Do you pay your nursery's essentials and extras fee?

[Brightyellowflowers]

My DCs go to a private nursery and receive the 30 hours funding. We've just had notification that the fee they charge for extras is now "non-mandatory" (as per new government guidance). They charge £1.80 per funded hour, which doesn't sound much, but for two kids it's an extra £171 a month each... which is 4k a year!

I appreciate that government funding doesn't always cover their costs, but I can't afford to pay 4k if I don't have to. What is everyone doing? Do you pay this charge? I feel like the nursery is guilt tripping parents into paying it and just wanted to check what the norm is.

Wow. I came to see the thread to also try and understand but OP you’ve had a tough time! I can’t believe the assumptions people have made based on this conversation.

I understand that it's difficult, money is tight for so many families. Sadly the reality is that many nurseries will close if enough parents choose not to pay these extra charges.

Not only are the government underfunding these 'free' spaces, they've just released an advert for school based nurseries (even though only a very small amount of schools have actually signed up for the scheme) giving the impression that it'll be a better start for their child than other settings such as private nursery or childminder. After all the hard work that these staff do to care for and educate children, being paid an insultingly low wage to do so- more undervalued than ever!

Sadly the reality is that many nurseries will close if enough parents choose not to pay these extra charges.

I don't think they'll close because parents will still need childcare. But many will refuse to offer the funded hours, I suspect, so it will be harder and harder for parents to find a setting that offers them. Settings that don't offer the funded hours will be able to offer a more competitive rate to parents who don't qualify with them, because those parents will no longer have to cross-subsidize the funded hours for others. So they'll offer a better rate and better service for parents paying the full amount.

I don’t understand why you can’t provide packed lunches? My daughter takes one to nursery as do all the children there. No nuts, like at school, and it’s fine.

I would at least pay a proportion of it.

I personally do pay the voluntary charge (always been voluntary where I am) but they’re cheap and outstanding rated so I just feel very blessed we have a place there and my child is treated so well. Plus we can afford it.

To the poster asking how some places can provide a service without charging. The staff are only trained to apprenticeship level, if fact the manager will probably only hold a level 3, some staff will be untrained, reliance on apprentices/ students as they are cheap, higher staff turnover as there is no investment in them as individuals, all training will be the minimal required, they will provide adequate care but nothing more and nothing for kids with any additional needs - by law they have to offer this but they won’t have the staff, knowledge or skills for this, the parents get to do more admin around sorting out funding codes etc because they won’t have an admin worker, the activities will be much more limited eg no trips off site as they won’t have the staff for them, limited new resources, limited updates to parents about what they are doing with your child all day- your getting a basic service which is great if that’s what you want.

If you want anything more than this it has to be paid for and this has been done through the resource charge/private fees which parents knew and agreed to when they placed their children.

The council has an obligation to find a free place for your child if you demand one but it has no obligation for it to be near your house, fit your work hours etc

I think a better question is why do some nurseries charge more than £100 per day.

If a nursery is able to run on £60 a child per day then yes, they can afford the "free hours". But if it does genuinely cost £100 (I'm guessing mainly due to rent/mortgage) then its obvious they can't if the council doesn't give them enough money.

(Can nurseries still only offer the funding between certain times?)

If parents pay it things will carry on as normal. If parents opt not to pay it the nursery will close or just operate on a private basis, not accepting government funding.

They are legally allowed to charge them. They are just not legally allowed to make them mandatory.

How the nursery manages that is up to them. Let parents not pay it but have no money for the consumables for that child for those hours. Or, increase non funded hours cost to cover it. Or, attempt to operate with only £5 per child for 30 hours a week which needs to cover staff wages, probably rental space, heating, light, electric, food, activities etc.

I know I'd rather pay extra for the funded hours and know my child is being looked after in a safe place by qualified staff and fed properly, than complain that my bill went down but not enough.

I pay it as otherwise my nursery will close? We pay 2.15 an hour
Still cheaper than the 9.50 an hour it would be without funding!

How old is your little one? You can actually check to see how much the LA payments to the nursery are per child per hour.

Average rates are according to parliament

The national average hourly funding rates for local authorities in 2024/25 are:
Three and four-year-olds: £5.88 per hour. The rate has fallen by 3% in real terms (when adjusted for inflation) since 2017/18 (in 2024/25 prices).

Two-year-olds: £8.28 per hour. The rate has increased by 21% in real terms since 2017/18 and by 35% since 2023/24.

Children under two: £11.22 per hour.

Ooh will have a look! I have a 3 year old and a 2 year old

Yes we pay £15 for a full funded day which is 9-3 plus additional costs of 3-5

No issue paying it

100% pay it

If you’re annoyed at anyone, be annoyed at the government for mis advertising ‘free’ hours which they don’t actually subsidise daily. We essentially pick up the cost. To get around this, our nursery double the hourly rate for over 3’s who are receiving funding. IE we now pay that for the 13 hours a week we fund, plus £20 a day for food etc.

Yes! Mine goes 4 full days a week and I pay between £500 - £715 a month, depending on how they allocate the funding that month.

To add, that is for 1 child only.

Wasn’t it the previous government who set up the scheme and announced it as free?

My nursery have also just confirmed the additional charge is compulsory, so they had increased that charge and also put their hourly rate up too. So suddenly my monthly bill has increased by £100 roughly. I did question it, not because I don’t want to pay, but because we are going to struggle to afford it!
Yes, fees before the funded hours were more (my DC is 2.5 so currently accesses 15 funded hours. But our mortgage doubled as her funded hours kicked in. So we are definitely going to struggle now.
I completely understand nurseries having to do this and I value ours hugely, I will still pay the extra but not without a struggle. This is all down to a shoddy government putting in place a scheme that doesn’t actually end up helping the businesses! There needs to be a push for things to be changed so that nurseries aren’t constantly going under.

This is completely right, by the way.

Someone already laid out a good summary earlier in the thread but there was a court case which established that while nurseries may charge extra for consumables (which must be actual consumables), this cannot be a condition of accessing the funded hours. The Government has issued new statutory guidance which is clearer on this point, but the overarching legal effect is the same.

The previous top-up charge situation in many nurseries was unlawful, and would have been regardless of the new guidance, and that is why they are changing it.

In answer to OP’s question, we do pay ours. It’s a decent amount - over £2.50 per funded hour, and we’re in London so the baseline is still well over £1k per month - but she eats well there and I can’t be arsed sending food and nappies / cream etc in every day.

I wouldn’t think less of any parent who didn’t pay it - although, everyone at our daycare seems to as no child takes in external food or nappies. If the government policy is flawed and will lead to adverse effects on nurseries / parents, I don’t think it’s for random individuals to remedy this.

But it's interesting that you see the nursery fee as the reason you'll struggle and not the fact that your mortgage has doubled.

Childcare fees are such a relatively small time of your child's life, I don't understand the mentality that cheap is the way to go. I immediately discount any parent that contacts me and cost is the very first thing they ask. People are still quite happy to live in expensive areas, overstretch themselves with mortgages and then compliance that living in thise areas costs more! If housing is expensive then so will the rates and rents on your nursery building.

I know a nursery owner and it’s causing the biggest headache for all of the staff affected by this .
She can’t give fridge space to anyone that wants to bring their own lunch so it needs to be food that doesn’t require chilling & nursery also isn’t obliged to provide toilet roll, hand soap , craft activities or anything at all if parents don’t pay the top up fees.
The government have royally screwed them over , and so many will close because of this , parents don’t see the bigger picture , less money means less staff , so I would urge you if you can afford it to pay it .

Of course they need to provide toilet roll and hand soap- hygiene is part of very basic care which the government are funding!

Why can’t they hang a lunch bag with a freezer pack inside on their peg like a million primary school children do every day?!

Well I've just done a bit of a randomised deep dive into the financial statements of a handful of nursery groups in the top 20 (for size) in the UK.

Most are making either a small profit, or a small loss as a group. Most have 2 or 3 directors, and these directors are being paid between 179000 and 324000 per year, depending on the nursery chain.

I wouldn't feel too bad about not paying the £3 per day extra. I certainly won't be.

On mumsnet everyone will say they are paying it, what a scrounger you are etc.

in real life no one gives away 4k - that’s 8k before tax for me!! That’s a decent holiday…

in real life 95% of our nursery aren’t paying. It’s a business, hmrc accounts show it’s not all doom and gloom…..

That's interesting. How do you know that, from chatting to other parents? Do nursery still supply lunches etc?

I’d look and see what their finances are like on companies house. The big chains make millions in profits, some are having to count every penny.