Compulsory Top-Up Fees at Nurseries are not legal!

[Undercovermumma]

Hi mums,

My daughter's nursery charges compulsory top-up fees for food, activities, consumables and so on, in a single lump sum, so I do not know where my money is really going. What is worse, though, is that these fees should, by law, be voluntary, with nurseries providing alternatives if we are unwilling to pay! I know nurseries are severely underfunded, but the Government should be making up the deficit, not us!

Have any of you experienced a similar problem? I am looking to get information on a range of nurseries and what add-ons they are charging, so i can take this up higher. If you want to be involved, and take the 3-5yr old Universal or Extended Funding, please give me the name of the Nursery/Group, location, and what add-ons you are being charged (price and information). I would be so grateful.

Thank you all!

A huge % of the money nurseries receive goes straight to staff wages. I want the wonderful people looking after my children to be paid, and there to be enough people to adequately care for all the children. The govt doesn’t pay enough for that to be possible.

They're voluntary in the same way that paying for a school trip for your child is voluntary...i.e. if you don't pay it can no longer be offered.

If you have an issue with how the government pays for the 'free' hours then raise it with your MP. If you're launching a campaign for better funding for nurseries I'm sure someone at MNHQ will be able to direct you to how they can support that effort.

Ultimately, it's utterly fair that a business doesn't operate in the red. They need to pay increasing energy bills to keep your child warm, they need to make sure their staff are paid, they need to make sure the premises is in a suitable and safe condition for children then there's the extras like equipment, insurance etc. I'd wager the profit margins are incredibly tight for childcare settings, especially at the moment.

The real problem is that the Government claim that everyone with children of qualifying ages has access to 30 hours free childcare (which makes it easier to claim that parents can go out to work/work longer hours if they need more income) but they don't fund it properly. My friend runs a nursery and even before fuel etc costs increased the hourly rate she receives for funded places did not cover the cost of providing a place (including staffing at least meeting the minimum required staff:child ratios). To make the situation workable most nurseries now either charge for things that used to be provided for free (eg. wipes, activities etc) or don't allow funded places to be used to cover lunch hours/hours after the end of the school day etc. If they didn't do this, and continued to offer 'funded' places they would either have to increase their prices for non-funded places by a lot (making them more expensive than providers who are not part of the scheme) or run at a loss and therefore go out of business.

The issue is not the nurseries, it's the Government wanting to be seen to have provision for free child care but not actually fund good quality child care

@Undercovermumma Will you be returning to explain why your efforts are going in to naming and shaming nurseries rather than petitioning the government to adequately fund your free childcare?

Just working through options for my nearly 3 year old. His nursery are charging a top up fee of £16.95 per day when 3-4 year old funding kicks in. I was hoping to increase my sons nursery
hours so I can work more but this means my monthly fees are over £200 per month. My eldest's top up was £5 extra per day to cover food and extras, its only 3 years ago so I expected an increase but not this much. Looks like I won't be increasing my hours after all.

How are they getting around top ups not being compulsory?

If you don’t agree to pay the additional charges, you don’t have a nursery place. The nurseries aren’t a charity.

But when the nursery fet audited they must show their funding policy, invoices, consumable charges etc including how any additional charges are applied and that it is optional....that is a condition of funding.
We know funding is too low but that is the legal requirement along with offering the full number of hour. I'm interested to know how they get around the legal requirements.
As a provider I'm well aware they are not a nursery but it seems nurseries are getting around it by breaking the codes they sign

I’ve no idea what nurseries do to get around it but all that I know charge for the extras and it’s not optional

Firstly, why mums. Why not all paying parents?

Secondly if you want to collect data set it up properly with a GDPR statement etc and how to contact you to get data removed. If you're doing research do it properly

Mine is a voluntary food contribution of about £20 a day. They let you send food in as an alternative. We're not well off, but I choose to pay as they feed them all 3 meals a day plus snacks and drinks, and I don't have to wash any plates/cups.
Compared to the £75 a day my youngest's fees cost, they're welcome to the £20 if it makes them able to offer my oldest a place.

You need to be directing your anger at the government, who like to boast about providing free childcare to all 3&4 year olds - when actually it's 30 hours term time at a rate of £3-4 per hour (depending on area).

Early Years Providers won't exist if they don't charge for consumables. It's voluntary in that if you want your child to eat/do craft/have nice toys to play with etc etc, you'll pay for it. I'm sure your provider would happily give you a list of all the items you needed to provide if you don't want to pay the extra fees, and they would probably amount to a lot more than what you are being charged.

Not sure why people begrudge paying for their most precious thing in the whole world to be educated and cared for.

My DC had 30 funded hours and did 4 full days, but I was still paying £200-300 a month because they didn't do stretched funding and only closed four weeks out of 52. DC had those hours funded because I'm a full time unpaid carer and we really needed that time, we were a bit upset to learn we would have to dish out an additional three grand or so over the year, but we paid it because DC loved the setting and thrived there.

the funded hours are funded at much lower than it costs a nursery to run. if you challenge this, all that will happen is your nursery will stop offering funded hours.

Our nursery charges £28 as a top up. They’ve clearly just taken the amount they usually charge and deducted the funding. But I sympathise with this. It’s a really good nursery. It’s more expensive than some in the area and we knew that when we chose it. For what they do their good value and I doubt they make a huge profit. And I’m not sure that the government should necessarily be funding more expensive nurseries which provide more with more funding than cheap ones. I’d prefer have a bit of a discount than them opting out of the 30 free hours entirely or lowering the quality of provision. It’s tough though if you (not unreasonably) expected the 30 free hours to be free.

I’m afraid your ‘good intentions’ are misplaced, nurseries, preschools and childminders are closing left right and centre as it’s already very difficult to run a viable and sustainable business as it is, just wait until the new minimum payrise kicks in! There are a lot of costs involved in childcare, all the obvious bills plus staff training on top, very little of it is actual profit. I’m in groups where owners of nurseries and child minders are having to have second jobs as they can’t afford to pay themselves or their bills. The government is at fault here, making false promises to get votes in the ballot box, it has been proven by the Early Years Alliance that they have been underfunding the early years sector for years. Maybe have a look at Champagne Nurseries Lemonade Funding, they might welcome your campaigning skills!

£2 a day for baby wipes and a fab of bum cream

wow

can’t you leave a pack of wipes and pot or cream there -

£10 a week sounds huge for those items esp as won’t be using that amount @QforCucumber

@Blondeshavemorefun - I also stated ‘etc’ all consumables, so paint, glue, glitter, wipes, creams, calpol, paper, other craft items, tissues, toilet rolls - absolutely any other ‘consumable’ you can think of that’s required. I have absolutely 0 issue paying £2 a day for these items for my child’s care when the government can’t pay the setting any more than £4 an hour for him to be looked after by qualified staff each warranting £11 an hour in wages (nmw plus er’s NI and holiday and pension contributions bring it up)

When our 30 "free" hours kick in I'll be charged £2 an hour. I'm going to pay it as she's an amazing childminder and can't work at a loss. The government don't cover 100% of all costs despite it being labelled as free. It sucks but you either have to accept it or don't send your child in anymore. Something isn't illegal just because you don't want to pay it. It's a steal compared to full price anyway. Childcare is a business at the end of the day.

Ah that makes more sense

i thought it was just for wipes

government really need to up their payment

my friend is a cm and she won’t take kids who use the vouchers as means she is out of pocket

and tells them to use other ways /childcare to use them

she’s always in demand so guess works for her

I wish people would get crosser at the government for promising you 30 free hours that they aren't prepared to fund properly instead of the settings that are just trying to keep their heads above water.

When our hours kick in our CM will be out of pocket by £5 a day. She includes lunch and snacks usually but will be charging the £5 to cover these. More than happy to pay this, tbh I’m happy for her to charge more if needed as Gas/electric is now so expensive. If we didn’t accept this, she has said she wouldn’t be able to offer funded hours. More than reasonable as she is amazing with DS.

My friend works in a nursery and it is voluntary there but they will only offer up to half the free hours if parents don’t agree to the daily consumable charge as they just can’t afford to run otherwise.

Indeed.

The government have made policy based on spending other people’s (businesses’) money for them and it’s not ok.

Theres no advantage to nurseries in having to create extra billing requirements for themselves. They’re only billing for consumables etc because the government funding is so utterly inadequate.

The policy does not require settings to feed your child. Nor to provide nappies and wipes for them. Nor to take them on special activities.

Originally the 15 hours policy was based on an assumption that children attending one 3 hour early education session each weekday. There would be no need for nappies (because they’d all be toilet trained in this policy utopia) or meals (beyond maybe a snack and drink). All nice and tidy and uncomplicated. A model like a playground or what many school nursery classes were at the turn of the century.

Where parents were awkward enough to need more childcare than that, they would just get slightly lowered fees but they would be paying a fortune anyway and should just be grateful for whatever they got.

Turned out that didn’t work in reality anyway. People wanted the 15 hours as whole days - not discrete morning or afternoon sessions. People wanted higher quality activities and provision. Then the government extended it to 30 hours (and included some 2 year olds in the 15 hours). A system that hadn’t really functioned (and where parents paying for hours had to subsidise the ‘free’ places to some extent) was expected to do more and it simply cannot. Especially as the rates haven’t kept up with cost increases either.

If nurseries cannot cover their costs, they simply will not offer the ‘free hours’. There will be no places. It’s not fair to have a system where the people who require more childcare are subsidising those who can manage with the ‘free’ hours (which is what happens).

Nurseries and childminders are businesses - they set their fees and you either pay what they are charging or you go elsewhere. If their current business model doesn’t work financially, they either increase their fees or go out of business.

Not when the government interferes and fucks it all up.