Compulsory Top-Up Fees at Nurseries are not legal!

Lots of people have mentioned the costs involved in running a nursery like utilities etc but there are so many other hidden ones: mandatory training - pay for your staff member to attend, pay them their hours and pay someone to replace them in setting because you have to stick to ratios. Then there's the time taken supporting children with SEND. Nurseries often do a lot of the legwork for EHCPs but rarely get the funding through before the child leaves for school. Our LA said that we should staff settings to be able to support any children wants to attend, even if they need 1:1 and it isn't funded. Then there's the time spent on other issues. If you have children with social services involvement or safeguarding issues there is meeting after meeting to attend and paperwork to complete, not to mention trying to support the families.
Then you've got Ofsted breathing down your neck and you have to try and interpret DfE guidance that's really written for schools - write a curriculum, follow the 3Is....
And none of this is funded beyond the measly hourly rate from the government!

However since she started getting 30 hours and still doing two days, there is now an additional charge for food and gym activities of £170.
That is because the amount the government gives to nurseries doesn't cover extras. So if you want them you have to pay extra for them. If you don't want them you have to be allowed to take your own food and opt out of gym. But you can't take the food and have the gym activities if you don't pay for them.

It is not illegal to charge for food, nappies, extra activities etc. It is however ilegal to make parents pay for extras as a condition of the place. They have to allow parents to provide their own packed lunch, snacks etc if they prefer and to opt out of extra activities.

And often they didn't start school full time until after turning 5, nursery was 4.

Think yourself lucky you get the 30 hours.....I had to pay in full for both of my children's child care! No funding, tax credits weren't around then either!

If you're not using 30 hours the nursery should only be claiming what you use.....I presume you go all year so stretched that's about 22 hours. Is that £170 a month? Ask for a breakdown

My child is funded 30 hrs a week but only attends 2 days of the week. When she was funded 15 hrs I had to pay an additional amount for extended hrs. This was £186. There were no additional charges on the invoice. The nurserys price list, list nappies, wipes and meals as included in the prices (she was fully potty trained ) so no nappies required. I love the nursery because they take the kids to exercise for an hour a day. However since she started getting 30 hours and still doing two days, there is now an additional charge for food and gym activities of £170.

I’m a childminder and the funding rate paid to me is £2.50 less than my usual hourly rate (and I’m one of the cheaper minders in the area). I’m limited on how many children I can care for. If parents don’t pay a voluntary contribution to essentially top up the fees then I would either have to close or not offer finding, the latter would push me out of the profession as who wants to pay when there are magical ‘free’ hours out there.

Nurseries, preschools and childminders are closing their doors in droves. We are being made to fund the children we care for. What’s annoying is, we pay taxes which means we are already subsiding childcare through paying them. It’s a never ending battle. To even offer funding there is extra work on top of what we already do. We are made to feel like criminals even for having the audacity of asking parents to pay towards the shortfall. There will always be people who say ‘why should I pay when it should be free’ or ‘It’s not my problem the funding doesn’t cover the true costs’, fair enough but why should a setting pay for your child?

Consumables includes paint, glue, paper, cleaning stuff, wipes, tissues, messy play items, sand, the list is very long.

Not when the government interferes and fucks it all up.

Nurseries and childminders are businesses - they set their fees and you either pay what they are charging or you go elsewhere. If their current business model doesn’t work financially, they either increase their fees or go out of business.

Indeed.

The government have made policy based on spending other people’s (businesses’) money for them and it’s not ok.

Theres no advantage to nurseries in having to create extra billing requirements for themselves. They’re only billing for consumables etc because the government funding is so utterly inadequate.

The policy does not require settings to feed your child. Nor to provide nappies and wipes for them. Nor to take them on special activities.

Originally the 15 hours policy was based on an assumption that children attending one 3 hour early education session each weekday. There would be no need for nappies (because they’d all be toilet trained in this policy utopia) or meals (beyond maybe a snack and drink). All nice and tidy and uncomplicated. A model like a playground or what many school nursery classes were at the turn of the century.

Where parents were awkward enough to need more childcare than that, they would just get slightly lowered fees but they would be paying a fortune anyway and should just be grateful for whatever they got.

Turned out that didn’t work in reality anyway. People wanted the 15 hours as whole days - not discrete morning or afternoon sessions. People wanted higher quality activities and provision. Then the government extended it to 30 hours (and included some 2 year olds in the 15 hours). A system that hadn’t really functioned (and where parents paying for hours had to subsidise the ‘free’ places to some extent) was expected to do more and it simply cannot. Especially as the rates haven’t kept up with cost increases either.

If nurseries cannot cover their costs, they simply will not offer the ‘free hours’. There will be no places. It’s not fair to have a system where the people who require more childcare are subsidising those who can manage with the ‘free’ hours (which is what happens).

When our hours kick in our CM will be out of pocket by £5 a day. She includes lunch and snacks usually but will be charging the £5 to cover these. More than happy to pay this, tbh I’m happy for her to charge more if needed as Gas/electric is now so expensive. If we didn’t accept this, she has said she wouldn’t be able to offer funded hours. More than reasonable as she is amazing with DS.

My friend works in a nursery and it is voluntary there but they will only offer up to half the free hours if parents don’t agree to the daily consumable charge as they just can’t afford to run otherwise.

I wish people would get crosser at the government for promising you 30 free hours that they aren't prepared to fund properly instead of the settings that are just trying to keep their heads above water.

Ah that makes more sense

i thought it was just for wipes

government really need to up their payment

my friend is a cm and she won’t take kids who use the vouchers as means she is out of pocket

and tells them to use other ways /childcare to use them

she’s always in demand so guess works for her

When our 30 "free" hours kick in I'll be charged £2 an hour. I'm going to pay it as she's an amazing childminder and can't work at a loss. The government don't cover 100% of all costs despite it being labelled as free. It sucks but you either have to accept it or don't send your child in anymore. Something isn't illegal just because you don't want to pay it. It's a steal compared to full price anyway. Childcare is a business at the end of the day.

@Blondeshavemorefun - I also stated ‘etc’ all consumables, so paint, glue, glitter, wipes, creams, calpol, paper, other craft items, tissues, toilet rolls - absolutely any other ‘consumable’ you can think of that’s required. I have absolutely 0 issue paying £2 a day for these items for my child’s care when the government can’t pay the setting any more than £4 an hour for him to be looked after by qualified staff each warranting £11 an hour in wages (nmw plus er’s NI and holiday and pension contributions bring it up)

£2 a day for baby wipes and a fab of bum cream

wow

can’t you leave a pack of wipes and pot or cream there -

£10 a week sounds huge for those items esp as won’t be using that amount @QforCucumber

I’m afraid your ‘good intentions’ are misplaced, nurseries, preschools and childminders are closing left right and centre as it’s already very difficult to run a viable and sustainable business as it is, just wait until the new minimum payrise kicks in! There are a lot of costs involved in childcare, all the obvious bills plus staff training on top, very little of it is actual profit. I’m in groups where owners of nurseries and child minders are having to have second jobs as they can’t afford to pay themselves or their bills. The government is at fault here, making false promises to get votes in the ballot box, it has been proven by the Early Years Alliance that they have been underfunding the early years sector for years. Maybe have a look at Champagne Nurseries Lemonade Funding, they might welcome your campaigning skills!

Our nursery charges £28 as a top up. They’ve clearly just taken the amount they usually charge and deducted the funding. But I sympathise with this. It’s a really good nursery. It’s more expensive than some in the area and we knew that when we chose it. For what they do their good value and I doubt they make a huge profit. And I’m not sure that the government should necessarily be funding more expensive nurseries which provide more with more funding than cheap ones. I’d prefer have a bit of a discount than them opting out of the 30 free hours entirely or lowering the quality of provision. It’s tough though if you (not unreasonably) expected the 30 free hours to be free.

the funded hours are funded at much lower than it costs a nursery to run. if you challenge this, all that will happen is your nursery will stop offering funded hours.

My DC had 30 funded hours and did 4 full days, but I was still paying £200-300 a month because they didn't do stretched funding and only closed four weeks out of 52. DC had those hours funded because I'm a full time unpaid carer and we really needed that time, we were a bit upset to learn we would have to dish out an additional three grand or so over the year, but we paid it because DC loved the setting and thrived there.

You need to be directing your anger at the government, who like to boast about providing free childcare to all 3&4 year olds - when actually it's 30 hours term time at a rate of £3-4 per hour (depending on area).

Early Years Providers won't exist if they don't charge for consumables. It's voluntary in that if you want your child to eat/do craft/have nice toys to play with etc etc, you'll pay for it. I'm sure your provider would happily give you a list of all the items you needed to provide if you don't want to pay the extra fees, and they would probably amount to a lot more than what you are being charged.

Not sure why people begrudge paying for their most precious thing in the whole world to be educated and cared for.

Mine is a voluntary food contribution of about £20 a day. They let you send food in as an alternative. We're not well off, but I choose to pay as they feed them all 3 meals a day plus snacks and drinks, and I don't have to wash any plates/cups.
Compared to the £75 a day my youngest's fees cost, they're welcome to the £20 if it makes them able to offer my oldest a place.

Firstly, why mums. Why not all paying parents?

Secondly if you want to collect data set it up properly with a GDPR statement etc and how to contact you to get data removed. If you're doing research do it properly