We believe that tiney and our Local Authority partners share common goals: we aim to ensure that every child in England has access to high quality early years provision, and we aim to do this by increasing the number of well-trained and regulated childminders in England and arresting the decline in their numbers.
We recognise that by providing more choice for people interested in becoming childminders, we will help to ensure that the profession is accessible for the widest number of people.
How does tiney support our childminders to offer funded placements?
We facilitate all contracts between childminders and guardians via the tiney app, for all childcare placements. These include the full schedules of care both funded and privately paid, as well as the childminder’s private hourly or daily rates, and any consumable fees. We process all the monthly invoices for all placements based on these contract details.
In some Local Authorities, tiney holds the main funding agreement directly, with our childminders registered as sub-providers under our umbrella. We complete the eligibility checks and headcount submissions for all childminders in these areas, based on the contract information and completed parent declaration forms.
In other Local Authorities where the childminders themselves hold the funding agreements with the LA, tiney can assist in eligibility checks, and may offer general advice around funding queries. We of course do refer these providers to the support and guidance available from their Local Authority, and aim to gather as much information as we can (either from publicly-available resources or by contacting the LAs directly) so that we can answer questions where possible.
For all providers, regardless of where they are based, tiney produce monthly invoices for the guardian. These contain an itemised list of the funded hours used each month, as well as any privately paid hours, and any fees charged to the guardian.
We run regular webinars for our childminding community around a variety of topics, including Early Years Funding and how this can be beneficial for their business and the families they work with.
How is Early Years Funding paid to tiney childminders?
When a Childminder is registered with tiney, the Childminder is invited to set up their Tiney Wallet. The Tiney Wallet is a UK regulated E-Money account, held legally in the Childminder’s name. The accounts are facilitated by Modulr FS Limited, an FCA-regulated EMI who tiney partner with. Please see our Tiney Wallet FAQs for further information.
Tiney Funding Accounts, already successfully in use by many of the tiney community, are legally ring-fenced in the childminder's name and help ensure that providers are paid correctly and in full for the childcare services they provide. The account details will only be shared with their Local Authority with the childminder's consent to make payments to them, and will be used specifically for funded placements.
Does tiney pass on the full funded payment to the childminder?
Tiney passes 100% of funding payments direct to the provider. Only after the money has gone into the childminder’s tiney wallet does tiney apply a fee corresponding to the % agreed with the childminder at the start of their journey with tiney. The fee is for the range of services, regulation and support tiney provides to the community.
What fee does tiney charge to childminders?
We operate via a revenue sharing model. This means the tiney service fee is agreed with the childminder as part of their original Training Offer, and the fee is deducted from the amount invoiced for childcare hours. For new childminders this is currently set at 12% of their total childcare earnings.
Payments made by guardians are all made via the tiney app, so childminders are paid into their tiney wallet. The tiney fee is charged to the childminder via the tiney wallet. Please see our Tiney Wallet FAQs for more information.
Historically, tiney did not apply this service charge to any payments from Local Authorities for Early Years Funded hours. However, in light of the government expansion of this offer in 2024 and 2025, tiney's service charge ia applied to certain funding payments as follows:
From September 2024, the fee applies to payments for funded hours of care for children accessing either 2-year-old or 9-23-month-old working family entitlements.
For childminders who registered with tiney on or after 1st January 2026, the fee will apply to payments for funded hours of care for children accessing 3&4-year-old entitlements.
The fee is not applied to any payments for supplements, grants, or Additional Family Support funding.
The charge on the income from funding will be payable via the tiney wallet, or invoiced to the childminder on request.
What happens when tiney is nominated to submit headcounts on behalf of a childminder in a provider-led LA?
If a childminder wishes tiney to submit their headcounts on their behalf, we will ask them to contact their LA to request that tiney be given portal access via a separate login for this purpose.
tiney submit headcount claims based on the contractual information submitted by the childminder and parent, with the funded hours and eligibility confirmed. Childminders are required to keep tiney informed of any changes to the care hours, attendance or eligibility, or any other details that may affect the headcount claim.
tiney is GDPR-compliant. tiney creates contracts on behalf of childminders and holds personal details of parents and children for compliance, contractual and payment purposes.
Could tiney manage the portal process directly for our childminders in future?
We appreciate changes to existing LA protocols and processes may need to be adjusted and this will take time. We aim to work with LAs in a way that suits them and allows us to provide the support as part of our commitment to childminders. We also have sample protocols and more that we are happy to share to alleviate some of the necessary admin that changes like this might involve.
Surveys and feedback from the tiney community have revealed that childminders would value additional support to ease the burden of funding administration and associated tasks. They see a disconnect as they receive support from tiney across all areas of their business except funding portal administration, which many of them are managing for the first time as a result of the expansion. We are keen to provide good value to our community and hope this will also reduce administration and queries at a Local Authority level.
How can we ensure that we have the information our childminders need to process their claims?
We are regularly asked for confirmation of funding rates, weeks per term, and so on. Providers reasonably expect us to hold this information as it relates to the payments they will receive. We also use weeks and rates data for contracts and billing in order to create invoices for parents. The more information we have access to, the higher level of support we can provide. Maximising the level of support provided correlates to greater sufficiency as childminders are able to dedicate more of their working hours to deliver quality childcare places in our Local Authorities across the country. If we can be included in provider newsletters or sent the same information as local providers in respect of funding, it is extremely helpful to both tiney and our childminders.