Free 15 Hours How long before you are Paid?

Following on from a Thread about the additional 15 hours free childcare.

I live in Hertfordshire.

I was paid for the Spring Term on 26th March

New term began on the 1st April and there are 195 hours until the middle of July £1072.50 per child for me.

This week (w/c 16th May) is our Headcount week. It closes at 4pm on Friday we no longer get the weekend to submit.

I will not be paid that money until, at the earliest, Sat 25th June.

13 weeks, (3 MONTHS!) after I started caring for children using the 15 hours this term and 6 weeks after I submitted my Headcount.


Had this been 30 hours based on the the fees e get at present (we don't know what they will be but the Trial hourly rate is £1.88ph less than my hourly rate!) I would be waiting for £2145 per child and also for the bulk of my money because I care for the Funded children I have for 50 hours a week.

I know on the current hourly rate I will not be able to conduct my business in this way with the bulk of my income being paid up to 3 months in arrears. Indeed haven't many a bigger business been put out of business because multinational companies they have supplied have done this to them?

I intend to take this up with my LA. We have been asking to be paid monthly for a long time and it has fallen on deaf ears.

It would be really interesting to hear from some of you about how your LAs pay you. Do you have to wait weeks and months? How do your LAs pay you?

If you don't mind I will be collating the information and taking it to my LA and to the Dept of Education and Pacey as I was invited to the Dept of Education by Pacey to take part in a Consultation regarding the 15 extra hours Free Childcare. No names will be used just the core information.

That's shocking RS :mad:

I'm with Leics LA. I have 3 funded children at £3.63 (My rate is £3.75) Deprivation is extra and goes on postcode so occasionally I get a couple of pence extra.
Child 1 does 15 hours
Child 2 does 9 hours
Child 3 does 7.5 hours

We have 12 weeks in the summer term from 11th April - 8th July (We finish earlier for the summer hols here-14th July)

I receive 2 payments - 1st payment was 15th April and I received roughly 3/4 of the funding for the 3 children (£960) These figures are calculated on the term before so if I only have 1 child in the summer but 3 in the Autumn then I am out of pocket until the 2nd payment.

Then on 3rd June I'll receive the rest which is about £412

We did a small stint of just having 1 payment but childminders could opt for two...it obviously got too complicated for the LA as they scrapped it and went back to 2 payments.

I cant believe you are having to go all that time without money :mad:

Here in Sefton Council we are paid a few days before the start of the upcoming half term and that normally covers 6 - 8 weeks until the next half term. So we have our money in advance each time.

So for the term on the 18th April this year we were paid 14th April which was 6 weeks money, up to 27th May.

Next term starts on the 6th of June and I would expect to receive our next money during the week before this about 1st June.

Hope this helps.

In North Yorkshire we submit an estimate at the end of the previous term ... so mid march this time. We then get paid our estimate monthly.(mid month) Then at the end of term, we get a balancing payment that adds in extra hours (or deducts hours and you could end up owing money) as on headcount week. Headcount for us is this week.
But ... we get the money paid monthly, so despite not offering funding in August ... I will get paid in August and that will also be my balancing payment.
(I've got child a) adding hours to estimate, child b) only started with funding this term and after estimate went in and child c) who is leaving before the end of term! ... hopefully it will all balance out!)

We get 70% before the term starts and the other 30% about 3/4's of the way through :thumbsup:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JCrakers

That's shocking RS :mad:

I'm with Leics LA. I have 3 funded children at £3.63 (My rate is £3.75) Deprivation is extra and goes on postcode so occasionally I get a couple of pence extra.
Child 1 does 15 hours
Child 2 does 9 hours
Child 3 does 7.5 hours

We have 12 weeks in the summer term from 11th April - 8th July (We finish earlier for the summer hols here-14th July)

I receive 2 payments - 1st payment was 15th April and I received roughly 3/4 of the funding for the 3 children (£960) These figures are calculated on the term before so if I only have 1 child in the summer but 3 in the Autumn then I am out of pocket until the 2nd payment.

Then on 3rd June I'll receive the rest which is about £412

We did a small stint of just having 1 payment but childminders could opt for two...it obviously got too complicated for the LA as they scrapped it and went back to 2 payments.

I cant believe you are having to go all that time without money :mad:

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Thank you for that. I have to say if I had been registered in the scheme this time last year I would by now get a small payment a few weeks into term based on the children I had at that time. So from Jan 17 I would get this payment but it is not likely I will have any funded children then and it of course is not helping now!!


It is the mechanics of payments I am mainly interested in thank you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FussyElmo

We get 70% before the term starts and the other 30% about 3/4's of the way through :thumbsup:

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Thank you for that lucky you. What LA is it?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rickysmiths

Thank you for that lucky you. What LA is it?

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Stoke-on-trent if we had your system I dont think many providers would sign up.

Do you think its to do with the perceived affluence of the area. We are a deprived area so is that why our payments are like this.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FussyElmo

Stoke-on-trent if we had your system I dont think many providers would sign up.

Do you think its to do with the perceived affluence of the area. We are a deprived area so is that why our payments are like this.

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I really don't know because it is the same County wide and Hertfordshire has some very deprived areas. I have to say it is putting me in the deprived bracket compared to the parent getting the free hours who is laughing! Hubby has had to do the food shopping (I mean pay for it all) for the last two weeks something that has not happened for years, even when I have been waiting to fill a place as sometimes happens.

Our L A Bolton pays monthly. This term it is less per month than last term because we are paid until August even though tne the term ends in July it is spread across the months until August.

Staffordshire pay 65% at usually the end of the second week of term and the remainder about 3/4 of the way through like Fussy. So if you are usually paid monthly then you are not out of pocket, in fact paid a week in advance usually. Each term is different amount of weeks, depending on holiday time -38 weeks in total - but you can offer stretched funding if you want.

The deprivation funding is worked out on individuals circumstances not post code here which is much fairer as I received 2 year old deprivation funding for a child who's mum lived with her parents in a very nice area of town. She would have missed out on that system, yet she was a single mum, trying to work for the NHS and earning very low, midway she moved into rented accommodation not far away - very small accommodation but a postcode with a high level of professionals.

3/4 year old funding here is £3.76 an hour - much less than my £4.50 charge.

Notts too pay 70% at the beginning of term , and the balance around 3/4 of the way through the term following the headcount.

I am in Central Bedfordshire and we are paid monthly, this term we are being paid - weeks commencing 16th May, 13th June, 11th July and then last payment 15th August, which includes any additional adjustments.

With Somerset I send in an estimate form in March, beginning of April I get 90% of the money in advance, today was the deadline to submit "actual forms" - I guess this is like people's "headcount calculations", I was also chosen to send in my parent declaration forms (we used to always send them in but they stopped asking for them and just select providers at random - but we have to keep copies of them in case we are audited) my actual form was for more hours than my estimate form as I realised a child who also attends Nursery wasn't using his full entitlement there -should get the 10% plus extra hours mid August. We then fill out an adjustment form in Sept (I think) where we can still claim extra hours or less if child has left during the term. I'm lucky in that my hourly rate is 7p an hour less than I get for 3 year old funding and 65p less than 2 year old funding - I love 2 year olds!! :thumbsup: