Nurseries cannot charge extra to access free hours: updated guidance

[MidnightPatrol]

The DfE has updated their guidance to say while nurseries may ask for voluntary contributions towards nappies, food etc - they may not have mandatory top up fees to access free hours. Councils will have the power to fine providers who are asking parents to pay extra.

news.sky.com/story/amp/parents-must-not-pay-mandatory-extra-charges-to-access-free-childcare-government-says-13313166

This is surely only going to reduce access to free hours for the majority, and push up costs for those paying for unfunded hours? And quite possibly, lead to nurseries closing.

Other consequences which we are already seeing:

• Minimum attendance to access free hours (4 days for the 30 hours or 3 days for 15). I am not clear if this would be banned under the guidance.
• Nurseries not offering the free hours
• Unfunded hours becoming more expensive to offset

YABU - nurseries should not be able to charge extra
YANBU - nurseries need to be able to cover their costs

Given the funding is not enough to provide places, what exactly do the government expect the nurseries to do?

The funding is enough, those charging top ups are just greedy. There are no extra charges at my DCs nursery. The nursery has amazing facilities, a stable and knowledgeable staff team and have 2 nutritious home cooked meals every day.

Sadly alot of nurseries will close now

yes I can see childminders closing by the hordes, too.

Funding does not cover the costs of running a childcare business, this along with the increase in NI and NMW in April will just lead to more and more closures, or some childcare providers will just stop offering the funding ( it's an opt in not out arrangement) and only offer private spaces . funded childcare will become like gold dust just like NHS dentists. I also feel if 90-100% off your income is coming from the la you are no longer self employed and should receive sick, holiday pay and a pension from la

Isn't the funding £2 an hour or something ridiculous?

Our local nursery (Home Counties) is charging £120 a day or £105 after 15 hours (spread out across the year) and will 100% stop offering funded hours if pushed because there aren't enough nurseries anyway and spaces are in demand.

It's all very well forcing nurseries to accept funded hours but at the end of the day it'll end in closures and nurseries (most of which are private businesses trying to turn a profit, remember!) not offering funded hours which just leaves parents even more screwed. There needs to be a conscious effort to create and run nurseries that accept the hours, but realistically who is going to do this? No one is going to be lining up to run businesses for no profit - and the government seem to be making no plans to do this either.

There are going to childcare deserts across the country for a lot of working parents. I can see a lot of settings refusing to accept the funding (which they are entitled to do) which just ends up with parents having to pay more than they do now.

Locally they funding rate is £4.25 per hour for 3+. How they expect anyone to provide high quality care and meals for that amount is ridiculous, especially for childminders who have a low ratio.

Parents who moan about additional charges should be careful what they wish for, as they could find they end up paying more, or find that they are without any childcare as the setting closes.

I have no skin in the game, as my children are at school but the system needs to be fair for all, and government should not be telling private providers how much they can charge.

What?! Where? How is this possible.

My sons nursery went bust a month ago after 20 years of having amazing reviews and being very popular. They just couldn't afford to own the building, all the bits that come with and offer free hours. My three year old has now been uprooted just before he starts school in September and arguably needs more consistency. I would have been much happier to pay a top-up fee...

It has always been the policy that nurseries should only charge for extras and they had to be voluntary. The guidance is only making that clearer because some nurseries were making parents pay the extra
The policy hasn't changed

This

I worked in early years twenty years ago and it was part of the contract then, just often ignored and there were no consequences for breaking the rules.

Depends on local rents, rates and staffing costs ..lots of younger apprentices are cheaper than older staff. Also on the amount paid by local authorities how it can be enough in London on £5.20 an hour is debatable.

Lancashire. The nursery gets 5.88 per hour for a 3 year old, a full day uses 10 of the free hours. Ratio of 1:8 for a level 3 practitioner, higher ratio if it is level 5 practitioner.
So 8 children equates to £47 per hour x 10 hours =£470 per day for 1 level 3 qualified. If you paid £15 per hour to the staff, which is actually pretty high for a level 3 childcare practitioner, there is still £320 per day left just for that group of 8 children to cover meals, running costs, managementwage/profit, meal, facilities. The nursery has about 50 children in total, some under 3s which they receive higher funding rates for so they will be getting that extra £320 per day a few times over. They also receive extra funding for children on SEN register and pupil premium for low income families.

It should be a sum of money not "hours".

This is such a detailed explanation thank you. I suspect this will only be a northern thing though - here in the south east (even though I'm technically in a 'cheaper' part) it's just so expensive. If we didn't have kids settled in nursery and school and family and friends around us I'd definitely consider relocating up north. It upsets me there's so many lovely places and I work from home so I could earn the same amount yet buy a bigger house for a third of the price of ours. Anyway I digress!

No it starts from £5 for three year old all the way up to over £10 for nine month olds.

What about on costs for the salary of a member of staff? It doesn't just cost the provider £15 per hour. They have to pay national insurance and pension costs on top of the £15 per hour.

Also a lot of settings have higher ratios than legally required as sensibly not many think a 1:13 ratio is really that safe for a load of 3 year olds running around!

You missed other staffing costs: holiday and sickness cover, NI, recruitment and training. This will all eat significantly into that £320 especially because they all apply to management and administrative staff too. You can generally reckon an employee costs 1.3-1.5 of their salary as a rule of thumb.

Childminders with under 10 places will be exempt from this apparently.

However, I and my local childminding group have decided not to offer funding to over 3s.

where your child is, if they are in nappies they need nappies, likewise food
Why should parents not be prepared to pay for them/supply them?

Well it's working for them, they recently opened up another nursery in the next town. They also received an outstanding Ofsted rating last year which shows they are providing good quality care.

Childminders are only exempt from publishing the extras they charge for on the LA site is how i read the guidance.

Most of the buildings they use to care for the DC are either rented or being bought by mortgage. These high costs need to be taken on board along with water rates, insurance, NIC's for staff which is going up in April, electricity, gas etc not just staff cost. Meals should be extra as parents would have to feed DC if not at nursery. It will end with nurseries closing or refusing to accept DC in free hours.

My DD is with a childminder that I pay a top up of £22 a day for which is very reasonable, my DD adores her and I don’t mind making sure she’s making enough to live.

the local nursery charges £29 a day + wipes/nappies/lunch on top of that for funded hours or £90 for a day(7 hours) + bits for non funded.

It’s not a surprise that many parents choose to stop working.

surely if nurseries close down then there will be a childcare crisis?

My daughter's nursery don't charge extra and their team is amazing! A very sought after nursery with people all over the city wanting to bring their kids.

This is showing a lack of awareness of costs (and I speak as someone who does not own, or work in a Nursery, nor have dc there).

You are only getting £47.04 per hour, if there are 8 dc there, all day, every day.
If there are just 9 children in the room, you need 2 members of staff, but will only be receiving £52.92 per hour. That starts to make the sums look very different.

As pp has said, for a practitioner to receive £15ph, that costs the employer quite a bit more - Employers NI contributions, Pension contribution, etc, so that nudges it up to about £21ph.

You can't run a Nursery with minimum staff levels.
You need a Manager, a SENCo (who needs release time, if not FT), cover for those on courses, those off sick, those on maternity leave, bereavement leave, annual leave. You need additional people to support room staff when you have children with significant needs. All staff need training (First Aid, Safeguarding, Prevent, Food Hygiene, SEND, specifics for children who have specific medical needs, etc etc).

They also receive extra funding for children on SEN register

This is incredibly naive. This is something I know a lot about.
A very small % of children with additional needs get any additional funding.
Funding is worked out differently in different LAs, but even the dc with the most significant needs, who need 1:1 for all the time they are at Nursery, don't get anywhere near full time funding, and don't get anything towards all the time the SENCo will be spending meeting professionals, filling in paperwork, etc.
It would be wonderful for all children to be well supported, but the funding is not there for that.