Nursery fees

[Smurf2019]

Good afternoon lovely people,

Looking for a bit of advice please

Our little boy has attended nursery for the past 2 and half years, However in recent months we have been having a few problems, our little man started to get the entitlement to the 30 hours free childcare in September and since then we have been charged a "premium" package fee for his attendance and being charged £1.80 per hour that he attends for 22 hours as his hours are split over 51 weeks of the year.

This premium package fee according the nursery is to cover all snacks, lunches and extra curricular activities.

My question is I believe this charge is meant to be voluntary and if we would like to supply our little one with lunch etc then we should be entitled to do that? However nursery state that no food or drink shall be brought in from home.

We already pay the nursery for the 8 hours he doesn't get funding which comes in at £224.70 per month.

this premium package for the food and drink etc comes in at £171.60 per month.

This makes our total invoice for the month with the 30 hours free childcare at £396.30.

Is this reasonable ? - I don't mind paying for food for him to attend as it does make our lives easier but paying nearly £40 a week for just snacks and lunches seems a stupidly high amount.

(I know nurseries are struggling but so are we and finding this amount every month is just really hard).

It should be free not subsidised, this from the gov.uk website - 'All 3 and 4-year-olds in England are entitled to 570 hours of free early education or childcare a year.'

I was Chair of a preschool and we'd get letters saying that charging for funded places was strictly not allowed. However it's not a huge amount of money per childs place and as nurseries are allowed to charge for food they now insist you pay for their food to try and claw some money back - the stuff about allergies is just BS to make it sound better.

You're between a rock and a hard place though as a lot of nurseries are closing down as they're not making enough money.

It's really interesting as I helped on a preschool committee and we introduced a £15 snack fee so subsidised kids only paid £15 each term and we had one parent threaten to take us to court as it is against the government guidelines yet lots of nurseries seem to do this

My son gets 22 hours a week stretched funding and I pay the remaining 28 hours a week. They don’t charge on top of the funded hours.

For the children that attend funded hours only they charge £1.50 per week towards snacks. For those that attend 30 hours it’s £10 per week for food and snacks. We have to supply our own nappies/wipes and children are expected to bring a water bottle in.

So I have had a look at our local funding for providers and they get paid £4.42 per hour from the funded hours "pot"

We are paying £1.80 per hour for the 22 funded hours we get per week which would then bring the hourly rate they are getting per funded hour to £6.22 (20p short of the non funded hours fee)

Then on top being charged for the additional 8 hours we haven't been funded for (the hours we are not being funded for doesn't incur the "premium" package fee.

So in essence we are being charged for the hours that the government are short - falling the nursery for.

(I know nurseries are being hit hard, but so are the parents with everything else increasing in cost)

hmmm food for thought

This is exactly how everyone explained it worked. Not sure what food for thought it's given you...are you planning on leaving?

well that is classed as a top up fee then surely ? if we aren't being charged the package fee for the 8 hours we pay for separately.

No I would describe that bit as all inclusive of education and consumables. If you choose to use funding then this is the education part and you need to purchase the consumables bit separately. A bit like a holiday package deal vs seperate flights and hotel.

There’s a lot of misinformation and misrepresentation regarding fees. Nurseries must not charge top ups. Spaces must be made available free of charge. Nurseries should not create artificial breaks in the middle of the day.

Is it fair to nurseries? Nope. Does it risk them pulling funded places? Yep. But them’s the rules.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1149556/Early_education_and_childcare_statutory_guidance_-_April_2023.pdf#page7

see 1.25 onwards and 2.4 onwards.

Discrepancies in charging arrangements arise because local authorities don’t keep an eye on them like they should and parents aren’t well informed about what is and isn’t allowed. If they did/were the whole system would collapse.

Hi @Smurf2019 You’re paying £13.20 and you’re not happy? What? That is extremely reasonable to me. You’ve answered your own question - it pays for food, snacks and extra curricular activities. (Your nursery may say it covers consumables, which will include arts and crafts etc).

Be very grateful they’re charging you so little! The 30 hours subsidised childcare you receive is for exactly that - childcare. It doesn’t cover everything else.

I am not happy when an establishment isn't clear on its pricing structure when they are meant to be.

£13.20 per day is quite a lot of money for food and snacks for an average family as the way they have worked it out is £171.60 a month plus the £224.70 per month for the non funded hours makes for quite a big bill.

I understand that prices vary from county to county and nursery to nursery and the funding isn't in the nurseries favour by any means.

OP they are being deliberately opaque because if they are doing something they shouldn't they will just change what they are charging you for, or simply close down.

And £400 a month for early years isn't a big bill compared to paying for a child under 2 for the same hours.

It is just early years provision in England and the UK in general is poorly funded by the government. The central government and some people don't think it's important but seeing some families close up, their children would fare better with early years involvement as early in their children's lives as possible.

But you aren’t understanding what everyone is saying. The nursery has to cover its costs. There is a shortfall between what the government gives them for the funded hours and what their costs are. They have to pass this on to the parents. They can’t call this a charge for childcare as they aren’t allowed by the government. So they say it is for food, drinks etc.

It isn’t. It’s to cover all the costs they need to stay open. If you raise this with the nursery it will be a very awkward conversation because most parents just understand that this is the way it is.

I wish people would get as exercised about the government underfunding the nurseries in the first place as they do with the nurseries who dare charge £1.80/hour.

Your nursery sounds crazy cheap. We get the 30 free hours and pay between £600-700 a month for 4 days a week!

The top up isnt really for food. Nurseries get a silly amount per child per hour from the government unfortunately.

This. £171 is a bargain for 30hrs a week

Yes I understand.

Our son has been there since he was a year and a half so I know how much the bill was.

its just frustrating that the funding isn't there for nurseries and the support is not there for the parents

It isn't just for food, it's for the supervision over lunch hour. The cost of electric and water to cook and clean and all those other things that have to be paid for and nurseries aren't VAT exempt like other educational providers.

Nurseries would be quite happy to give a real breakdown of fees but they aren't allowed to. Even though many are private businesses and should be allowed to add top up fees if funding allowances dont cover outgoings.

We do offer completely free sessions but there are restricted for times and flexibility ie only 9-12 is completely free and you wouldn't be able to swap sessions.

It's not. It covers all extra ciricular activities too. Ie. Art supplies above the norm.

Yeah it's ridiculous isn't it.

The government pay nowhere near the hourly rate nurseries need to keep going. They can't be expected to look after children at a loss. Surely the "free" element you're getting is a massive saving anyway. Yes it's unfair but not the nurseries problem.

It's not for food and snacks, it's to subsidise the funded hours. They're not allowed to do this and so they say it's for food and snacks. They have no other option because of they way the government have structured this scheme.

What do you want the outcome to be? You find out the nursery are breaking the rules and ....you report them? Refuse to pay? Move your child to a cheaper setting?What are you hoping to get from this?

It used to be the case that they weren’t allowed to make any obligatory charge for free hours, has that changed?
plenty of people were quoting a nursery charge of £45-50 per day on another thread so funded hours would be enough. It’s a ratio of 1 to 8 for preschool and yet it’s hardly any cheaper than the charge for a younger child on a ratio of 1 to 3 or 4! It would be interesting to see the breakdown of costs.

Nursery bills have gone up a lot since then thanks to the rise in energy prices, food prices and NMW.

Remember nurseries pay business energy costs that aren't capped and food prices have risen nearly 30% in a year.

However government funding hasn't increased.

We paid something similar when DS was at nursery. Like others have said, it's to allow them to stay afloat. At our nursery, they were able to pay the staff over minimum wage which meant their turnover was incredibly low compared to others in our town. In fact DS never lost a key worker in the three/four years he was there. For me, that consistency was worth the extra few quid a month.

The reality is the government knew from their own advisors years ago that they needed to pay a higher rate to make it a viable plan they chose not to instead offering suggestions on how settings could get around the shortfall. They fully intended that nurseries should charge in other ways....and even then they can't make ends meet especially now minimum wage has increased to add to other costs ...they wanted ratios to increase to get around it.
Do you want to have a nursery to use or not? If enough people stand up and say they won't pay the nursery will close like many others....the highest closure rate ever.