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 can benchmark it against other nurseries. Or you can think well at least it’s a couple of hundred quid less than what I was paying before so I’m not going to cause a massive fuss. Or you can stand on indignant outrage and cause everyone a load of stress. Nurseries simply can’t provide a penny by penny breakdown because of the reasons cited by people on this thread- but that doesn’t mean you can’t trust them to be fair.

You can also look at the profit and loss accounts of the company running the nursery on companies house and/ or ask the people in your DC’s room whether they work in the evenings etc.

You can write to your MP to ask for reform.

It’s one of those situations where a bit of pragmatic reading between the lines is needed.

And I think you are, perhaps deliberately, missing the flaming obvious.

Have a great evening.

The alternative is they scrap the free (funded) hours and we all go back to paying £70 plus a day. Childcare is expensive, it’s why so many (mums) aren’t able to go back to work and it’s why this was brought in the first place. £29 is expensive (although at a private nursery equates to about £3 an hour) but is cheap compared to the alternative.

No I'm not Sheila, sorry to disappoint. I just think a bit more widely.

Thanks! Have a lovely evening too

sorry you are going through this, what a massive pain

It's not her fault nurseries are underfunded. She has a right to know where her money is going

Which the nursery told her.

The consequence of making it more official are profound for a significant number of individuals.

I would have challenged it Op too. They should not be advertised as free because 30£ a day for ‘consumables’ is a joke, when it was 12£ previously. They are taking the piss from the same service.

At the end of the day they can charge what they like but I see it this way: In 2 days for what they charge you can buy yourself a designer perfume. It’s outrageous.

There should be proper childcare in this country at an affordable rate and it is not sufficient what they offer. Mind you I had to pay from my own pocket when my children were little and in some other countries nursery fees aren’t crippling as they are here.

Again, nurseries are business and are not charities and fees are extortionate, despite some places being ‘funded’ by the government I mean every taxpayer.

The 30 hours is BS and everyone, especially those of us that actually go to work and need year round, full day cover, knows it.

I agree that just shy of £30 seems excessive for consumables though. However in your shoes, rather than grass them up to the council for nothing, I would have been looking for a new setting with more reasonable additional charges.

Yes it's called cost of living and a conservative government having you on!

I get what you're sayingHeron, but I don't think -and I may be wrong- that the OP was indignantly outraged however?! Just wanting clarification that she didn't get from the nursery...

What is hard to stomach is their response to the investigation. I appreciate it would be difficult and time consuming for them, and yes - the funding issue is a mess with the government contribution. However, wanting to remove the child for asking the question?! Really?!!

I think this sounds bonkers. I was not charged 'consumables' for any of my 3 children at nursery and have used both local and private partnered nurseries, both funded and non funded hours, hot meals included.
If the nursery were to whack another £30 a day on they would price themselves out the game. I also don't think it's unreasonable to question such a huge hike in fees, and to seek clarification if you weren't happy with the response. The mental health of the staff thing is total bullshit, the staff would only know if the nursery manager told them, its not your responsibility who they discussed it with after you. They've obviously had a right good bitch about you OP, if it were me I'd not want my kid there anyway

If she wasn't happy with response she was right to query it further.

Thank you. It's caused us untold stress. We see the staff in tears most days. It's a good nursery, which is amazing with our children, and frankly I'm grateful for the free hours we get and more than willing to pay them the extra given how dedicated they are, all while working on minimum wage.

As someone who has diagnosed mental health problems I find it horrible that the nursery manager is trying to hide behind mental health as a way to get rid of a customer she doesn't like. She should at least have the guts to be honest. And really, if such an innocuous query has harmed her mental health then she needs a new job. How on earth would she cope with a safeguarding issue or Ofsted?

The manager's actions seem like the nursery equivalent of a revenge eviction. Where landlords kick out tennents because the tennents have spoken to environmental health. I'm surprised the council are OK with what the nursery is doing.

@JimHalpertsWife yes, precisely. Like I said, the messaging needs to be clear. From the government and then from the childcare providers themselves.

It really is all about the messaging. If you've been paying full fees for your child at day nursery since they were 6 months, 9 months, whatever, and then when they get to 2 years you're told they'll get a subsidy so even though you have to pay a certain amount which comes under 'consumables' (which I agree is annoying but a technicality as it can't be seen as part of the hourly rate) - then you'll see it as a positive because overall your bill goes down. Then child gets to 3, and overall your bill goes down again (though you still have to pay 'consumables.) So again, overall it's a positive.

As I said, having had babies back in the day of no subsidised childcare at all, this is all a lot better than nothing.

I have a number of colleagues with young children. All those who returned to work straight after mat leave have seen the subsidised hours which kick in later as a positive - which after paying full fees, it is.

Conversely, colleagues who has longer out of the workplace and only returned to work when they could claim the 'subsidised hours' seem pissed off that it's not the freebie they expected.

So yes, it's absolutely about the messaging from the govt downwards. They need to stop calling it 'free' and it needs to be clear that most nurseries won't be viable without charging extra. But it's still a whole lot better than paying the full cost

Surely there is no profound consequence as long as the nursery is working within the law. In that case it should be a simple response back to the council explaining their charges and what regulations they are working within. Profound consequences would be for if they are breaking the law.

Is £30 ridiculous though?

Obviously depends on what’s being offered but even setting aside the fact that they need to charge this amount to stay afloat in most places, this extra fee includes 2-3 meals a day and snacks, nappies, trips and classes like music/ art etc. Also includes things like sun cream in the summer etc.

Given that your average 3/4 yr old will eat quite a bit more than a baby, need more stimulation, wear bigger nappies if they are still in them and go on more trips it doesn’t sound that off to me 🤷‍♀️ I think I’d have found it a challenge to do 2/3 meals, snacks, 5/6 nappies and a class for that much.

You’ve got to deal with the consequences if you try to screw someone over.

If the nursery haven't done anything wrong then they have nothing to worry about.

I'm just so glad our kids had left nursery before the "free" hours were introduced. Everyone we know with young children now tells us that the free hours equate to nothing. At least back then we knew that £50 a day was £50 a day.
(It may have been £40, can't remember, but I know my salary was adding almost nothing to the pot and we just did it for my sanity.)

Pretty much all nurseries are doing something wrong, because they are charging top up fees and having to pretend they aren’t, because of stupid free place rhetoric

Best start looking for a new nursery

Agree, what did you think would happen?

Only on here would someone accept a x3 price increase without questioning it.

If they do evict your little girl I’d stick it all over Facebook…
questioned the x3 increase…apparently their mental health can’t cope…

why would the staff have a mental health response, they wouldn’t be involved in management complaints. Very nasty behaviour to say the staff have mental health concerns if they don’t.

if I was particularly vindictive I’d tag the staff and ask do they need time off for mental health?