Nurseries cannot charge extra to access free hours: updated guidance

Apparently, according to them, but definitely not according to anyone I spoke with!

Yup.
This makes sense to everyone except successive Governments.

Yes, with school nurseries session prices matching the voucher prices.

That would be ideal, give them your the provider and then pay the rest. If you wanted to pay less then you find a different provider. I’ve been saying the same all along. It could still be arranged through the tax free childcare site to ensure that the vouchers are used for registered settings.

Cool, what would you do?

I think I would look for parents to get a pot of childcare vouchers that was approx equivalent annually to the current allowance (eg £75 per week for 52 weeks, or whatever, possibly with a bit of regional variation). I wouldn't make these term time only or anything as that's quite outdated now, IMO.

Then the parents could spend these at any Ofsted registered provider as easily as cash. If they wanted to spend them upfront or save them up for times (eg December) when money was tighter, that would be fine. If they never used them, the vouchers would be cancelled periodically, maybe once a year or once the child started school.

Then it would be a true subsidy but with more flexibility for the parents to mix and match childcare if they want, to change provider etc.

Erm yes, I would make many other changes to the system...

When you say “unfortunately” - would you change contract law to put special conditions on nursery contrast? Bearing in mind if you made nurseries give eg 3 months notice of fee increases, parents would have to give 3 months notice to leave, say. Or would you make some other change to the system?

Yep. Unfortunately they can. Nursery owners have parents over a barrel and they know it.

Leaves nurseries in a very difficult position if parents start refusing to pay - presumably they can’t just ‘expel’ the children for this reason without potentially facing legal action?

This was early on in the thread - but of course a private business can give notice (probably one month's notice) to a customer, especially if that customer is not paying in line with the contract.

Unfortunately this is the way that government wants the system to operate with non funded hours subsidising their underpaid funded hours so they can say it's free and nursery is over charging....politics many fall for.

This is the thing with the funded hours, it just puts the cost of childcare up for those who need it for actual childcare.
Want to send your child to a private nursery and use the funded hours for a few hours a day? Great for you. Need childcare through the week and not term time only? Well you just end up paying through the nose to subsidise the free hours for others!

I genuinely don’t understand what the issue is with offering the funded hours as a subsidy. It equates to £X per month but nursery 1 costs £Y per month and nursery 2 costs £Z per month and then just subtract the local authority amount off the bill at the end.

If you want a totally free nursery it should be limited to school nurseries imo.

For the ones who just do funded hours probably yes - no more top up fees, just free hours and very expensive private hours.

They had the nerve to send a message with it saying they hoped parents would be pleased with the positive changes they saw to their fees.

So, have some parents monthly bills gone down?

That is also true! I imagine they've been inundated.

And as predicted, “we are not talking about this with parents at this time, we have 300 children here, send another email and we may get back to you in a week or so”. NOT good enough.

172%!!! Their spin is rather disingenuous and very thoughtless

My nursery emailed last night, conveniently nearly at the cut off for notifying them of changes, to say my fees for my daughter’s funded place are going up 172%. I had a panic attack. I’m a single mum on a low income, but not low enough for benefits as I have savings. I simply can’t afford it. They had the nerve to send a message with it saying they hoped parents would be pleased with the positive changes they saw to their fees. I’m guessing this is for 2s and under. My daughter turns 3 this month and the gvt funding drops 25%ish but because the ratios change to 1:8 or 1:13, they have lower staff costs. Going to attempt to discuss it with them but they are rubbish at communication. My daughter adores the 2 mornings a week she does and is extremely sociable. If I have to pull her out we still have to walk past her beloved nursery twice a day which will be very upsetting. I have no idea what to do
.

It's £11 for under 2s, £8 for 2 year olds, £5 for 3-4 , that sort of amount. That is what the council get then they decide how much to pass on.

I can only guess the council don't pass it all on? These rates seem ok compared to local childcare costs. Local nurseries charge the same for any age child though.

Or in my nursery @JoyousGreyOrca if you are late picking up you get charged 1£ a minute - the money goes directly to the staff member who had to stay behind

Yes the reason private nurseries struggle to keep qualified staff is they are usually paid just above the minimum wage, get statutory sick pay or are on zero hour contracts, and are treated like utter crap. The reason the staff stand with your child with their coats on, waiting for you to pick them up at 6pm when the nursery closes, is they only get paid till 6 pm. If you are late, they work for free.

This. Sadly exploitation is rife in this industry.

I don't think anyone begrudges childminders running as a business, or nurseries needing to make appropriate profits, but that is very different to a CEO exploiting hard working families, underpaying their hardworking staff and allowing risky adult ratios in order to line their own pockets.

Of course it can make profit, but my goodness there's a point where a rich nursery owner needs to stop pleading poverty! My kids' old nursery owner was literally a multi millionaire. Her house was a mansion. You should have seen the cars she drove. She was raking it in.... from parents paying £80 a day in nursery fees. But when the nursery had to close for a day due to roof repairs etc she'd still charge the parents the fees anyway (the general attitude was if you don't like it, find another nursery). When my child's funding finally kicked in at age 3, the 'top-up' fees were extortionate. All the parents were discussing it and trying to figure out if this was allowed. If someone questioned it, she was hugely hostile and again, suggested if the parent didn't want to pay, fine another nursery (knowing the other local nurseries were hugely subscribed). She has us all over a barrel and she knew it. I'm not saying all child-care providers are like this, but some really do exploit parents, and absolutely do rake it in. From the sounds of it this is nothing like you, but if you are going to accuse parents of being 'naive' about needing to make a profit, I will suggest that you yourself are naive about what some nursery owners are up to in exploring parents.

You must be completely naive if you think a private business shouldn’t make any profit, and what you need to look at is how much they have spent to make £2 million profit. If there is no profit in it, there will be no nurseries at all. My wife and I are childminders and we look after four children, our heating is on full time and our electricity/gas bill in the south of England is £400 a month, as other people have said, childminders and nurseries are struggling with the cost of living crisis. And yet people think it’s okay for us to look after children at less than minimum age if they’re over three. We are self-employed and don’t think anyone should be telling us what we can charge for especially the government. If that is to be the case then we should be getting paid by the government for sick pay pension and holiday pay. Show me another industry where you are self-employed but the government tell you how much you can charge, it’s absolutely outrageous and we will leave the the profession that we love as it is just not viable to make ends meet.

Mine is exactly the same! It’s a lovely small
nursery. I pay nothing. One goes 30 free hours and the other 15. They give both DC breakfast and dinner.

Ive got no idea how.