Unfair nursery fee increase?

[Bexyla]

Hi Mums,

In despair at the moment at the hiking up of nursery fees!
Our nursery has not only increased the day rate by £11,but also shortened their “full day” hours and excluded breakfast.
It means that for the same hours/ meals as before,it is a 33% increase 😱😱
Really unhappy and I know a number of people have contacted the nursery but they don’t care (I won’t even get into what their profits were last year…)
I don’t really want to move kiddo elsewhere,as they are really happy - but I’m sure that “unreasonable” increases are not permitted by law,from what I’ve read.
How do I determine what constitutes “unreasonable”,and who else could I speak to outside of the nursery to raise my concerns?

Thanks x

That’s a big jump but sadly there is nothing you can do about it. Look to move childcare provider (good luck finding space), pay the increase or think about other work arrangements.

it sucks and I’m sorry you are going through it.

But how will you solve the problem. You're alluding to other people paying for the cost of you having a large family. Other people who are also having their own 'cost of living' struggles.

You say the increase is 'unfair' but they are a private business. Their staff costs will have increased significantly over the past couple of years. As will their utilities - no price cap on business costs - could have gone up by a factor of hundreds of percent. We all know how much food has gone up.

The other factor that hasn't been mentioned is interest rates. If the nursery has a mortgage/business loan etc, that could have also got far more expensive.

Your nursery needs to cover its costs. If it loses money, it might go bust and then it won't be there for you at all. But like others have said, have you looked at the cost of employing a nanny? That might be more cost effective if you have 2/3 DC compared with private nursery.

Things to consider...

• finding a childminder instead
• you and/or your partner working condensed hours (full time over 4 days) or one working on a weekend day, so less childcare needed
• one of yoy going part time
• school nursery when a child is three (some do wrap around care not just school hours)

Our nursery always goes up 10% in February,
I work in HR and this new minimum wage increase is nearly 10% and one of our options is cutting people's hours from 40 to 37 to help with the increase.

The way I see it is I'm paying someone to look after my child so I can continue working, there is much cheaper options but we have gone for a Montessori nursery which includes cooking lessons, forest school, music lady, sign language lady all coming and they have other entertainment.
If we want our kids to go a good nursery and have staff who really care for our kids education and learning, then we have to pay the price.
It is not forever, that is how I see it

It is exceeding your wage because you will have more than one child in childcare.
I wouldn't be able to afford two kids in childcare and that is why we haven't had another.

This. Many of our friends spaced out siblings for the same
reason.

I remember when my childcare costs ended and it had more of an effect financially than when the mortgage stopped. These are eye watering costs.

A nanny would prob be cheaper is have 3

we have a 4 year age gap due to the childcare fee costs.

NMW is increasing in April by £1.26 per hour for every staff member ages 21-22 and £1.02 for those 23 and over, in early years that's usually a LOT of their staffing. The nursery will also have to increase further the rate of supervisory staff to keep the gap - that's an extra £1.65ish per hour in company costs (NI and pension costs) for a 40 hour week that's £66 per employee - 10 employees there's an extra £660 a week in costs before accounting for bills and food rises. The money has to come from somewhere.

@Blondeshavemorefun definitely but we’ve had a run of disastrous nannies and I can’t mentally do it again (to me or dc).

Sorry to hear that. I was a nanny for over 20yrs then went into maternity

There are lovely nannies out there

Nursery costs are insane however when you work out what their operating costs are it soon makes sense. The legal controls on staff to child ratio means they can never hold costs down too much.

We’re looking forward to our DS leaving nursery and joining one of the best regarded local pre-prep schools as the private school fees are cheaper than the nursery in part because we never qualified for the 30 free hours.

You should always have a copy of your contract!

Although I sympathise and have been through this myself I think it’s bonkers that you’d try to legally challenge a fee increase.

Nurseries are businesses and like all businesses prioritise profit. This seems to be acceptable for any other company or business except for childcare companies, expected to subsidise other people’s work and profit. (Not said but implied). Nurseries and childcarers are heartless to make a profit is kind of implied.

The government are responsible for helping parents that can’t afford childcare.

Out of interest, what is the hourly rate?

I'm sorry you've had some nannies that didn't work out & I can understand you not wanting to face trying again. But I agree with blondes, I've been with my current family 10 years & previous families as long as they needed a nanny/situational reasons meant it had to end (a couple moved overseas for jobs and either had willing grandparents or couldn't get me a visa). Plus I've done quite a bit of temporary nannying. I'm 54 now.

It's really disappointing to see so many posters willingly accepting that the cost of childcare will dictate the size of people's families or force women out of work. We should be screaming from the rooftops about the state of childcare funding in the UK.

OP, there's not much you can do other than suck up the increase or move, but I'd encourage you to write to your MP. Those with the power to increase state funding for childcare need to hear from parents. As you've said, other countries recognise the social and economic benefits from finding childcare.

@ColleenDonaghy

You don’t think a couples income should ‘dictate’ or be a factor in how many children they can have?

I do agree that funding needs to be increased but ultimately the early years sector is also grossly underfunded and workers work very long hours, with many children to care for and be responsible for for very little pay and conditions. I hope you’re screaming about that too.

You're damn right I am @Green777 - the women who look after my children (and of course they're women, because they're undervalued) are caring, patient and skillful. But the skill to get 15 three year olds through the toilet in time to get out for a walk, and then bring them on the walk without argument or incident sadly isn't viewed in the same light as the skill of plastering a wall.

Obviously parents weigh up costs when deciding to have more DC. But I do think that in a wealthy country like this they should be weighing up the cost of luxuries like holidays and extracurricular activities rather than essentials like food and nappies. Two working parents should be able to comfortably afford the essentials. To me, childcare is an essential, not a luxury. And the research shows that finding childcare so that women remain in the workforce is a net economic benefit.

It's not possible to run a quality nursery and pay staff as they deserve to be paid on the fees that parents earning normal wages can afford to pay. In other countries the state plugs that gap and they should here as well.

@Ragwort it's wrong because it forces parents out the labour market - parents that the state has invested in educating, parents who therefore won't be paying into a pension and will be more dependent on the state in their old age, parents who have skills and knowledge that would benefit the economy. Other countries recognize this and do it better!

You think you’d get some kind of justification email with such a hike. Not the same but my dog walkers costs have gone up hugely in the last 2yrs, almost doubled. I totally appreciate costs have risen, but unfortunately my pay doesn’t rise to match. I need to use her on my office days, so not much choice. Will have to try and save that elsewhere

I think you have more scope to challenge the change in hours/removal of breakfast than the fee increases. Nursery fees have been rising everywhere for a long time. When I started with my first it was around £50 a day. By the time we left this year with my second it was over £80 a day and now some of local nurseries near me seem to be getting close to £100 a day for 2024. It really is crippling but if you look at ratios and staff costs you can see why the costs are often what they are. If your nursery was previously lower in fees than local competition they may have been finding recruitment and retention a challenge if they weren’t paying as much.

Fees in general are going up but your nursery fees seem to have had a very steep increase and they should be explaining why. My children’s swimming lessons have gone up 20% and people are quite pissed off about the hike.

The problem is you cannot reasonably "factor in" if the increases are ridiculous and unreasonable.

My nursery went up by £23 a day in 18 months. Good luck budgeting for this alongside other increases!!!

I love how you're so "smart" about it, you'd be singing to a very different tune if you found yourself with a child that needs childcare for 3 years, halfway through, with all other nurseries and childminders full, and suddenly you'd have to pay. Really fun when you have another baby planned too, or maybe not anymore, even though 18 months ago it made perfect sense!