Paying full nursery fees while closed

[Lionnose]

We have been informed we will have to pay full nursery fees if the nursery has to close.

AIBU to fight this?

I don’t want to loose my DS’s place at the nursery as he is happy there and it took time for him to settle in but can’t afford to pay. I don’t want them to go bust so I’m willing to pay some but surely they would be making a huge profit if we all pay full fees while they close?

I can see there being much less need for childcare if we shut down for considerable time.
Some parents will change hours and prefer working less and sharing the parenting more.
I can really see this happening in the UK, everyone feels the need to work now.

I can’t afford nursery fees if I’m not getting paid because I’m at home doing childcare. But my husbands salary can’t cover our rent and weekly bills if I don’t work. We’d already pared right to the bone. Of course I don’t want to see anyone lose their job but there are harsh realities on both sides of the equation.

Oh, and the only alternative childcare I ever have is my 75 year old mum and we all know that can’t possibly happen any more!

I'm happy to continue paying full fees if my nursery are paying their staff full pay and not SSP. However, having viewed their staff handbook staff are only eligible for up to a certain amount of days paid time off per year (less than 10 and it's length of service dependant). It's possible that will change with the current situation but I'm not banking on it.

I really hope they don't close, but I can't afford to miss work and pay roughly £65/day for a service I'm not being provided with. I don't get sick pay beyond SSP.

I understand that they would certainly not be making a huge profit but then how are parents meant to stay at home and watch their kids and not get paid but still have to maybe use their credit cards to pay nurseries. Half of the women in my office are temporary staffs and won’t get any salary when they’re off and they either have to find an alternative childcare arrangement ( which they might have to pay for and then expect them to pay twice for a nursery that’s shut).
I know it’s a horrible situation for all those involved but there’s no way I’ll agree to pay 100% of the fees. I can understand 50% or less which will still put some parents in financial hardship if they’re not getting paid at all but to expect the full fee is so unreasonable in my opinion

I think you should pay half to keep his place.

I will still be paid, and so will be happy to continue to pay nursery so the staff get paid.

However, I'm from Ireland and have heard of more than one nursery continuing to collect fees but not paying the staff. So please have a quiet word with the staff to make sure they're being treated properly. I'm sure parents' voices carry more weight than staff in these situations.

YANBU imo.

Nursery charges are extortionate when compared with the quality of service that you get. It's certainly one sector that I won't shed a tear if they lost some of their profit. The money they make goes more to funding the owners new range rovers than it does reinvesting in better resources or salary increases for staff. Certainly the experience in local nurseries near me.

I only get paid if I work so whilst in theory I agree that I should be paying nursery full fees to keep them afloat, same as we pay over holidays etc. in reality I will not be able to afford to pay the fees if I'm at home with the children and not earning myself.
I could maybe use my savings plus a credit card/ go into debt in order to pay for a fortnight or so (still a lot of money to me), but nursery closures could well last much longer than that. Unfortunately I would have to make alternative arrangements.

Nomorepies You're the one that's mad if you think they make zero money. Our local area has about 30 kids/day whose parents pay about £60/day childcare cost. That's £1800.

They have 5 members of staff whose salaries probably total a third of that. You think the nursery is spending £1200 a day on heating/water/mortgage/lunches?? Pffft. are they fuck!

To my knowledge nurseries near me are not making a fortune, in fact I think they're under a lot of financial pressure. Personally I am very happy with mine I do not begrudge them their fees at all. But like previous posters, I could only afford to pay them for about a week or so if they are not actually providing childcare. I know it's not their fault, and I would feel sorry for my nursery owner and for many other small businesses, but I just wouldn't be able to magic the money out of thin air. I need to earn to pay for my childcare. I'm on my own and have twins in nursery. My only other option is my 70 year old father.

We’ve had this discussion and will be paying the full fees. Not ideal though.

Your fees cover training, legal services, support staff, insurance, registration, services, internet providers, licences, sickness and maternity cover, rates, bins, gardening, legionnaries check, fire Marshall training and H&S checks, asbestos training whether you have it or not, first aid training and provision, premises insurance, early help, statutory assessment and any moderation, any music services, safeguarding officer for education, and finance or membership services, creditors payments, payroll, union facilities time, HR consultancy and additional HR business support, research and assessments, pensions, website and ICT support, cash in transit, alarms, contract cleaning, pest control, sims licence or other, sims pay or other, photocopy rental, paper, resources, salaries, any text services, grounds maintenance, any EAL support, clerking fees if they apply. You might pay into healthy schools or other awards scheme.
They may be chasing lots of arrears, if they offer swimming there may be additional costs.
There are also upkeep costs to the fabric of the building and repairs, data packages and any library services. PAT checks, inventory checks, DBS and now GDPR support and checks.

All incur a charge that will be divided to form a weekly charge.
Only a portion of what you pay will go on the actual child care.

They might save a small amount electric and gas for a week but that is all.

If it’s a blanket policy and contractual, I don’t see how you can successfully fight it.

Whether it is fair is another matter. All the costs are being absorbed by the parents. The government should look at the insurance industry, landlords should think about offering discounted rents during this period otherwise they will have a lot of empty units if loads of businesses go bankrupt.

It would be nice if the nursery just charged cost - surely that would be a fair solution?

I wouldn’t
Our son was in nursery full time from 3mths until starting school. That was 7yrs ago and then it was £750pm

How they can possibly expect one of the parents to stop work and stay home yet find the money to fund the nursery whilst closed...err No!!

It's a tricky one. There's really only nurseries where youre expected to pay for a service you're not receiving at no fault of your own.

Not UK but our daycare is closed for three weeks. Not their choice. They were going to charge parents. I can only assume a lot of parents complained because 24 hours later, they backtracked and now we're not being charged.

I get the arguments for charging but, at the same time, parents are losing income to look after children. Some won't be able to afford childcare bills when they're not getting the childcare so they can work.

What huge profit will they be making??

And if the parents using the nursery aren't being paid and then have to fork out nursery fees on top? Or are nursery workers the only low paid workers who deserve to be paid for not doing their job?

^^^^ This! We can't all afford the double hit of not being paid ourselves whilst still paying nursery fees when our children aren't even there.

Bet they won’t be paying all their staff

I work in a nursery. We're not charging whilst shut and not getting paid, I expect the business to go under if it goes on for more than six weeks.

Have you agreed to not being paid?
As an employee they would have to pay you as per your contract unless they go through redundancy? Are you all on zero hours contracts?

We've got a lay off clause.

What's the alternative? It's a small cash business with limited reserves and will have no money coming in.

We got a similar letter from our nursery. Seems a bit of a rash move by the owner as it's just got everyone's backs up. If it was me I would have gone along the lines of asking those who could afford it to keep paying so they can pay the staff or something like that. Most people would probably have gone along with it that way.

Plus where we are we get 30 hours childcare funded per week so I would be asking as many parents as possible to sign up to that temporarily to allow the nursery to claim payments from the government.

This is at least the third threat in this.. basically, a nurseries outgoing when closed and open are pretty much the same. food etc is preordered ages in advance, so has to be paid. staff has to be paid. utilities are peanuts. profit margin is tiny.
you don’t pay -> nursery goes under. its as easy as that