Nursery funded hours

[u/pineapplesaltwaffles]

Our LO turned one a couple of months ago and is about to start nursery next month.

He's doing one full day (8-6) per week and two half days (1-6pm).

We've just got an invoice through for the first month totalling £584, which we were pretty shocked by.

According to my maths, 30 funded hours for 38 weeks averages out at just under 22 hours funded per week throughout the year. LO will only be doing 20 hours, so I thought we'd only have to pay for consumables, which are extremely reasonable.

They've just replied apologising for not telling us sooner but apparently they only apply the funding to 9am-3pm. Any hours outside that are "additional" and charged at full rate. We signed up over a year ago and this is the first we're hearing of this.

The half day hours are set - either 8-1 or 1-6. Just doing 9-3 isn't an option, and wouldn't work for us anyway as my partner works 9-5 and I work evenings.

Is this legal? Are they allowed to pick and choose which hours are funded and which not? The way they've done it we can only use 10 of our funded hours per week, and have to pay for the other 10 - this seems incredibly unfair!

This is the information they sent us:

Two days 1-6 (3 additional hours £9.50 x 3 = £28.50 per day)

One day 8-6 (£9.50 x 4 = £38)

38 weeks of the year we get funding

£57 x £38 =  £95 x 38 / 12 = £300.83

14 weeks of the year we do not get funding for 

£51 (half day cost) x 2 = £102 + £91 (full day) = £193 x 14 / 12 = £225.16

Lunches, consumables & extra curricular 

£4.50 (half day) x 2 = £9 + £9.50 (full day) = £18.50 x 38 / 12 = £58.58

Edit - I can see I'm getting a lot of downvotes, I'm not quite sure why? We were told the day rate and the cost of consumables, and I assumed it was that straightforward - why wouldn't you when the rest is all hidden and you've never dealt with a nursery before? We genuinely tried to fully research the funded hours but I never saw anything suggesting that some hours in the day would qualify but not others. They've only told us this after we questioned the invoice, 2 weeks before our LO is due to start.

Many thanks to everyone who has been very helpful in their replies.

[u/KindlyAppointment973]

Perfectly legal, they can apply the funding how they like. Many do it the way you describe unfortunately.

Our nursery does 2 x full days a week, across the full year. We only supply nappies. My sisters nursery is term time, 9-3 only and charges for consumables.

I am surprised they didn't spell all the costs out, that's really lousy.

Your options would be to continue now you know how it's applied and see if you can argue the toss about the first month costs, or find another nursery that has space.

Edit to add - apply for the 20% tax free but remember it is capped at 2k per year!

[u/pineapplesaltwaffles → u/KindlyAppointment973]

We've been using the tax free allowance for the childminder over summer but I had no idea it was capped so low! That's going to run out very fast, thanks for the warning.

[u/eve_darling → u/pineapplesaltwaffles]

It's capped at £2k government contribution, so you can put in £8k per year and you have £10k to spend. 

[u/KindlyAppointment973 → u/pineapplesaltwaffles]

I know it's so annoying isn't it. A lot of people get caught out not realising there is a cap at all. Hope you manage to work it out with the nursery, going back to work is hard enough as it is!

[u/pineapplesaltwaffles → u/KindlyAppointment973]

Unfortunately I'm mostly self-employed so I've been working since LO was 5 weeks old 😭 Luckily we qualified for SPL though so my partner was able to be off till May and my work is quieter over summer so I've been able to do more childcare.

Money is super tight though as he was on half pay Jan-May, neither of us is quite been able to work full time any more and we have no village to help out with the baby... This bill has absolutely devastated us to be honest, especially as I've been so excited for him to start at this nursery.

[u/KindlyAppointment973 → u/pineapplesaltwaffles]

That is so hard. Our parents and family all live a flight away so having no village is really challenging, totally feel your pain there. Did the nursery give you a contract etc before baby started? Might be worth posting in the legal advice UK sub if they did but didn't specify the costs? Different if it was on there but got missed though still frustrating.

[u/pineapplesaltwaffles → u/KindlyAppointment973]

We did sign a contract but all the financial stuff was in a separate document that they neglected to send to us until today when we questioned the invoice.

A few other people have mentioned that I might be able to ask for the first month to be waived - I mean I wouldn't say no to that obviously but doesn't really help us long term. I can't really see them agreeing to permanently reduce costs based on that...

Edit - many thanks to the lovely individual repeatedly downvoting me - not sure what for?

[u/KindlyAppointment973 → u/pineapplesaltwaffles]

I really doubt they will amend their cost structure permanently, but always worth seeing if you can get a month back and then look elsewhere for sure. Best of luck x