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

I think if you're happy with the nursery in general and want to keep the place, the best way forward is perhaps to explain your intention was from a place of concern about the cost and you needed some clarity which wasn't clear from their response. You didn't intend to upset / cause stress to anybody and anticipated further clarity, not an investigation

That.

They think you were deliberately out to make trouble for them. If that's not the case and you honestly only wanted clarification, then you need to grovel and make it clear that you didn't expect or want an investigation.

But the same consumables used to cost £12 a day when the child was not on the 30hours free. Now they are, those same consumables are now £29!

It's disingenuous.

Nine years ago when DS started nursery in the south east, the cost was £39 per day - not for consumables, that was the daily fee for the baby room. It seems insane to me that only nine years later, people think that £29 is a reasonable per diem for add-ons to the so-called ‘free hours’. There’s something deeply amiss with this situation.

The DofE removed the word 'voluntary' so it is misleading to suggest that parents don't have to pay these extra fees. It states that parent and provider should discuss alternatives to the extra charge but do bear in mind that a legitimate alternative to a parent paying extra charges is that the provider decides to stop offering funded places completely so parent would then have to pay full nursery fees.

By all means challenge them if you feel they are excessive. For example, there shouldn't be a charge for nappies if a child no longer wears nappies. There shouldn't be a charge for a maths class that is not on the day a child attends etc etc.

It boils my piss that successive governments tell parents the hours are free as everyone who works in childcare knows they are not free at all. Why should any childcare setting work at less than their hourly rate. Calling it free has just resulted in parents clashing with providers as this exact situation shows.

They don't pay the funding back when a child is off sick and they sell on the slots.

How often does this happen? I’m guessing it’s ad hoc, an existing parent calling up on the off chance of a space for an unexpected work commitment and the nursery saying that they could squeeze Katie in cos little Terence threw up yesterday?

I also think the early years sector should make it clear that they are not offering free hours.

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

Why didn’t you let the Nursery know you weren’t satisfied with their response? I’m sure the Nursery could have advised if there were regulations and given more information on the consumables fees (which I agree are extremely high). While you were within your rights to do this I’d personally have tried to get a resolution with the nursery first. I’d be looking at other nurseries as it sounds that they’re perhaps looking at it that your relationship with the nursery may have broken down especially if they’re mentioning terminating your contract.

Some people here are just deliberately being stupid.

It is not legal for nurseries to top fees up. So they charge more for food and other extras. Otherwise the nursery would close or not take funded place children at all.

It works for kids because they have a nursery place and often it’s nice and close to home.
It works for parents because they get a place at a nursery and even though they get charged for the extras, it’s still less than paying full fees for a place.
It works for politicians because they can pretend that they are doing more for kids than they are.
It just about works for nurseries (who I am sure would prefer to be open and honest about top ups but that’s illegal).

It doesn’t work if one PITA parent pretends they don’t know about this and reports the nursery to the council, and then the nursery has to be put through an unnecessary investigation.

It would not be disingenuous if the nursery were allowed to call the “free” hours a subsidy (as they are) and say that now you have 30 subsidised hours a week and not 15, the amount that you pay per week on top of the subsidy is X not Y.

This

That said, £30 a day is extremely cheap. For a nursery that's open from 8-6 it's £3 an hour for the thing that's most precious to you to be cared for.

If your child is there 8-6 then best believe you are paying the full hourly price for the hours of 8-9am, 3-6pm, and sometimes the lunch hour too. The government funding is only ever applied for the hours 9am-3pm (at least, in my experience).

I would actually disagree that £600 a month is “really cheap”. Especially if you’re paying an
extra £150-200 on top to cover the “non-covered” “wrap-around” hours - since most working parents can’t drop off at 9am and pick up at 6.

I think for a scheme that is intended to encourage mothers back to work, asking women to pay an additional £600-800 a month is a
disgrace, and would preclude many women from being able to go back to work.

As another poster said, many nurseries are able to keep functioning with the government funding (5.88 an hour from the government for these funded children), plus maybe £10 a day consumables fee. If you’re having to charge £30 a day consumables, then maybe you’re either greedy or bad at running a business.

All the time! As you likely know children are constantly off sick when at nursery. And the demand is so high that when you notify of the illness, and they let you know of the isolation period (typically 5 days) they have parents biting their hands off for it and it's filled immediately

So Heron we just have to trust they're charging the correct amount for this, and we aren't allowed to query it? Not sure that questioning something is necessarily 'stupid'

If you say so. Wasn’t my experience at my DCs’ nursery.

I think it's one of those situations where you have to weigh up the potential consequences before deciding if it is worth getting a third party involved.

This. It sounds like you are at high risk of losing your nursery place which would suggest it really wasn't worth it! I hope there are other nearby nurseries around with places that you can try-there aren't around here, they are like hens teeth.

Well it's very much mine! Perhaps the "free" hours are increasing demand but it's my understanding this has been in place for a very long time.
Again no need to be defensive I just think they've avoided scrutiny for some very questionable things in this sector.

In our area nurseries are restricting when you can use the funded hours because of the shortfall in what they are being paid, you can’t use them for their busiest days etc
Our youngest has just started school so we’ve just come out of nursery care, when I realised the shortfall in funding I asked if I could voluntarily make up the difference in order to be able to use the funded hours for when we needed to use them, but was told that nurseries weren’t allowed to charge the difference
Our nursery also charged a rate for consumables £17 a day, which I paid happily because using the 30 hours ‘free’ funding dramatically decreased our childcare bill, so I saw it as still benefiting from the funding.
I think the nursery perhaps should have explained the charges a little better to you when you queried them, however involving the council and giving them the specific nursery details rather then making a general enquiry about nursery costs was a mistake.
They can withdraw your little one’s place on the basis that the relationship between parent/nursery has irreparably broken down, which will be in their t&c’s.
You may find childminders don’t charge for consumables, our local one doesn’t and you can send in packed lunches etc which may suit your needs better.

OP I'm guessing this is your first child attending nursery.

As you've found out, nursery can pick and choose their clients, unlike schools, who have to take who they are allocated.

Why did you tell the council?

Edited to add parents who complain a lot take up a huge amount of the nursery managers time - another reason to choose a non-moaner as opposed to a moaner. I'm not saying you are a moaner (but they probably think you're gonna be).

I don’t know how to put it any more clearly than I already have, as have many other posters.

Can you not just appreciate the huge discount you’re getting? Rather than trying to get even more money off… Everyone knows the sector is in crisis and the government funding doesn’t cover their costs. The nursery is within its rights to give your place to a more appreciative family.

I am not being defensive by saying I had a different experience to you. What a strange thing to say,

Once you've reported your childcare provider to the authorities, your relationship has effectively broken down.

I'm a childminder and also wouldn't keep a customer who reported me.

I understand you, I just don't agree with you. I think you're missing the nuance quite frankly.

Decent childcare settings should state in their contracts/terms and conditions exactly what extras there are with funded hours. That way, if you don't agree with the charge then you choose another childcare setting.

In my area, the funding agreement that the local authority insists the provider and parent sign to receive funded hours clearly states that there may be extra charges on top of funded hours. Although I appreciate every local authority is different.

Someone has just made a similar complaint about our nursery to the LA. It was upheld, now all of the funding has been cut until they resolve it, causing a massive headache for every parent.

It's going to lead to staff redundancies, no more activities for the kids, and a period of us parents paying above the odds until it's resolved.

Nurseries are notoriously under funded, and your complaint could have caused them untold issues.