Nursery are threatening to remove my child as I questioned fees

Because they legally can't call it anything else but simultaneously can't afford to stay open without charging it.

Personally I find those 'consumable' charges ridiculous. I've used three childcare providers over the years:

• a childminder who charged £5 a day extra, which included a hot breakfast, snacks, a home cooked lunch and dinner (cooked from scratch, huge variety and not a fish finger/pizza in sight).

• nursery. Nice setting, decent (but not amazing) facilities, but staff that made up for it. Consumables were £1 an hour plus about £3 for lunch.

• a preschool (private, not attached to a school, though only term time/school hours), Ofsted outstanding, amazing facilities. All kids brought a packed lunch and the only top up was 5 a term (so yep, £15 a YEAR) towards fruit.

It blows my mind that some places are charging nearly £30 a day as consumables. The most we ever paid was £7 (number 2 above), and that was a small local chain, had office staff, large building overheads etc.

I wonder whether for some of the expensive ones, either they aren't running their business efficiently or are just plain greedy.

This makes sense.

my youngest left preschool 2 years ago and, I think it was £1-£2 extra per session. They said it was for snack, and we provided lunch/sun cream etc. This worked out around £20 or so per month. It was just post-covid and in the cost of living crisis. Have things really changed so much since then?

Contrary to what some posters think, most of us do understand the discrepancies and shortfall in funding from the government for settings, and how they have to tweak their fees accordingly. And of course, nursery (rather than preschool), is often year round, whereas funding is by term. That also impacts.

But, that aside, consumables can still be charged too highly..and IMO, there is nothing wrong with querying this...

Personally I find those 'consumable' charges ridiculous. I've used three childcare providers over the years:

• a childminder who charged £5 a day extra, which included a hot breakfast, snacks, a home cooked lunch and dinner (cooked from scratch, huge variety and not a fish finger/pizza in sight).

• nursery. Nice setting, decent (but not amazing) facilities, but staff that made up for it. Consumables were £1 an hour plus about £3 for lunch.

• a preschool (private, not attached to a school, though only term time/school hours), Ofsted outstanding, amazing facilities. All kids brought a packed lunch and the only top up was 5 a term (so yep, £15 a YEAR) towards fruit.

It blows my mind that some places are charging nearly £30 a day as consumables. The most we ever paid was £7 (number 2 above), and that was a small local chain, had office staff, large building overheads etc.

I wonder whether for some of the expensive ones, either they aren't running their business efficiently or are just plain greedy.

The council should have informed you that whilst nursery can charge what they want for consumables it has to be voluntary. So you should have the option to provide the things on the list yourself.

The council should have informed you that whilst nursery can charge what they want for consumables it has to be voluntary. So you should have the option to provide the things on the list yourself.

Contrary to other posters, I don’t think you’re being unreasonable OP. If you ever see a charge you aren’t familiar with on any invoice, of course you should query it. You’d have to be a braindead idiot not to. You don’t just blindly pay hundreds of pounds a month because you don’t want to ruffle feathers. It could have been a mistake at their end.

It’s a completely valid question, and the nursery should have answered in a composed and professional way. “Impacted the staffs mental health by making this enquiry” is absolutely absurd.

Unfortunately I’ve found staff at my child’s nursery to be a bit like this too (petty, immature, unprofessional).

Hang on!

OP was well within her rights to ask about this. If the nursery was honest about the additional charges OP would have understood.

The whole scenario wouldn’t have happened if nursery hadn’t tried to say that consumables had increased.

Why is the nursery so bothered by this? Because they knew they weren’t being honest in their pricing.

Moving forward if you want to stay at that nursery attend the meeting and say you’d like to stay. You were simply asking why the consumables charge had gone up.

Are top-up and 'consumables' fees widespread in Scotland? Because the official ScotGov messaging is very clear : 'Funded early learning and childcare is free to you.'

I think the Government should stop calling it "free hours" and call the schemes something else like "£2400 a year childcare grant" for the 15 free hours and "£4800 a year childcare grant" for the 30 free hours - my figures might well be wrong.

It is meant to be free. It is called “30 free hours”. It’s not called “30 discounted hours”. The government need to update all the verbiage on their website if it’s not meant to be free.

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.

£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?

Technically they cannot enforce the charge it's a legal requirement. You should be able to send in nappies etc and meals and not have to pay tip up fees. To register to provide the funded hours they would have had to sign to agree to this.

I need to double check but I think arts and craft type stuff should be covered by the funding and they cannot charge top up for this.

It's shit that so many providers charge these top up fees. I remember when funded hours came in there was absolutely no charging it and providers lost the funding if they did. Now most everyone does it.

And yes childcare is low wages but the funding DOES cover the costs. It's just such a stretch when you have managers and owners taking a cut and not working in the rooms in ratio. You can have 4 children to an adult and area depending that's £22 an hour coming in- the workers don't get that much.

I'm a childminder and never charge the top up fees it's immoral I think as excludes the families without the means to pay it and goes against the whole initial point of funded hours which is education for all and particular help for those in poverty.