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

Depends on the contract. A commercial organisation may simply say “in line with clause 8.2, we are giving one month notice of termination” unless the contract obliges them to specify a reason (unlikely)

Whatever the merits of the OP's inquiry, sending an e-mail like this seems incredibly unprofessional. If nothing else, they could at least have made up some bullshit excuse about OP's daughter being disruptive or something. Literally stating out loud that asking with the council whether their charges were legit "impacted the MH of staff" is bonkers. Unless perhaps the people caring for the kids know that the whole operation is highly dodgy and are afraid for their jobs if it's revealed that the company is doing something underhand?

If the price structure is being distorted by rules and most nurseries find themselves forced to top up their revenue through inflated charges for consumables in order to keep working, then that's a problem for them, the council, and the government. But the average customer, faced with an increased bill for childcare, can't be expected to know that she should keep schtum and play along with a charade like that. (Plus, situations like that often seem to be the basis of court cases a few years along the line...)

I personally don't see anything wrong with that and don't think as a whole that everyone would order starters and desserts and drinks alongside their free pizza. If they want those things then fair enough but it's also perfectly acceptable to just claim the voucher for the free pizza alone.

What sort of action do you think she can take exactly?

Yes, but the toxic, gossipy and cliquey way things are in nurseries / schools in certain areas of London (at least) means that this may indeed (unfairly) follow her.

She can take her complaint to Ofsted anytime.

Technically they cannot enforce the charge it's a legal requirement. You should be able to send in nappies etc and meals and not have to pay tip up fees. To register to provide the funded hours they would have had to sign to agree to this.

I need to double check but I think arts and craft type stuff should be covered by the funding and they cannot charge top up for this.

It's shit that so many providers charge these top up fees. I remember when funded hours came in there was absolutely no charging it and providers lost the funding if they did. Now most everyone does it.

And yes childcare is low wages but the funding DOES cover the costs. It's just such a stretch when you have managers and owners taking a cut and not working in the rooms in ratio. You can have 4 children to an adult and area depending that's £22 an hour coming in- the workers don't get that much.

I'm a childminder and never charge the top up fees it's immoral I think as excludes the families without the means to pay it and goes against the whole initial point of funded hours which is education for all and particular help for those in poverty.

@Girlmum1984 not sure if you are coming back but did you ask for advice here or any other parenting forum before you took the steps you did?
As you will see from all the parents who have responded it's a well accepted method for nurseries to balance the books. It would be good if you could return to acknowledge that maybe you were a little too hasty with your actions and to thank those who were generous enough to explain how it all works.

Therein lies the problem - "profit seeking business".
We need to adopt a model where the state provides childcare on a "for society" basis not for profit.

If you have such little faith in the setting, that you would report them, it's probably for the best that your child won't be attending anymore

It's all a bit 'beep beep beep entitled parent who doesn't understand the funding ' coming through.

I'd bin you off if I were a childcare provider.

Ofsted aren’t interested in contract disputes, it’s really not their remit. A private business is well within their rights to cancel a contract. Even if a complaint was made, what outcome would you want? Your child to stay in a setting where you are made to feel unwelcome?

Well said!

Ofsted aren't interested in contractual and funding matters. They ensure providers are following the statutory regulations set out in the EYFS which equate to safeguarding and education.

The only place OP can complain about funding is the local authority and she has already done that and they sided with the nursery.

My understanding was that previously any losses were covered by under 3s paying full whack, whereas now it’s 9 months for 15 hours and from September for the full 30. There’s very few left then to cover the costs of far more spaces operating at a loss so it’s almost inevitable IMO.

Agree 100%

I'm a childminder, and I can't afford to be that altruistic. The funding barely covers a minimum wage income, let alone consumables and overheads.
Good for you that you can manage, but it isn't immoral to earn a liveable wage and cover the costs of providing good care.

The nursery should charge a consumables fee to the value they spend on consumables, to all parents using their services. The same fee.

Are the funded free hours children using more? No.
Are the funded free hours children subsidising the consumables fee for the full paying children? Probably
Are the funded free hours children subsidising the hourly rate? Most definetly. Which isn't allowed.

The nursery should have a better system for this - eg "consumables are £25 per day for all children. Those children who are booked in on a 40+ hour contract per week will receive a discount of 50% on consumables as a gesture due to the fact they are making use of a full time place" or words to that effect.

I suppose it depends how much less you get paid compared to your usual hourly rate. In my area it’s almost £2 less per hour. That’s an awful lot of money to lose per child. Some areas in the UK pay a little more than the hourly rate and some break even. It’s unfair to say it’s morally wrong because you’re happy to not charge a fee. What’s morally wrong is the government not paying providers enough and chronically underfunding them.

Also, it’s very dependent on how the nursery offers the hours. 30 hours over 51 weeks is about 22 a week, our funded hours are (I think£ from 9 - 5.15 (nursery day is 8.30-5.45) and you pay £20 a day. However, it only works out at 2.5 funded days a week (22 hours). Anything beyond that is charged at full rate (£45/ half day, £78?/ full day).

Another nursery I looked at only offered the hours between I think 9-3 and the daily fee outside that was about £40-£45 but as that’s only 6 hours a day using the funding, you’d get 4 full days out of it at £45 ish.

So even though the daily fee is more, weekly it’s probably less than at our nursery, as it’s 4 days @ £45 and one full price, rather than 2 @ £20, half @ £15 (the 2.5 days funded) then half a day @ £45 and 2 days @ £78

Indeed she can. That will totally fix her lack of a childcare place. Not sure what grounds she will use for a complaint as the whole point of her post is that she wants her child to attend the Nursery and is cross that they no longer appear to want her business. But yes absolutely, she should complain to Ofstead. That will fix it for her.🤣

Actually it's the opposite. Historically the funding for 3/4 yo was so shit they charged parents of kids under 3 more than they cost to cover the shortfall. Now that the kids over 9 months get the same funding there is no one left to over charge to cover it.

They aren't allowed to call it anything but consumables so that's what they call it.

Yes technically parents can refuse to pay the top up fee. But it's a private nursery so they don't have to continue offering that place to the child who's parents won't pay, especially when the funding means there are more kids than spaces so there is a large waiting list of parents wanting the place willing to pay the fee.

And the government know how shit the funding is and if they enforce not paying top up fees all the nurseries would close and they would have a childcare scandal on their hands and millions of parents out of work and needing to be on benefits.

This was just because everyone outside of the system believes that this is a brilliant initiative that young parents were very lucky to receive from the Tories. The fact that everyone inside the system knows that it's a terrible system forcing the closure of childcare settings is by the by.

My older relatives believed from the news that from two my kids would get 30 funded hours as standard.

I don’t get this . The only consumable I had with the free hours was 50 cents a day for fruit . Is this different depending where you are in the U.K. ? It was only a couple of years ago so can’t have changed that much

Heating, food, nappies etc all went up in cost astronomically.

Staff are paid basically NMW. That's gone up without corresponding increase in funding to cover it. Same with extra charges like NI, pension etc.

Can't overcharge younger children to cover shortfall anymore.

Will also depend on location. There are cheaper nurseries near me but you have to supply everything and the ratios are bigger and it's a couple of rooms in a church hall. My nursery is more expensive but better ratios, purpose built building, supply everything, each room own outdoor space, sensory gardens, play areas, lots of toys and equipment.