To think some nurseries are pleading poverty unfairly?

Private nurseries however do often make quite a bit and you won't see it from their accounts. A central chain will charge the nursery all sorts of fees - complicated service fees, inflated royalties for use of brands or "marketing", they will fund the setting with debt rather than investing equity, and will charge interest on it, a central group will own all buildings and charge hefty rents etc.

There's a reason the private equity funds have bought into:

• nursery chains
• care home chains
• childrens homes

Its because they can make a big return on all of it, often not where its easy to see.

They are often also skimming money out of the education academy system by having a profit making company selling goods & services to multi academy trusts.

All these things should be run completely on a not for profit basis, preferably by the state, with total transparency over all payments they make.

The conservative party love privatised public services. They will claim its because it makes them better run. Its not, its because there's often limited competition & inelastic demand, and this offers an opportunity to turn a profit.

Bare minimum because that’s ’what the government have funded’. Not councils.

Central, Conservative government cuts to councils are horrendous. I said up thread my LA has to save £5m this year, again, in Children’s Services, so that the council isn’t running a deficit.
Savings in children’s social care, early years, safeguarding, SEND. Work to support the most vulnerable.

For instance, I am continually horrified that in the past we had early years officers that quality assured, trained and supported nurseries. I did that job. In the poorest settings I saw blind cords over a cot, children playing with a gate left open, staff not recognising unsafe practices and not identifying signs of neglect or abuse. Poor early identification of SEND. We provided support, development and regular accountability, keeping safe our youngest children. We worked with, often a very young and inexperienced workforce.
These early years posts have gone completely. In my LA, there is no regular independent quality assurance, no support or development unless already highlighted by the provider ( and good ones are great at this), except for OFSTED, with a length of time between inspection.

Really worrying.

I used to do the finances for a non profit (charitable) setting. V cheap rent in a community facility, most staff on min wage.

We calculated our "cost to run" per head. It was about £6/hour. The council gave us £4.75.

Based on a 6hr day, 39 weeks per year, 30 kids, it was a £44k loss. Luckily only around half the hours were funded hours, we had to charge just under £8/h for unfunded hours to simply survive.

I mean, what sort of quality would you like for your child? The bare minimum because thats what the council have funded?

Our fees ensure that there are really enriching activities for the children, well trained staff who are retained because they are paid a good wage with great benefits, healthy food and a lovely well run building.

those girls certainly take after their father

Was obviously enough profit in the large companies, for private investors to profit! ( although once picked up now donated).
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rishi-sunak-koru-kids-akshata-murty-b2398515.html

Nursery places are in such demand they might just laugh at you and close the door on your face

The mistake is to think of it as free hours. The government funding = a big reduction to your monthly fee. That's good enough I think.

Are the local nurseries you’re referring to attached to primary schools?

Why don’t you just use one of them if you don’t want to pay a top up fee?

Don’t forget, council budgets have been slashed by the Tory’s too, yet the same government continue to bring in initiatives where the council are expected to be responsible for additional roles, without any additional funding.
I was part of an independent panel which sets provider rates. The panel included the whole range of providers to make sure the rates were as fair as could be.

My LA had to cut its EY team ( quality assurance, training and safeguarding) going back leaving just one officer. With this initiative, the government expect the council to put it in place and manage it - all without any additional direct funding. The need to employ childcare sufficiency officers to support parents to access this and to manage extra places and funds. Funding has to be found.

This is similar to the DfE suddenly deciding that attendance has to be a focus for schools and LA’s have to have officers with responsibility, according to new government guidance…all without funding and in a system of long running cuts ( £5m to save in Children’s Services alone, this year, again). The LA officer responsible for attendance has another full time role, now with attendance added as their is no money to support employing another staff member.

Around here many nurseries are going bust all over the place. Private nursery places are extremely hard to come by. If there was a mountain of gold to be made as you suspect, surely they wouldn’t be closing?

IIRC yhere are 1,000 fewer childcare places than there were due to places being forced to close and 1 in 4 nurseries thinks they may need to close in the next 12 months. I wouldn’t be too sure that your calculations are correct and that top ups are greed.

The new funding stuff is beyond a joke but the large nursery chains make an absolute fortune, no doubt about that. Have a look into the owners of the three or five biggest chains in the country. They are not poor.

The local councils are allowed to keep a certain percentage of the money given by the government for the funded hours so the amount the government give isn't actually how much each setting receives

It’s not just about that though. NMW has gone up so they have to pass on staff costs.

Quoted the wrong person, meant @strawberryjeans

As a parent, I don't agree that charging top-ups is greed if the extra is spent on new resources or the cost of paying staff more than minimum wage on the minimum ratio of staff to children. I know that's how the top-ups are spent at my DS's nursery and so I don't mind paying them (broadly speaking).

I think it's irrelevant. As people have said, this is a private business, and so what they charge is up to them. Personally, I think £18 for the dog food that I paid £9 for a year ago is extortionate given that Ocado are in profit. But heh ho, they are a business and exist to make profit. Just like most nurseries now.

But as a matter of interest a council local to me has just closed all their remaining nurseries because they can't afford them because they don't run them like private businesses, so perhaps that says something? They paid their staff a living wage, had decent (but not overly generous) terms of employment and decent staffing ratios etc.

I watched a documentary on this last night, and there is a shortfall of between £2-£5 per hour per child just for basic running costs. I’m not sure of nursery classes and ratios, but say they have the standard 30 kids like me ds nursery, that’s a £150 loss per class per hour. There’s 2 classes of 30 funded places in my ds nursery, so they’re losing £300 an hour without top ups from parents

What about using a childminder then?

I am offering funded hours with no top up. I do only provide full day care as I have always done but this suits most people anyway. I don't do part days and provide all meals and nappies included.

This might change in the future but for now it works.

I'm afraid unless they become state controlled or literally are 'not for profit' then there will always be some that 'try it on' especially when there is little local competition-

When we were in Denmark it was kind of relatively fixed price ( roughly 35% of UK cost) - your income was irrelevant as was age of child- don't know how they work that but it seemed much fairer and most women worked too- far less SAHM s- which meant also a bit sadly I didn't see many baby and young child activities on notice boards for those who didn't work.

Can’t help but think someone is lying here and it’s most likely the council. There is no way they are paying the setting the average hourly amount. And I say that as a former childminder who accepted funding and early years professional in a private, termtime setting. The amount I/we received was pitifully low. And the wages at minimum wage level for staff who were all qualified to at least level 3.