Top up fees, has anyone challenged them??

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Just wondering what the best course of action is and if anyone here has navigated this situation before.

I'd like to send my 3 year old to preschool in September. The local one is connected to the school he will likely be attending and it all seems very nice.

This year however, they have decided to charge top up fees. The morning session is 3 hours and you have to pay £25 including lunch. You have to send your child for a minimum of three sessions, so it will be costing us £75 a week for 9 hours.

I have asked if I can send a packed lunch or take him home before the lunch period to reduce the charge. They say I cannot.

Obviously this isn't allowed according to their funding agreement with the local council, but they are doing it anyway.

I feel it's a really steep amount to access 3 hours of "free" education/care for my child.

I suppose I can go to the council and ask them to investigate this. I worry about the school taking the hump and withdrawing a place for my child, and then I have to find another placement or keep him home.

Is there realistically anything we can do as parents to challenge this amount? Does anyone have any experience with other settings that may be of help? Thanks in advance.

The nursery places aren’t free, they are funded by the government but the funding isn’t enough to cover the cost of a place. The alternative to top ups is the nursery makes a loss and closes down as many already are.

Absolutely agree. The rate they get per hour will be £4-6 ish (crap I agree) but with your extra £8 is a really high rate. What do they charge without the funding? Changing for lunch/ consumables is fair at maybe £3/£5 respectively.

. They can’t charge top up fees by LA definition but they can have additional costs under consumables and FEL plus. They need to allow you to opt out of consumables and provide your own. They basically need to define what is consumables and what is “FEL” plus so you can determine what you are required to pay.

If this was a few pounds, you would be unreasonable.

But to put it into context... at thehe nursery attached my DDs school, it costs you £7.50 a day to extend the 30hr funding into 8-5.30 care. Or £10 to buy an extra morning or afternoon if you only get 15hrs funded.

£25 a session is extortionate

We were getting charged a £1.95 per hour for every government funded hour as a "supplementary fee". £19.50 per day.

Challenged it with the nursery and they said it was mandatory.

Complained to Kent County Council and got £700 refund.

All nurseries absolutely have to make any extra fees on top of government funded hours transparent and voluntary.

One of the nurseries we saw had a similar top up fee. When we looked into it, the children with funded hours were actually paying more than £2 an hour more than non-funded children, when both top-up fees and council hours were added up.

The not being able to charge top ups is why so many nurseries are closing as they aren’t profitable.

Quite, under £20 a day for someone to care for my child seems like a bargain to me. People will be complaining when there’s no nurseries left open as they’ve all gone bankrupt.

It isn't under £20 though - that's on top of the government funding, which in many cases is the same amount per hour nurseries charge anyway, certainly near here. A full 8-6 day here is around £50 - so the almost £6 an hour the government pays via the council covers that.

£50 for a full day!!! That’s insanely cheap. Every one I looked at was £80, with lots closer to £100. Even the childminder I used 4 years ago for my daughter was more than £50 a day.

If I’m only paying £20 (just over £16 if using TFC) I consider it a bargain, regardless of what the government is putting in. If I wanted to pay a babysitter in the evening I’d have to pay more than that for 2 hours while my child was sleeping and they just sit on the sofa watching tv.

@caffelattetogo are you in Scotland? I have a feeling reimbursement rates are closer to market rates in that part of the country.

Whether nurseries can afford to operate without top up fees or not is irrelevant to parents, it's stated in local council guidelines set out by government that supplementary fees MUST BE VOLUNTARY. 30 free hours means exactly that, FREE. If you choose to pay fees that's your choice, but not a requirement a nursery can enforce.

If private nurseries aren't making money at the rate set by government they are under no obligation to offer government funded places, the fact that they do I suspect is to fill quotas in private run businesses, then charging top up fees to ensure maximum profitability.

This hides the fact that the government is underfunding, or alternatively that private nurseries are expecting far greater profits than are acceptable (according to the government).

For those in any doubt, here's the relevant extracts from the government guidelines that all local councils and childcare providers have to adhere to.

The Early Education and Childcare Statutory Guidance set out by government for Local Authorities April 2023 states.

Article A1.25
Ensure that providers are aware that they can charge for meals and snacks as part of a free entitlement place and that they can also charge for consumables such as nappies or sun cream, and for services such as trips and specialist tuition. Parents can therefore be expected to pay for these, although these charges MUST BE VOLUNTARY for the parent.

Article A1.29
Ensure that providers are completely transparent about any additional charges, for example, for those parents OPTING to purchase additional hours or additional services.

Article A1.30
Work with providers and parents to ensure that all parents, including disadvantaged families, have fair access to a free place, which must be delivered completely free of charge. Ensure that providers do not charge parents 'top-up' fees (any difference between a provider's normal charge to parents and the funding they receive from the local authority to deliver free places).

It’s very relevant as the government level of funding is insufficient to enable businesses to run profitably whilst providing high quality childcare.

Hits the nail on the head.

No, in England, but not the south east, which I think maybe is where the difference lies. It's the chain nurseries here that charge top up fees as apparently it's policy across the areas where the amount government pays (which obviously comes from all if our pockets too, indirectly) doesn't stretch as far.

It's relevant to profit making nursery owners. (Are you one of them by any chance?).

The guidelines are very clear, working parents absolutely cannot be forced to pay top up fees by providers and shouldn't feel that they have to in order to receive or continue recieving their government entitled FREE childcare.

Providers have a choice whether to offer FREE government childcare places and equally parents have a choice to OPT to pay for additional services. Neither are forced to.

The only enforced requirement is that IF a childcare provider does choose to offer FREE government funded childcare places that they do this in a way that parents can choose to not OPT for additional services and hence receive childcare completely free of charge.

If you are a parent and want to OPT to pay fees for additional services that's completely up to you, for whatever reason you justify it to yourself.

I'd encourage you to at least ask what it's for though, see if they will give you an itemised list, I bet most won't! Then ask yourself are the fees you are paying really enriching your child's care? Or are they more likely lining the pockets of private nursery owners and funding their lifestyle.

Christ £25 per half day!! Our 2 year old gets 15 funded hours and the top up fee is ~£7 per full day!

Memories of nursery days and how rigid most were, even back then. Set hours, no flexibility, which of course I get for staffing. They're businesses and not there to help with our individual conveniences, just have to accept it. X

All due respect, no one has to just accept anything. 😂

If they're taking government funding they're bound by the guidelines the government set.

Hence our £700 compensation for a nursery charging top up fees.

Noted - @Ah1986 - but if nurseries end up with the two choices you have outlined, the chances are fewer and fewer will take the funding and families will pay more.

It is a crappy situation all round and would be much better if parents got a certain budget to spend and effectively get a discount, rather than government pretending the money covers the hourly rate.

If that happened I believe there would be less parents working and the government would have to do something about it or nurseries would have to accept lower margins to fill quotas and stay open. Hiding the problem doesn't solve it.

“Have to accept lower margins”

Whilst there are some chain nurseries that could perhaps do this, a lot of independent settings don’t have any margin to spare.

The government has “done something” - what it did was a crappy and stupid something by extending the “free” hours and making it less possible for nurseries to get some “full pay” hours from children up to 2 or 3, from those wanting more than 15 hours a week etc.

Mine are now in their teens and got the free 15 hours when they turned 3. The hours were truly free because the nursery had had them for 3 full days since the age of 6 months and because a max of 6h (in a 10h day) was attributed to the funding. So we paid full whack for 4h a day on 2 of the days and full whack for 7h a day on the third.

They could just about make the maths work with this, but not with the extended scheme. We know it, they know it and the government knows it. It won’t do any good fixing it after nurseries and childminders have closed cos it just isn’t worth it.

I'm not sure I should even bother trying to educate someone that uses the word "cos".

But here goes...

Regardless of your emotions, nurseries charging top up fees, is against government guidelines. I imagine it could actually be pursued in courts as fraudulent activity, "cos" they are claiming government funding, paid for by tax payers, and contravening the guidelines that they have agreed to in order to claim said funding.

Oh, you are a snobbish wee thing, bless you.

I don’t need any education, thank you. What with my first class Cambridge degree, and all.

Peace out, hun.

That's the issue - working parents are paying twice - once through their taxes and again through top up fees, and some nurseries (particularly the big chains) are being greedy and pleading poverty.