She is pursuing 8,500 of bad debts, much of it the result of parents claiming tax credits and then failing to spend the money on childcare, or insisting that they will pay her once their delayed payments come through.
In most cases they don't.
She is taking several parents to court and excluding the children of non-payers. She says, 'The problem with taking people to court is that there is then a great deal of animosity towards the nursery, and it concerns me that parents can then make things up. We had one lady who ran up a bill of Pounds 900 and then said she did not like the nursery.'
Mrs Mills says the most obvious fraud occurs when parents come to look around, get the nursery's registration number and then disappear. 'Nine months later we get an enquiry from the Inland Revenue and it turns out that they have claimed they are using us for childcare,' she says.
'Other parents may bring their child for three weeks and then stop coming.
We hold the place open for them and then lose money because we don't get paid.'
In an effort to stamp out fraud, she now asks parents for their national insurance number when they ask for the nursery's registration number.
