Is your nursery invoice charging you for things you don't owe?

The most common ones: top-up fees on funded hours, mandatory consumables (nappies, sun cream, wipes), meals charged without a genuine opt-out, registration and deposit fees, retainer fees, SEND-support charges, learning-resources charges, business running costs invoiced to parents, and 'enrichment' bundles without itemised breakdowns. Every flag is mapped to the specific paragraph in the DfE statutory guidance (A1.31–A1.38) that the charge breaches.

It depends on which charge. The DfE statutory guidance is clear that funded hours must be free — top-up fees are explicitly prohibited and were confirmed unlawful by the High Court in 2024. Mandatory consumables and meals are conditional: they're permitted only if itemised, genuinely optional, and not a condition of accessing the funded place. The analyser tells you which paragraph applies to each charge and whether it's a hard breach or needs clarification.

Probably not, if you approach it correctly. The dispute letters are professionally drafted in three tone variants: collaborative (assumes admin error, low-conflict), firm (rights-aware, clear expectations), formal (legal register, cites the High Court). Most disputes resolve at the collaborative-letter stage — nurseries typically didn't realise a specific charge was non-compliant.

The next step is your local authority's Early Years team — they have a statutory duty under DfE guidance A1.31 to investigate complaints and can withdraw EYNFF funding from non-compliant nurseries. FamilyStack generates a council escalation letter automatically when a dispute is marked unresolved after 14 days. After that, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman is the final escalation — they upheld a similar complaint in 2024 (LGO 24 004 803) resulting in a £1,173 refund + £200 compensation.

Each invoice is analysed against the exact text of the DfE Early Education and Childcare Statutory Guidance. Classification is deliberately conservative — ambiguous charges are flagged amber (clarification recommended) rather than red (dispute). Every flag includes the specific guidance paragraph reference so you can verify it yourself before sending anything.

Yes — the letter is shown in full on screen with all three tone variants before you copy and send. You can switch tone, regenerate, edit in your email client, or refuse to send. We don't email anything on your behalf.

Your invoice is analysed inside UK servers — it never leaves the UK or Europe, and your data isn't used to train AI models. Parent and children's names are kept out of the saved analysis; only the nursery's name stays (because that's who the dispute letter is addressed to). The real names are stored separately, encrypted, and deleted within 90 days — sooner if you mark the dispute resolved. When we draft your dispute or council letters, the names aren't part of the drafting; they're added back in only at the very end, and every letter is double-checked before it's saved. Full details in our privacy policy.

Charges that are commonly disputed: top-up fees (£20–£200/month per child), unauthorised consumables (£40–£80/month), unitemised enrichment (£50–£150/month). A successful dispute on a single month typically refunds £100–£400. The recent LGO ruling against a non-compliant nursery awarded £1,173 + £200 compensation across the period.

Yes, where the childminder accepts the 30-hour or universal 15-hour offers. The same DfE guidance applies regardless of setting type (group nursery, childminder, school nursery class). If your childminder doesn't take government-funded hours, the analyser can still review the invoice but most of the DfE-specific flags won't apply.

Full Access is a one-off £49 that unlocks the invoice analyser plus all other paid tools (salary optimiser, dispute letter generator, future tools). The £49 includes 12 invoice analyses — most parents need 2–4 per year. After that, top-ups are £1 per additional analysis with no expiry.