Nursery asking for extra fees for 15 hours funded

[Teacup40]

Good morning everyone, I wonder if anyone can help me?
My son is entitled to 15 hours funded care and is due to start in September. We have had a fair few visits and all fine until yesterday on his last visit before starting in September they told me that there is a £100 registration fee for tapestry and uniform etc I asked if this is compulsory as I'm not too bothered about uniform and I noticed other children without uniforms she advised me it was, is this correct? I don't want to come across as entitled I'm so grateful for the 15 hours he gets but I just know I'm struggling already and will not have the £100 fee so if this is right I'll not be able to send him.

I'll speak to nursery and see what they say. I don't want to complain it's not worth it. hopefully they can be reasonable.

The funded hours are killing nurseries in my area. 5 nurseries in a rural area have closed over the past month due to not being viable. The amount the gov gives doesn’t cover the overheads. It would be better if they were branded as subsidised.

Have you asked if you can pay it in installments? Or asked your employer if you can do any overtime to cover it?

They should have told you about it upfront though.

As others have said, in nursery terms it's not a significant amount if money, many cost £100 a day. Although I appreciate that to you it is significant, but asking to pay in installments shows that you are willing, but just not able to pay full amount right now.

It's typical to pay a month's fees as a deposit for a private nursery (the ones open 7am to 6pm all year, which take babies and toddlers) have done so every time. It's then returned at the end of the placement as long as all fees have been paid on time etc. The amount this will be will depend on hours the child does, but full time places can cost up to 2k per month, so the deposit can be up to this much.

With respect the OP wrote asking for advice as she was faced with an unexpected hefty bill with no prior notice. you suggested that the nursery may not be inclined to accept her child as she was complaining about having to find money she was unaware she would need for the nursery. If you read her posts she has indicated that during the filling in of the relevant form at no stage was this flagged to her. If it had then she wouldn't have been surprised. I appreciate that a business needs to make a profit, I have one myself actually, but my customers are informed of all costs during the signing-on process. This gives them an opportunity to query and if needs be halt signing-on and that is perfectly fine. Its a fair and honest way of dealing with people and has meant that I get alot of repeat customers together with recommendations. I'm not the cheapest at what I do but I'm fair. What happened to the OP wasn't.

Sarcastically telling the OP and/or others that nurseries are closing because parents wont "spend a penny" supporting them is just a crap way of calling out someone out on a financial circumstance you know little about. Many posters dont have the extra penny - never mind 10,000 of them!.

@summerily25 and I have advised OP how best to tackle her current predicament. I have in no way called out her personal financial situation.

Multiple other posters have made the same point and agreed with me on the issue of people reporting nurseries and refusing to pay any additional fees - it’s a huge problem in nursery provision, and getting bigger as the ‘free hours’ are expanded and more people try to use them.

And - for people like OP, advising them to push back merely leads to a greater likelihood of her being excluded by the nursery - so it’s bad advice encouraging her to push back IMO.

£100 is a huge amount of money if you don’t have it.

And the nursery could choose to not accept funded places if hey aren’t happy with the rules that go along with that. What they can’t do is take the government money for funded places and then break the rules.

The problem with the free hours is that it doesn't actually cover the child's place. The government doesn't give the nurseries enough money so they have to find raise or find another way to cover it.

My nursery has a much smaller registration fee and it's optional and covers a uniform t shirt which you don't get it you don't pay.

Tapestry is expensive but the nursery pays a set fee for a set number of children.

I think if you refuse to pay and say no thank you to tapestry and uniform it should be fine. Or you could ask if you could split the fee over a whole term and pay in installments as updates via tapestry are lovely

They aren’t breaking the rules😂

This £100 charge has nothing to do with funded hours- it is a registration fee for the places which ALL children both those paying & using funded hours have to pay. Not breaking any rules whatsoever and completely normal- £100 is the cheapest I’ve seen of any nurseries we looked at for DD.

It wasn't your advice I took exception to, it was the insinuation that the OP was somehow to blame for not having £100 readily available to present to the nursery upon their demand. The "spend a penny" comment was un-necessary and leads me to think that you suspect people have access to funds but don't want to part with them. That may be the case for some but not all so your comment was nasty. Its shaming someone that you don't know, and its needless. Again, whether she chooses to push back or not is her prerogative but what she doesnt need to is to be made to feel that she is somehow to blame for not being told of the need for an additional £100 and not having sufficient money to hand when she was told. £100 is a huge some of money to most people. A nursery is a business like any other, it has to remain viable but it also has to provide a service and honesty/integrity in its dealings with people. From a legal perspective if nothing else. If they told the OP at the start she could have either sought alternative childcare arrangements or tried to find the money. To present this to her at the last moment, causing additional financial stress isnt on.

Ah you wouldn't get help from UC then unfortunately.

Our nursery charges a Registration fee, it covers the settling in sessions where they aren't getting any funding yet and the admin involved with tapestry etc., usually there is a member of staff allocated for settling sessions and the finance team have to do paperwork to process the funding once you get your code.
Nurseries are still a business and they should of been upfront about the fee, ours is clearly written on the front of all the paperwork you have to fill in so they are wrong for not communicating this with you but they are fair for requesting a Registration fee for settling sessions.

Edited to add that maybe if you speak with the nursery and explain you hadn't been told about the fee, can you spread it across 2 months instead they will probably look at options with you.

Sadly this is what providers are now doing they are now obligated to provide completely free places but don’t have to give you updates on tapestry, they can give you updates via a paper based book, some are saying can only book sessions a term in advance but those paying the consumables charge can book further ahead, so essentially they will only provide the statutory minimum they have to and those willing to pay for the extras get priority- it’s what being shafted by government lack of funding of free hours has created as they rely on additional charges to make up the shortfall.

If the OP is purely accessing a funded place, they can't charge £100 for her to get that.

I would explain your situation and see if you could pay in instalments.

I had to pay £100 registration fee for my children. We also get charged for consumables on top at £5 a day.

Nursery manager here

they cannot legally charge ANY sort of extra fees as a condition of you taking up a funded space.

I’m not saying it’s right, but the government funds don’t cover the nursery fees, so they only survive by hoping parents pay extra for additional hours, maybe this is another way trying to balance the books. I hear a lot of nurseries are struggling.

It is now illegal for nurseries to charge a registration fee if children are only accessing funded hours. Charges for things like snack, sun cream etc must be voluntary.

https://www.eyalliance.org.uk/news/2024/02/dfe-clarifies-guidance-around-additional-early-years-charges-parents

Our DC have to wear a uniform at their nursery but its only from toddler room upwards. So the babies don't wear it, everyone else does. Could this be the reason why some children wear it and others don't? Or if they've had a wee accident, maybe they've changed into spares during the day?

The other thing is whether you can get the uniform second hand. On our local FB group, there are occasionally requests for second hand to be passed on. Maybe you could try this?

If it’s illegal to even charge the registration fee all other parents are being asked to pay, there are really significant disincentives to the nursery accepting any children using only the free hours.

All these rules do is make it more difficult for those only able to use the free hours access them, as the nurseries won’t enrol the children. Nurseries will not take pupils where they cannot turn a profit. Cutting off any ways of them making a profit, means they simply will not accept these pupils.

I’d also say, nearly all children will be getting some free hours from September - does this mean every nursery will have to stop registration fees, deposits etc?

You suggest these rules only apply to those just claiming free hours, and not to those also having to fund them privately. Parent working part-time using only free hours and grandparents helping are excused from fees and deposits… but parent having to pay more for hours as no family support (while claiming their free hours too)… can be charged one?

Nearly all nurseries are currently charging these fees. Are they all breaking the law?

Yes they can. They can charge anybody who wishes to use the PRIVATE nursery a registration fee. She is a customer just like those who are fee paying. A one off reg fee does not in any way come up against the rules.

Both of my children have attended private nursery’s (different ones) and both times I have had to pay a registration fee when stating I’d like them to attend this was to keep their place. With my oldest we got it back at the last invoice before she left to go start a pre-school - although we didn’t get any funding back then. And with my youngest they have just informed us when the new government funding starts in September they will be returning our registration fee due to most people not actually having a bill of over £100 a month.

could this £100 fee they are asking for includes keeping his space for you, admin time and the uniform?

That’s not what the article you’ve linked says? It says clearly they can charge for consumables, or alternatively the parent can provide the consumables themselves (at their own cost). The funded childcare hours are not costed to include consumables hence why nurseries charge for them. And it doesn’t say anything about registration fees which are an industry standard?

If it’s a private nursery (which it is) they are perfectly entitled to charge a registration fee and insist on uniform. They should however have been upfront about these costs, which it sounds like they weren’t.