This would be classed as an artificial break (in other words you cant have your block of 30 hour funding without a charge) We can do it that way but would have to ask for a voluntary contribution which is not really a financially viable way to operate! 

Erin ...Thank you for replying We start at 8.15 and children in at 8.30 . My staff already do a 9 and 3/4 hour day . I feel we would need to change the staff team to accommodate extra hours which wouldn't work. 

I think my plan at the moment (mainly because we've already sent out parent contracts is to stick to a similar model but offer lunch club as a voluntary contribution and then charge more for after school hours. TBH its not ideal we have to sign our provider agreement next week and have been told that if we dont we wont get any funding.

[Mouseketeer]

Hi Fm, it’s all become such a headache, we have always let funded chn use all hours we are open so no ‘artificial’ break as it’s now being referred as, I would shift your lunch time to either beginning or end of session as Erin said and hope parents don’t choose to drop off late or collect early.

We are going to be affected more by the ‘must allow parents to use their funded hours only’, we follow the school times whose site we run on for safeguarding the gate is locked so we’d have to keep going back to collect late comers or early leavers at the gate, we offer a 2.5 days which is 0.5hrs to pay above 15 hrs, if they all decide they want to stick at 15 hrs that would be a big problem, I can see the only way to offer 15 hrs only is by doing 5x 3hrs am sessions that fit with our current morning session times, and hope that won’t be convenient so they keep paying the 0.5 hrs for 2.5 days 🤦‍♀️
 

hi and welcome to the forum Erin 😊 

Edited July 22 by Mouseketeer

[finleysmaid]

On 22/07/2025 at 17:46, Mouseketeer said:

Hi Fm, it’s all become such a headache, we have always let funded chn use all hours we are open so no ‘artificial’ break as it’s now being referred as, I would shift your lunch time to either beginning or end of session as Erin said and hope parents don’t choose to drop off late or collect early.

We are going to be affected more by the ‘must allow parents to use their funded hours only’, we follow the school times whose site we run on for safeguarding the gate is locked so we’d have to keep going back to collect late comers or early leavers at the gate, we offer a 2.5 days which is 0.5hrs to pay above 15 hrs, if they all decide they want to stick at 15 hrs that would be a big problem, I can see the only way to offer 15 hrs only is by doing 5x 3hrs am sessions that fit with our current morning session times, and hope that won’t be convenient so they keep paying the 0.5 hrs for 2.5 days 🤦‍♀️
 

hi and welcome to the forum Erin 😊 

I AGREE ! If we shift to 9 we will lose money as the school starts at 9 so they will just drop off after school (for the majority!) if we stop at 2.30 that might work but we will have to charge the after school lot much more to cover the loss. And of course no guarantee that anyone will pay that either! We've just had Three children pull out of 30 hour spaces...So lost all that money and no recompense! 

[louby loo]

Sorry, late to the party.

The whole thing is a nightmare! Can you imagine any other business putting up with the c**p we have to!!!!

We have to sign our contracts in March- very often without a confirmed hourly rate... Can you see the head of the Bank on England working with those terms.

We have started a breakfast club - non funded, and now close earlier to cover the lunch break for the 15 hours funded. Currently we allow 30 hours funding to cover this 15 mins - and this actually attracts the '15 hours' parents to pay for the extra 15 mins.

We too are a not-for-profit graoup, if i'm honest i can't see us lasting beyond Christmas. I am now far to old for all this messing about having to justify every last penny they give us!!

Rant over.

[finleysmaid]

The stupid thing about this is that it is supposed to keep costs down for parents but in our case it will rise for most to cover those that are funded only. The government are still not paying us enough to cover our increasing costs. And if anyone quotes me the funded two year old rate again i will scream.....it still brings in less for 5 x 2 year olds than 8x 3 year olds....i don't get why anyone in the government hasn't worked that out!!!

[Cait]

On 29/07/2025 at 10:02, finleysmaid said:

The stupid thing about this is that it is supposed to keep costs down for parents but in our case it will rise for most to cover those that are funded only. The government are still not paying us enough to cover our increasing costs. And if anyone quotes me the funded two year old rate again i will scream.....it still brings in less for 5 x 2 year olds than 8x 3 year olds....i don't get why anyone in the government hasn't worked that out!!!

Erm,  because to get into government you actually have to be clueless about your given area 🤭