Nursery are threatening to remove my child as I questioned fees

@Legodaisy and times that by say 30 children and that's £18000 a month - in addition to the fees they are getting too .

I'd be querying it, especially as at my son's nursery when he accessed his funded hours the only extra anyone paid was £5 a day for lunch, £29 is extortionate.

How is £30 a day peanuts? That’s £600 a month if the child is full-time. It’s meant to be free!

Yeah ok I understand that technically they can and are within their rights to do so. Just find it a bit weird the amount of posters who think she's in the wrong. No way would I hand over that amount if money without querying where it was going. I'm in Scotland but and I've never heard of such a payment anyway

I disagree with many posters. Not all nurseries charge over the funded hours but they usually expect the parents to provided things like nappies and wipes.

Additionally I think if following procedure impacts staffs mental health they should question their ability to maintain professionalism.

£29 a day is a staggering cost for extras but at least the nursery can now say that they have been consulted and it’s acceptable.

To be fair, when you initially found you've been reported to the council, you'd freak out, until you find it's only about money. I bet they were rattled. The OP needs to realise that what they are doing is making the 'free hours' payment plus consumables equal the previous payment plus consumables as explained above. Otherwise there will be no nursery, particularly with the min wage rise and NI etc.

If you don't like it, go elsewhere. But I suspect that may not be a choice.

I would find another setting and leave quietly. You will always been known as "that" parent by the staff.

They are not free hours, they are funded. They don't cover the cost of the nursery service, you can also get 20% off via tax free childcare if you qualify. So this will take it down to £23 per day. Pretty reasonable!

But that's not op what is asking. They're asking whether the nursery can terminate their contract. The council have investigated and found the cost is reasonable, but tbh it's all irrelevant as the answer to the op is yes. They can terminate the contract as long as they follow their t&cs. I mean there are exceptions under the unfair contract terms act, but can't see how they apply here, but op can always pay a lawyer to see if they do

The nursery staff need to grow a pair.

I agree it wasn’t on to go straight to the council.

But the excuse of “affecting staffs mental health” is clearly bollocks and insulting people people with genuine mental health difficulties.

Agree. And people acting like it's pennies. It amounts to 600 quid a month..

From their perspective they gave you the information, you determined it wasn't correct/satisfactory and went to the council, the council then investigated them which was a drain on their time and resources. I'm not sure about the way in which they have framed this around staff mental health, but I can see that they have marked your card because of the actions you have taken. You are, of course, within your rights to raise a query with the council, but they are equally within theirs to withdraw service provision. I think it's one of those situations where you have to weigh up the potential consequences before deciding if it is worth getting a third party involved. They've said the matter is under discussion, so you do have an opportunity now to reply and state your case.

Pretty sure when my DD was at nursery on funded hours that these were called top up fees and the reason given for them was very transparent. This helps so much. Consumables sounds so vague particularly when 3/4 year old often aren't wearing nappies etc. I'd pop in and apologise and emphasise the your child loves the nursery and shouldn't suffer due to the misunderstanding.

The OP absolutely had the right to go to the council. And the nursery, having had to spend hours responding to them with data etc, has every right to decide they don't want to deal with her going forwards, as you say.

The whole consumables thing is an unsatisfactory fig leaf for insufficient funding of “free” provision.

Op has every right to go to the council. The nursery have every right to terminate their contract with op in line with their t&cs. 2 things can be true at once.

Replace that with at 2 yo self funding:
Daily charge = £75, consumables = £12
Total = £87

But at 3/4yo the government is only paying £58 a day to the nursery. So they add on the extra £17 shortfall to the consumables to stay open.

YABU.

They had to go through the stress of an investigation because of you. You might not have had any issues with the staff before but they have a big issue with you.

No one's said it's not ok to question the fees and the nursery seem to have responded promptly and in detail to that request. Surely you can see it's the fact the OP then contacted the council to have them investigate the nursery that is the problem here and why they no longer wish to provide care for the OPs child.

Well previously it was presumably covered under the higher hourly rate.

And her questioning it was fine. It's the fact she went and complained to the council about them afterwards that's pissed them off. She wanted the council to force them to charge her lower consumables fee.

£17 a day x 5 days a week × 50 weeks (assuming closures) = £4250. If they had to drop this for all the kids in the nursery (say 50) that's over £200K a year deficit. Well within range to force them to let go staff or even close.

£29 for consumables that previously they charged £12 for? I get they need to fund the place but the same goods and services costing 2.5 times as much?

I’ll go against the grain here, I think you’re well within your rights to question anything and if they having nothing to hide there should be no issue.