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 reported them to the council for something all nurseries have to do to survive. This upset them, they no longer want you as a client and can terminate your contract. You need to look for alternative childcare.

I think the Government should stop calling it "free hours" and call the schemes something else like "£2400 a year childcare grant" for the 15 free hours and "£4800 a year childcare grant" for the 30 free hours - my figures might well be wrong.

Are top-up and 'consumables' fees widespread in Scotland? Because the official ScotGov messaging is very clear : 'Funded early learning and childcare is free to you.'

Agree.

I'm also in scotland and have never been asked for additional fees for 'consumables' I have 3 DC and have never heard of it until this thread and all of mine benefited from funded hours.

Hang on!

OP was well within her rights to ask about this. If the nursery was honest about the additional charges OP would have understood.

The whole scenario wouldn’t have happened if nursery hadn’t tried to say that consumables had increased.

Why is the nursery so bothered by this? Because they knew they weren’t being honest in their pricing.

Moving forward if you want to stay at that nursery attend the meeting and say you’d like to stay. You were simply asking why the consumables charge had gone up.

Because they legally can't call it anything else but simultaneously can't afford to stay open without charging it.

Why is the nursery so bothered by this? Because they knew they weren’t being honest in their pricing.

Because it isn’t possible to be honest! Of course, if the child is at nursery 40 hours a week (say) and the OP was getting 15 of those hours at the lower “funded” rate and 25 at the full rate, then her top up charge does not need to be as high as if she is getting 30 of the 40 at the “funded” rate.

How did they know it was you? Surely the council shouldn’t have told them, GDPR and all that. I think you’re within your rights to query it TBH.

You are entrusting the daily care of your child to people you find petty, immature and unprofessional? 🤔

The council should have informed you that whilst nursery can charge what they want for consumables it has to be voluntary. So you should have the option to provide the things on the list yourself.

And then the nursery would have given OP whatever notice it, as a business, was obliged to give under their contract.

The word voluntary has been removed from the guidance.

Personally I find those 'consumable' charges ridiculous. I've used three childcare providers over the years:

• a childminder who charged £5 a day extra, which included a hot breakfast, snacks, a home cooked lunch and dinner (cooked from scratch, huge variety and not a fish finger/pizza in sight).

• nursery. Nice setting, decent (but not amazing) facilities, but staff that made up for it. Consumables were £1 an hour plus about £3 for lunch.

• a preschool (private, not attached to a school, though only term time/school hours), Ofsted outstanding, amazing facilities. All kids brought a packed lunch and the only top up was 5 a term (so yep, £15 a YEAR) towards fruit.

It blows my mind that some places are charging nearly £30 a day as consumables. The most we ever paid was £7 (number 2 above), and that was a small local chain, had office staff, large building overheads etc.

I wonder whether for some of the expensive ones, either they aren't running their business efficiently or are just plain greedy.

This makes sense.

my youngest left preschool 2 years ago and, I think it was £1-£2 extra per session. They said it was for snack, and we provided lunch/sun cream etc. This worked out around £20 or so per month. It was just post-covid and in the cost of living crisis. Have things really changed so much since then?

Contrary to what some posters think, most of us do understand the discrepancies and shortfall in funding from the government for settings, and how they have to tweak their fees accordingly. And of course, nursery (rather than preschool), is often year round, whereas funding is by term. That also impacts.

But, that aside, consumables can still be charged too highly..and IMO, there is nothing wrong with querying this...

No one has said querying is the problem, it was complaining to the council and getting them investigated that's fucked her over.

A few years ago staff were on £8 an hour, now they're on £12.
In the same time period the funding rates have gone from £4.50 an hour to £5.21.

That’s not OP’s fault though.

I can't understand why the council would contact them if the outcome is that they " said there are no regulations they need to follow when it comes to consumables fees and they can charge what they like. "

If that's true, they would have already known it. That means that when they contacted the nursery, they knew the answer and could easily have realised it would cause trouble. Poor behaviour from them, or stupidity.

It doesn't sound like the nursery gave a very clear or comprehensive response or breakdown of fees, hence why the OP queried it with the council..
(I appreciate this is difficult with the shortfall/funding, but still..)

By that maths its an extra 71p per child per hour. Multiplied by 8 to get ratio, that's an increase of £5.68, which more than covers the £4 increase in wages you've mentioned.

Obviously with prices increasing/COLX etc, everything is not expensive so they might be out of pocket, but that's also assuming that staff are on £12, a lot of nurseries use young staff and apprentices and pay them peanuts.

But in any event, we aren't talking about donkeys years ago here. 2 and 3 were post COVID, 2 until 18m ago, 3 was still charging £5 a term when we left 6m ago...

It is the increase in “funded” hours to more age groups that has been the huge change since you were using nursery even a couple of years back. Also, the energy bills went up in trussonomics (late 2022) as did interest rates for any business loans or mortgages on the nursery property (whether direct or because the landlord charges went up)

So NMW and NIC increaes, plus additional locum staff as workers are leaving the profession for better wages elsewhere, is on top of all the above.

She left in 2024... Even if it had quadrupled, you'd only be looking at £60 a YEAR!

I've just checked, nursery 2, which takes then from babies so will be affected by the change has now gone up to £1.20 an hour. Looking back on my bills, that included lunch, it wasn't £3 extra. So it's still about a tenner a day including a hot meal.

Not all nurseries are greedy.

And not all nurseries have the same cost base. HTH.

I work in nursery management albeit in the charity sector. The current government have dropped 'free' from the information and voluntary from the guidance.
In the very recent past most nurseries have used paying children to cover the shortfall in funding. This is increasingly difficult as more and more children are eligible for funding and isn't going to get any better.
Overheads are huge and the NICS rise in April will be catastrophic for some settings.
I could've cried on Monday when I opened my emails and there was one from local NHS services saying that each setting needs to send a manager on training about encouraging parents to have their child immunised. Then they're meant to cascade that to all staff. There are so many things like this which add up to huge amounts of time and all have to be paid for out of fees/funded hours.
Got a child with social services involved? Hours of meetings for no additional income. Got a child displaying additional needs? Hours of meetings, paperwork, chasing other professionals and often the EHCP and attached funding comes just in time for them to go to school.
You can't cut staffing because you have to stick to ratios and you can't increase income because everyone is funded. If you don't add extra charges you close.