Funding..not happy

[Jelly Baby]

Not in a very good mood..im totally confused and annoyed..not to mention stressed. Apologies
if there is a thread I haven't seen.

I've looked after a little girl for 1.5 years. When she turned 2 her mum asked me to take the funding 2 year olds receive. I was fine with it despite the long wait for payment and found it a bit of a faff with the forms etc but checked with another childminder that I was doing it right etc.

So payday comes and they forgot me, it went on for days with me stressing my rent needed paying etc and finally 10 days late (a total of 10n weeks later) I got my first payment.

Next from comes for the forecast and I fill it in and am due to be paid this Fri. A remittance comes through (which I ddint have last time) and shows a lot less than id been expecting. I send an email and today call the lady who deals with it.

She tells me that I should have been told that I wouldn't get paid for the first week I started it as the little one needs to be with you a whole term before they receive it? (Neither mum or I were told this)

I was told she is over her amount of hours 195..again I didn't know there was a limit

I have also been told that I wont be getting any for August due to the going over of hours so need to contact the mum for payment??

So not am I already stressed that a lot less money is going in but I have to now and retrieve some back from weeks ago and charge for August? The mums not very happy as thought due to her only claiming 12 hours a week its covered.

I do the streteched offer as seemed like the right one to do at the time but im totally lost on whether I should be doing the other route. Other childminders have been paid already and for more hours??

Anyone had any trouble with this?

[loocyloo]

hi, sorry you are having such a nightmare with it. Each LA does things differently, so I can't help on the how you get paid etc.

with my LA once you have an estimate of funded hours, you get paid that monthly, then the last month of each term you get a final payment where they work out any additions/refunds etc.

the stretched entitlement I think, is about 11 hours a week for 52 weeks of the year. ( entitlement is to 570 hours a year )

do you have local childminder friends who know how the local system works and could go through it with you?

good luck xx

[Mouse]

The 195 hours comes from 15 hours a week for 13 weeks of term.

Do you know how many weeks you have claimed for? If you are doing stretched funding it would be 195/12, so about 16 or 17 weeks. What are the dates of the period you have claimed for and how many weeks is that?

I would check that they haven't been paying you for 15 hours a week when you only want 12.

[hectors house]

I work out how many weeks I am intending to work, normally 48 weeks then divide 570 hours (the funding hours) by 48 which comes out as 11.88 (so I round it down to 11.75), if the child comes 2 days @ 7 hours, I put on the invoice
14 hours less 11.75 hours funding, so parent pays for 2.25 hours a week.

I keep a record of the number of funded hours used and at the end of the funding period add back on all the minutes that I rounded down so parent doesn't lose out.

We are lucky in Somerset in that we get 90% in advance and 10% at the end of the funding period.

Not sure what your LA means by child needs to be with you a week before funding can start - the child had been with you for 1.5 years. Hope you can get it sorted out, do you know anyone else who does funding who can help you as I found our LA pretty useless?

[Jelly Baby]

Thanks for the replies, im not very good with stuff like this.

Ok so I claimed for as per the form I was given Stretched offer 1st April 15 to 31st August 2015

I would assume I would then be paid for that period but I have been paid from the 13th of April until mid July and am not getting any money for the either sides or August..i thought with it being stretched it covered each week?

Little one is 12 hours per week every week?

Aaaaaah so fed up with it tbh..

[Mouse]

Thanks for the replies, im not very good with stuff like this.

Ok so I claimed for as per the form I was given Stretched offer 1st April 15 to 31st August 2015

I would assume I would then be paid for that period but I have been paid from the 13th of April until mid July and am not getting any money for the either sides or August..i thought with it being stretched it covered each week?

Little one is 12 hours per week every week?

Aaaaaah so fed up with it tbh..

I would guess (and you'd really need confirmation from your LA) that payment would only have started from 13th April as that was the start of term. For the term mindee would get 12 hours a week for 16.25 weeks, which would take you till the end of July.

I think the best thing would be for you to ask the LA to show you a complete breakdown of what they have paid you for.

[Mouse]

1st April - 31st August is about 22 or 23 weeks. If there are 195 hours allowed for the term, you would only be able to claim about 8 or 9 hours a week if you wanted it over the whole period.