How could care essentials be £218.50 a month ?!

[Daisydips]

My child nursery says care essentials cost £218.50 a month. My child is 3 uses the toilet and only ever comes home with paper with normal black pen drawings on. What possibly could be costing £218.50 for it be an essential payment?

Am I being unreasonable to question this ?

Food, soap, paper towels, sand,soil, play dough,
but honestly the free hours are not free!
they are funded and do not pay the hourly rate of the lowest paid workers

They can't charge for hours as that isn't allowed.
The government doesn't give them enough to cover costs.
This is how they claw it back.

They don't. But the funded hours don't pay them enough to stay open, so they need to charge other costs to stay afloat.

Not at all. Ask them for a breakdown. They've come up with the figure so surely they must know what it consists of.

Well it depends. How many hours? Term time only or all year round? Meals included?

This

They’re taking care of the most precious thing in your life - your child - yet you’re complaining they can’t do it cheaply enough. Presumably you want the people you entrust with your child to be paid a half-decent wage? The government doesn’t give them enough, so this is how they make up the shortfall.

Is this a voluntary contribution?

That is an insane amount per month. Not sure why the other posters are normalising that sum. Ask for a breakdown.

Did you read the op? People need to start reading before bashing. Where does it say that sum is for wages ? It’s for ‘essentials’ whatever that means and 200 is an excessive amount.

People don't like to read an op on here they just like to make stuff up in their heads and derail a thread with their nonsense. It happens all the time now sadly and is very tedious.

OP is this a private or a state nursery?

Nurseries are like care homes. Pound signs rattle in the heads of the owners.

Of course it doesn't say it's for wages - they can't say that.

But the fact is that the amount the government pays nurseries for so-called "funded" childcare simply isn't enough for them to stay open. They have no choice but to add on all these extra "charges" just to stay afloat.

My nursery made £50k last year profit. Hardly pound signs when I’m trying to run a business.

We are being fucked over constantly by funding.

I don’t agree about them being like care homes - much less profit

It’s listed as an expense for essentials. what they decide to do with the money later that’s up to them but op is entitled to know a break down because that is a huge amount for monthly essentials for a 3 year old they’re trying to charge her for.

They can’t charge for the hours, everyone knows this. Either she wants a nursery place, or not. Or does she expect them to work at a loss? They’re not a charity.

We pay just under £200 for each child but that's all we pay so I don't think its too bad. Mainly as it includes all food which is 3 meals per day and a snack.

Yep, she can ask for a breakdown if she wants.

But ultimately if parents don't pay, nurseries will close. They simply cannot survive on what the government is prepared to pay.

This. 100%

I think it’s a shame the term has become ‘free hours’ in common usage because it raises people’s expectations. If it were more commonly known as ‘a partial subsidy’ then people wouldn’t get up in arms about it.

believe me, those of us who had kids in nursery 30 years ago with no subsidies at all (and a far shorter mat leave so we’d often be paying full whack from 3 months old) would have been thankful for any subsidy whatsoever. And before anyone asks, yes, childcare was relatively just as costly back then as it is now.

I wish there was a magic world where high quality nursery care cost nothing for working parents - but that’s cloud cuckoo land.

I just don’t understand posters like you who come on to someone’s thread so angry and getting their backs up about issues that the OP hasn’t even said???

Everyone knows they’re not a charity.
Its common knowledge regarding the hours too.

Op is within her rights to be annoyed about a nursery trying to massively overcharge her for essentials to keep up their profit margins.

That’s an issue in itself but not directly related to OP’s concern which is a nursery massively overcharging her.

It's 'essentials' as in its the rest of the money needed to provide the service after the government subsidy. They aren't allowed to call it that though.

Of course it's directly related - because they're only overcharging her as they have no way of staying afloat otherwise!

Just because they only come home with pen drawings, doesn’t mean that they’re the only resources they’re using OP.

We all know the nurseries can’t afford to offer hours on the funding alone - for older children in particular it’s not enough.

If you’re getting 30 hours for £218 a month I’d be quite pleased with that. Muggins over here isn’t eligible for the hours and pays £2,300 a month.