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).

There has been a campaign for many years to change the scheme name from free to subsidised but the government won't as it doesn't sound so good.

I thought it was mostly referred to as funded hours

I thought the same

The government says 15/30 hours free childcare which must be free at point of entry the portal refers to it as FFE free flexible entitlement.....they rarely say it's term time only at those hours or refer to the yearly hours

Is that amount after using the 20% tax free childcare if your eligible?

Probably an unpopular opinion but I get nurseries need extra funding etc however when a child is 3 or older there is 1 staff member for eight children, someone mentioned it works out that the government pay £5 per hour so x by 8 that’s £40 per hour and 1 staff member let’s say experienced £15per hour they are still up by £25 per hour. This is just for 8 3+ year olds. so I don’t think there should be a premium to pay and you should get to choose to take your own lunch. The nursery we attend do not charge a premium when you get free hours and we can have dinners and pay extra or have packed lunch.

What's stopping you quitting your job if being on benefits is so much better?

Because I have morals and I would rather earn a wage and pay my way through life!

they should not be branded as 30 hours free childcare if it’s not free it’s just “subsidised”

My original post seems to be an unpopular opinion too.

I also understand they need extra funding etc because they aren't getting paid enough however when they are branded as 30 hours FREE childcare its clearly not.

This should be something nurseries do and stick together and then go to the government to demand an increase in the funding - and I know it wouldn't be an easy thing to do.

there is a lot of misconception out and a lot of dividing opinion on what should be paid for and what shouldn't etc.

@Smurf2019
i think what causes confusion etc is that different nurseries seem to find different ways of increasing costs etc some increase fees, some charge lunches and some don’t, some charge top ups & some don’t (mine doesn’t but has increased fees ). But I think you’ll end up paying roughly the same amount wherever you go?

@MMM2022

The only thing I know for sure is that it seems to be a minefield.

We have friends that attend different nurseries and they get charged around half of what we are for the same hours spread over the 51 weeks of the year.

I think we are getting stung a little bit as LO attends on a Monday even if they are closed because of a BH we get charged for it, but I suspect that's normal practise.

We have had a look around and there is child minders in the local area that charge up to £5 a day supplement and you can use the "subsidised hours" with so that might be an option.

Our one charges £30 a day extras when fully funded! Usually around £60 a day without funding

my nursery closes two weeks over summer & two weeks over Christmas which they don’t charge. That helps keeps the cost down for us and my work closes two weeks over Christmas anyway and I’ve already booked the summer so suits me fine.
they close Easter Monday & Friday but are open the rest of the bank holidays.. as are most jobs these days?
yes I was told you can use funded hours in more than one location.
my sister has a child same age as mine in nursery and where they are it costs £20 more a day.
I think it also depends on areas and what local authorities provide? For example my local authority provides meals for all 3 and over so maybe that’s why there are less top ups at my nursey?

I don’t know to be honest but I think the nurseries all doing what they need to stay open etc

How do you get £5 an hour? The government give money to the la they can take 5% for admin costs they then choose how to distribute payments using factors like Send and deprivation. Schools get the highest amount. In my borough rates seem to be varying by £2 with some settings getting £3.90
Then of course it's not just wages that need paying...minimum wage has just gone up as have business rates, utilities, rent food costs, insurance, training....and more than one staff member to pay salaries for...cooks, office staff, cleaners.

It's a good option childminders work to the same standards (EYFS) and are inspected by the same Ofsted inspector who will go into nursery so a good or outstanding provider will be doing as good a job in supporting learning and development and providing school readiness regardless of their label.

I think your right!

I haven't got a problem with the nursery charging extra fees etc but it makes it quite hard when these fee's weren't explained once my LO got the "free" hours.

I think more of an explanation before agreeing to anything is a good idea because I suspect we aren't the only parents to get a unexpected bill like we have got.

@jannier if you read my post I said someone had said on this thread around £5 anyway I just check our local council and it’s £4.56 per hour, It wasn’t far off. I mentioned that the calculations were for one staff member and 8 children as is the ratio for the age group, obviously there are more than 8 children in a setting and there are also parents paying huge amounts to look after babies and toddlers. The cost isn’t far off actual hourly rate they would get from a parent paying for a 3+yr old. Another thing say they did away with the 15/30 funded hours, how many parents would actually pay for their child to attend?? I’m guessing nurseries would lose a lot of business

A childminder can only look after 3 under 5s so if the funding rate is £4.10 and they didn’t charge a top up that makes £12.30 which is just about minimum wage before any other cost is deducted - ongoing training, insurance, specialist car insurance, ICO membership etc before you even think about bills, resources, day trips, snacks, waterproofs, etc etc - it’s not a feasible business. The government brand it as free to make themselves look good and the childcare provider be demonised. This government have a lot to answer for.

Below is the rates that the government give each council - but note this IS NOT how much a childcare provider gets. Each council takes about 10-20p per hour (!!!) from these rates before the childcare provider gets it https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/944993/20201118_Step-by-step_tables_v1.1_hardcoded.xlsx

Rbwm is 80p less!

@Smurf2019 do you mean it’s more about not knowing you would be charged extra? So as you say you haven’t exactly got a problem with what you are being charged, but you just didn’t know so wasn’t prepared? Is that the problem? I think this can be a good lesson to us all to ask beforehand l. My LO isn’t 3 yet but I’ll be double checking what I’ll be paying before.
some nurseries spread the top up throughout the year and some I know do it term time only. So I know some who pays £10 a day term time and then £60 a day during summer.

@MMM2022

I knew we would be charged extra because his 30 hours are split down to 22 hours because it’s spread over.

so we knew we would have to pay 8 hours a week because he’s in for 3 days.

It wasn’t explained to us that there would be a “premium” fee for the funded hours which covered “snacks and consumables” because this charge isn’t on the 8 hours that are not funded.

it was only because I emailed them what 22 x PP was on the invoice that I found out that was the premium package.

This shows that you don't run a business.

Most nurseries people send their children to are private businesses.

The OP if she really wants to guarantee she pays nothing should send her child to a state school nursery. She can then sort out childcare for the hours around that.

My childminder use to look after children who were sent to a nearby state school nursery. This meant the children's parents had to pay her for the other hours in the week.

The 30 subsidised hours should absolutely not be branded as free, but the Tories are great at that - they also rebranded minimum wage as the 'national living wage' when it doesn't cover the cost of living at all. You can't believe any of their sloganing.

@Reugny i also understand why they need to charge extra.
I don’t think they OP is saying she wants to pay nothing, but she has just said she wasn’t made aware beforehand of the premium charge.

i can see the frustration if you haven’t budgeted for that. Maybe it’s a bit of a communication issue but one that can be sorted I think.
@Smurf2019 when my LO turns 3 I’m going to ask everything before to make sure we are not surprised and have budgeted correctly!
At least I can see all this now so I’ll know to expect there may be extra fees etc.

I for one would be delighted that nursery only cost £390ish a month... in Northern Ireland, despite being equally a part of the UK and paying the same taxes, we don't get any "free" hours at all until the September before starting primary school where they go to a free "preschool" for 3 or 4 hours a day, and it's not childcare, it's school. So in our case we have to pay a full day in our nursery for them to take our son to the "free" preschool for 3 hours and pick him up again. Plus pay preschool £12 per month for snacks. So it actually costs us more to use the free preschool than to just keep him at nursery 🙄