Nursery top-up fee / 'voluntary' contribution

[Pierrette]

I've posted on this topic before, but feel like things are coming to a head. I've 2 girls who both attend a private nursery for 14 hours each a week. Although the nursery is signed up to the govt scheme and supposedly provides free places (15 hours a week), I have just been billed over £1,000 for this term for both of them (supposedly the difference in the nursery's fees and the local authority grant). In the past, when I had just one daughter at the nursery, and she only did 9 hours, I was billed around £250 per term (which annoyed me, but I paid it). I have some sympathy with these nurseries having to make ends meet if the govt funds don't cover their costs, but £1,000 (£500 each) is hard to swallow when it's supposed to be a free entitlement. The thing is I like the nursery and my daughters are happy there - so I veer between thinking I just won't pay the amount (it is labelled 'voluntary', but you get an invoice and chased if you don't pay), reporting the nursery to the council, or just leaving and trying to find somewhere else. I don't mind paying a bit (and I know lots of nurseries break the rules and charge top up fees), but this is excessive... Has anyone else encountered such a high 'voluntary' payment? Grrrrr.

Thanks. It does seem ludicrous, especially when you have 2 kids and pay double! I just wanted to get a feel for whether this was totally out of the ordinary, or in fact quite common. You see both sides of the story when you look online - lots of nursery teachers complaining that the govt grant will force more expensive nurseries offering above average services to either close or opt out of the funding scheme altogether. But looking at your figures (Pozzled and OneLittleBabyGirl), feeling enraged all over again!

You're right to feel enraged although I can see the other side as well. But if the scheme works out to be detrimental for a business then surely they should opt out altogether.

Very good point pozzled. DDs nursery is also £40 a day. Can't believe they ask for a full days contribution per week.

I'm all for paying for the extras if the funding from govt can't cover everything. I'm sure a lot of us here wouldn't want just the bare essentials for our LOs. But it should be clear what the fee structure is when you sign up. It's ridiculous when they took your LOs in and ask for a large contribution, holding you over a barrel because you don't want to withdraw your children.

My grandson was signed up to attend a private nursery prior to making a decision whether his parents should pay for him to go into their Prep Department. The school is signed up to the government scheme to provide 15 hours free provision for 3year old up to the term after their fifth birthday but they sent a bill for £700 several weeks prior to him actually starting even though he was only due to attend two full days a weeks. Obviously my daughter expected to pay for extras (compulsory snacks, lunches, extra hours etc) but the school refused to budge on the amount they were charging for the top-up costs. The Head even sent a very haughty letter saying that my daughter had misunderstood the scheme. In the light of this my daughter had no option but to withdraw her son even though she had paid for him to be put on the waiting list and also paid a registration fee which was non returnable whether the child finally attended the nursery/school or not. It seems to me that if there is a scheme in existence then there should be some method whereby someone in authority can check that the participating Nurseries/School are following the statutory guidelines.

Your daughter can report the nursery to the local Authority, Grandma. They will have a team administering the grant and they can throw a nursery off the scheme.

It makes me so angry when I see nurseries deliberately flouting the rules. Another method is to put a manipulative little paragraph about how the nursery will have to close if parents don't pay up.

Hello all, I would be ever so grateful for some help on this question...

My problem is a bit different. My 4 yr old has a funded place for 5 days a week at a lovely nursery, where i top up 2 hrs per day. I though, want him with me and not at nursery for two of these days. I am happy to pay for the days I do not attend, but the nursery is not happy if I dont attend. They only provide 5 day a week places. They say the borough will come down on them. Is there any way around this for either me or them? Are there any other posts on this?

Many many thanks

Thefish22

I know this is an old thread now, but I'm having exactly the same experience, and from what you describe Pierette, I think my son is at the same nursery as your two children. I'm am currently so furious and upset - I only found out about the "top-up" fees by accident, fortunately a whole term before it will come into force for us - that I can't figure out what to do at all.

Pierette - what did you do in the end?

Sorry to post on an old thread, but I'm finding this is pretty usual. In four nursery/pre-school settings I've looked at, the 15 hours is pro-rata. So if your child is in nursery/pre-school full-time they will get 15 hours funded, but funded hours are worked out as a percentage of the hours they actually attend.

As this seemed to be normal practice round here, I had begun to think it was me who had misunderstood the scheme. Should 15 hours be free/govt funded then irrespective of how many hours or days DC's actually attend? I'm confused.

LA does offer 5 x 3 hours at nursery schools that are attached to infants/primary schools but not enough places to go round or 5 mornings not convenient for everyone.

Can anyone explain it to me?

JunesTune the key thing with the FFE (flexible free entitlement) is that it is free at the point of delivery, LA's generally fund at a lesser rate than the settings hourly charge, but this difference should not be passed on to the parent.
The funding dept states that the cost of the FFE rate is calculated at the point of delivery, so to complicate things more it generally changes for each child (or at least it does at my setting where the price structure / discounts are dictated by the number of sessions each child has per week) the rate at point of delivery would also change dependant on whether you want term time only 38wks or if you want the entitlement stretched over the full year 51/52wks.

So as an example if a child only attends for 15hrs per week (or less) cost to parents should be £0.

If a parent booked 3 days per week at a cost of £30 per day the rate at point of delivery would be: 30 (number of hours) divided by 90 (cost of sessions) so the rate per hour would be £3.00 you would then multiply this by the number of free hours taking so £3 x 15hrs = £45.00, take this away from the £90 a week fee and the cost to parent would be £45.00. this would be for term time only, if you wanted to stretch entitlement over year you would work out as follows:

Rate at point of delivery X Free Hours (up to 15) = X 38wks (number of funded weeks) then Divide by 52 (to get annual weekly reduction)

ie: £3.00 X 15hrs = 45.00 X 38wks = 1710 divide by 52wks =£32.88

So for an all year round reduction you would expect to get £32.88 per week of your bill.

I wont go into what happens if the LA fund less per hour than the rate at point of delivery, because as one poster rightly said thats the settings problem and if they cannot sustain viability under the scheme they should opt out, and stop messing parents around and charging "voluntary" my arse contributions.

Sorry just seen your question about days attending, the maximum hours per week is 15hrs, however each LA has "rules" about how many days this can be taken over to get max hours for example my LA says you must do:

1 day = 6hrs Funded
more than 2 days = 12.5hrs Funded
3 or more days = 15hrs Funded

It varys slightly with each authority but IME not massively, if you give your local families information service a call they will tell you your local rule.

I am an owner of a private nursery and do feel like I need to stick up for beliguered nurseries a bit here. The funding varies according to authority, but falls at least £1 short of covering fees, multiply this by, say 25 children over 15 hours a week and you've got a deficit of £375 per week, multiply this by 38 weeks - £14,250. Now can you begin to see why nurseries desperately need to be able to charge what it costs to run ? Yes, we are private businesses, but profit is not a dirty word. Most nursery owners do not reap great rewards. I don't even draw a salary from my day nursery. I try to pay my staff fairly and constantly re-invest in my nursery, I have to make a profit in order to keep standards high and keep paying my staff what they deserve. This policy is a farce, the government are not paying for 'free entitlement,' the nurseries are, and if they keep squeezing our loopholes then we will be forced to the wall, who will provide the childcare then? Certainly not the government! It would be amazing if parents could truly access 15 free hours, but why should it be the providers who pay for it? Nurseries need forums like mumsnet to support them and help lobby the government in order to get a solution where everyone wins.

I can see your point of view as a nursery owner and I appreciate you being upfront about your figures. My situation is my 3 year old daughter attends 13 hours per week in a private nursery school over 2 days. I have just 'topped up' government funding by £440 for this term. Do the maths and this isn't just the odd pound an hour - this is serious cash. I also pay extra for snacks, ballet and school trips. . ..
Daddy is furious as believed now she has turned 3 it should be free. He was expecting her account to build over the next year as she attends less than 15 hrs. . . .
School are very reluctant to offer a breakdown of fees and the billing isn't transparent. I am now worried I have acted illegally by topping up our free hours.
The difficulty is do we progress this or keep quiet and continue paying. We are delighted with the school and intend our daughter to stay there. The money we are paying out should be building up towards future years education.
Any tips on how to address this? School or LA?
Many thanks

As an accredited childminder, I can offer the 15 hours free entitlement. It does not cover my fees. However, the administration team are very strict about us following the rules.

It makes me very angry that I have to follow the same accreditation procedure as nurseries, I have to complete the same paperwork and acquire the same quality accreditation scheme single handedly, yet they'll turn a blind eye to nurseries bending the rules and threaten to throw childminders off the scheme if they try to top up their fees.

The honest thing to do, if providers can't afford to offer the free entitlement, is not to offer it in the first place. At the moment, the Government is pretending to provide for 15 hours free nursery provision; the nurseries with hidden charges and top up fees are pretending to offer the free entitlement and parents are being blackmailed into paying up for it.

Those that lose out are the parents who thought they were getting their entitlement and find out too late that they'll be charged, and those settings that do offer the entitlement according to the rules and lose clients to the settings that have misled parents and are effectively charging higher fees.

Hi babyabroad. Yes, many private nurseries are not transparent about the charges. The reason for this is that it comes down to the same bottom line, nursery providers cannot run high quality childcare and employ well-qualified, graduate staff on the amount forthcoming from the local authorities. Local authorities do know this and have sympathy for their providers. However, they are not turning a blind eye, as Tanith suggests, they do respond when parents make a complaint or raise a query. Many private schools who have nurseries have simply pulled out of the funding as they know that parents who want to attend the school, will usually pay for the nursery first. I don't really want to suggest that you approach the LA as I know what it's like to be investigated, and I know what it's like to have your business threatened by ill-thought our government policy!! The quality of your daughter's nursery is no doubt in-line with the true fees they charge, at the end of the day, quality does cost money to maintain, especially in such a labour-intensive field. Try thinking about it this way, would you be able to afford the fees if the nursery pulled out of the funding because they were investigated?? It's a tough one all round, sorry!

Please do write to your local authority and ask them how much they pay settings per hour for funded children, you might get a shock about how little it is (although some areas do pay a fair amount). If your area pays a very low fee it would be great if you could contact them again asking why the payment falls below what is affordable and copy your MP in to it too.

The heart of the problem is under-funding by local authorities, the government make the rules about the entitlement and praise themselves for giving every 3-4 year old free 15 hours the term after a child's 3rd birthday but then they let the local authorities undermine it by not funding it correctly.

In many areas the whole scheme is at the point of collapse and it just seems to be being allowed to happen.

My apologies, Spadgeroo: our local nurseries all seem to charge top up fees and are quite blatant about it - it even appears in their literature for several of them! Hence my assuming that the LA was turning a blind eye to it. They certainly don't seem to be worrying about it, even though they've been told about the practice.
It may well be another story in other areas.

I do think that's a good idea Oddboots about questioning the LA about the funding amounts. It does vary dramatically from place to place. As you correctly say, the whole scheme in most places is at the point of collapse, this is almost certainly what will happen if nurseries are forced to stop charging top-ups.