Nottinghamshire mum spent £4,000 on 'free' nursery fees

The nursery was found to have added retainer fees and charged for items like food and nappies without notice

A mum of two says she has still not been reimbursed after spending £4,000 on a nursery place for her son that should have been free.

Helen, from Nottinghamshire, was entitled to 30 hours of free childcare a week but was charged by the nursery.

The ombudsman said the county council was at fault as it had failed to oversee the nursery's charging policy and ordered it to pay compensation.

The council said it had accepted the ombudsman's recommendations.

However, despite being ordered to repay Helen half of the additional charges, she said she had still not received the money.

Helen says she initially felt reluctant to move her son because he had settled at the nursery

Helen, a self-employed teacher, said: "I chose the nursery partly because they told me they accepted the free hours.

"The first I heard of it not being free was when I got the first invoice after my son turned two.

"Over the next two years, I overpaid the nursery £4,000."

She repeatedly asked the nursery for a breakdown of the invoices but never received one.

"Forty emails later, I still hadn't had an answer," she said. "They charged me random and arbitrary amounts that they were never able to justify.

"The owner told me at one point it was to cover the gardener and the cleaner."

The nursery is now under new ownership.

Helen says she is still having to fight, despite the ombudsman finding in her favour

Helen said she had felt reluctant to move her son at first, because she felt he had settled in, but did withdraw him after two years.

During that time, she took her complaint to the council.

"They literally only rang the owner, then told me they had checked and it was all fine," she said.

After she protested again, the authority carried out a slightly more detailed investigation but still found no issue.

Helen then contacted the ombudsman.

"They found in my favour but didn't stipulate an amount and the council are still trying to squirrel out of it," she said.

"They have offered me £1,000, which has enraged me.

"Three years into it and still nobody has looked at the invoices or my spreadsheet of what I paid. Even though the ombudsman found in my favour, I'm still having to fight.

"I'm also furious that the funding for free child places isn't actually enough to pay the nurseries.

"If it was adequately funded maybe they wouldn't do this kind of thing."

Why is government-backed childcare not free?

• Helen, like many parents, was expecting the nursery care to be free under the government's early education entitlement scheme.

• Some two and all three and four-year-olds are entitled to fully funded early years places, but nurseries have long argued funding levels are too low.

• In the past, local government ombudsman Michael King has said: "Free must mean free. While I acknowledge local authorities - and the early years sector - are struggling financially, the government's intentions have always been that these places are provided free of charge to parents."

• The ombudsman has said it is concerned local authorities may not be delivering on the government's pledge to parents.

• Jonathan Broadbery, director of policy and communications at the National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA), a charity that supports the nursery sector, said: "The government is disingenuous in promising parents 'free' hours but not paying a fair rate to providers. In the vast majority of cases, nurseries can only survive by adding charges to parents for activities and consumables over and above the funded hours."

• A government spokesperson said: "We're investing millions in better training for staff working with pre-school children and have set out plans to help providers in England run their businesses more flexibly."

The ombudsman found Helen's son should have received 30 hours a week free under the national early education entitlement scheme.

It said Helen was given no option but to pay for "consumables" and the nursery's invoicing had not been clear or transparent, nor had the council's own investigation done enough to get to the bottom of the problem.

Michael King, local government and social care ombudsman, said: "In this case the council did not do enough to work with the mum and the nursery to resolve the case, and instead simply referred her complaint back to the nursery.

"It is the council's duty to work with providers to ensure their invoices and receipts are clear, transparent and itemised.

"I now ask the council to consider my report at the highest level to ensure it learns from this complaint so other parents are not disadvantaged in a similar way."

The council said the nursery had not done enough to resolve the case

The ombudsman said the council should pay Helen a combined £200 for the time and trouble and distress felt.

It said it should also refund half the additional charges she paid between January 2020 to the date her child left the nursery in February 2022.

It also ordered the council to review the nursery's policies and practices.

Irene Kakoullis, Nottinghamshire County Council's group manager for early childhood services, said: "The county council accepted the recommendations from the ombudsman and will deliver the actions as required."

She said the council was unable to pay any costs in relation to additional nursery hours beyond the free entitlement - but Helen said she had not asked them to fund additional hours.

"If the complainant has any further concerns, they should contact the ombudsman directly," Ms Kakoullis said.