Nursery are threatening to remove my child as I questioned fees

[Girlmum1984]

My daughter turns 3 in a few weeks and we will be able to claim 30 free hours. When this happens, my consumables fee will increase from £12 a day to £29. have questioned this with management and asked for a breakdown of what this fee includes. They have listed food, nappies etc as well as a few activities (baking, PE classes, music classes). The activities listed take place twice month and so far haven’t been on the day that my child attends. All of this would never add up to £29 daily.

Unsatisfied with the response, I emailed the local council to understand how consumables fees can be issued to parents and it there were any regulations. As a result, they contacted the nursery manager and investigated. They were satisfied with the findings and basically said there are no regulations they need to follow when it comes to consumables fees and they can charge what they like. Annoying, but fine.
I have now had an official looking email from my nursery to say I have impacted the staffs mental health by making this enquiry and they are going to discuss whether our contact will be terminated as a result!
I’ve never had any issues with staff in the past and we’ve always been on friendly terms. My daughter enjoys the setting and the care they provide isn’t in question.

can they kick her out as their manager has an issue with me contacting the council about them? Thanks

You know the reason. The funded hours are at much less than what it costs them to run the setting. So they either make a loss for every funded hour they offer, and go bust, or they do a fudge like this to make up for it.

If you want them to either stop accepting funded hours, or go bankrupt, then yes, take it to the council.

I mean, you reported them hoping to get them in trouble so I don't blame them.

It seems daft to have made such a big fuss when they explained to you the charge and to be honest £30 for consumables a day is still peanuts.

Yes they could very easily ask your child to no longer attend and given the email they probably will go down that route. At the end of the day you reported the nursery hoping they would be found to be charging too much and get in trouble after they'd responded to your initial message so I suspect the relationship has broken down as a result and they will terminate your place.

There will be a clause in the contract along the lines of in the event of the relationship between parents and setting breaking down irretrievably then the place will be withdrawn.

You shot yourself in the foot I'm afraid. The hourly rate paid for the subsidised hours and the actual rate needed to break even are quite a way apart, as you have found. Good luck smoothing things over.

The funding for 3 and 4 year olds drop considerably, it’s paid at a far lower rate than the funding for younger children. This is likely why the daily fee went up. Settings can’t afford to function on the rate for 3 and 4 year olds.

when you were unsatisfied by the response did you explain this to the nursery or just go over their head straight to the LA?

Yes they can terminate your contract and I can see why they would as the relationship has broken down. I know our nursery is charging extra on top of the funded hours above what would be considered reasonable, but I’ve never complained or spoken to the council as I know the funding isn’t adequate, they’re a good nursery and quite honestly I need the nursery place.

As a pp has said, it’s because the amount paid to them for your “funded hours” doesn’t cover the actual basic cost. It’s either increase costs of consumables or go bust.

The nursery may take the view that there has been an irretrievable breakdown of the professional relationship in you reporting them & terminate your contract as a result. Or they might not.

You questioned the fees with them then decided their answer wasn’t good enough so went over their heads to the council (?!) which unsurprisingly got their back up after they were investigated by them and you’re surprised they’re not welcoming you back with open arms? Really!?

Jesus you really have shown yourself up here. I don't blame the nursery one bit.

Yes, you've broken the relationship here. It's fully on you. Everyone knows the 'free hours' don't touch the sides of the overheads and that consumables are liable.

They're a private company and can terminate your contract for any reason as long as they apply the notice in the t&c. Time to start looking for a new nursery

'Funded hours' are really discounted hours. They don't pay the nursery enough. They're providing a service, the contract is a 2 way street.

You called the council to complain about them and tried to get them into trouble. Both with the council and financially had they found in your favour. With the financial losses your complaint could have made they could literally have had to close.

You've proven yourself a trouble maker for them so they will not want to deal with you anymore and give the place to a child whose parents aren't going to dob them in it. Around my area waiting lists are huge, there will be many willing to take the place.

If you didn't like the fees you could have removed your daughter, not tried to force them to change fees for you. You can't have expected it to end well.

They hate you now anyway so you have to move.

I can see that if you had never heard/seen the enormous amount of media reporting around this issue of nurseries being expected to somehow plug the funding gap and still stay in business then it may have been a shock to discover that the 30 'free' hours weren't viable and not what you actually get.

They are also term time only so you either spread them across the year or pay for the hours in school holidays.

Yes £30 a day is frustrating if you really had no idea that you would need to top-up to pay for wages/building costs/insurance etc.

Or the nursery folds.

I assume you shopped around all the numerous alternatives to this nursery....how many available places did you find?

It's a strong reaction from the nursery, but it's low paid, long hours and must be tiring work, if they felt you didn't value what they were doing then I imagine I'd be pretty upset too.

If the pre school feeds into the junior school, you may have already got reputation as 'that parent'.

As others have said, the amount paid to nurseries for these 'funded' hours do not cover the cost of providing them.

Nurseries have no choice but to charge higher consumables fees because the alternative is to go bust

If they find someone questioning the costs triggering then frankly they need to employ more resilient staff and grow the fuck. It's a perfectly reasonable question, you weren't questioning their capabilities, you weren't starting a conflict, just investigating what you pay for.

But you do that politely with them, not go straight to the council.

Impacted their mental health? Unless you were outrageously rude and abusive, surely this is not the first time they have encountered someone questioning fee’s and process? It’s OP’s right to take it up with Council if not satisfied, why shouldn’t she? Surely the nursery should have their own policies in place to deal matter of factly and swiftly with things like this, it’s part and parcel of running the business.

I don’t see any reason why a fairly simple complaints process should impact their mental health to be honest. Of course we will never know how ‘simple’ it was, only OP will.

I’ll go against the grain here, I think you’re well within your rights to question anything and if they having nothing to hide there should be no issue.

£29 for consumables that previously they charged £12 for? I get they need to fund the place but the same goods and services costing 2.5 times as much?

And her questioning it was fine. It's the fact she went and complained to the council about them afterwards that's pissed them off. She wanted the council to force them to charge her lower consumables fee.

£17 a day x 5 days a week × 50 weeks (assuming closures) = £4250. If they had to drop this for all the kids in the nursery (say 50) that's over £200K a year deficit. Well within range to force them to let go staff or even close.

Well previously it was presumably covered under the higher hourly rate.

No one's said it's not ok to question the fees and the nursery seem to have responded promptly and in detail to that request. Surely you can see it's the fact the OP then contacted the council to have them investigate the nursery that is the problem here and why they no longer wish to provide care for the OPs child.

They had to go through the stress of an investigation because of you. You might not have had any issues with the staff before but they have a big issue with you.