New funding nursery fees not out yet

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Hello, is there anyone else here confused with how we are encouraged by nurseries to register children as quickly as possible, but not getting transparency with fees.

The nursery I'm looking to register with says they have availability for Sept 25 when the 30hours free funding kicks in for my to be 9 month old. However I have asked for a breakdown of costs and they say they don't yet have this this figure. Surely if you can book the spaces then you need to know what you will be charging people?
They have now asked me for a £150 non refundable admin fee to secure the place but without budging on how much the nursery fees will set me back a month. Currently, the total fees a month for an under 3 is £2028 for 5 days. There is no info as to a daily or hourly rate so I can't work out myself the 30hours funding deduction. How are people working out their finances and even planning to go back to work without this key information being given?

I imagine they will be waiting for an indication from their LA as to the funding rates, and they won't have that for a few months yet. Then they also have to factor in the impact of changes to NI and minimum wage, to determine what the fees need to be. The deposit/admin fee seems steep, but then I work in a pre school and we charge nothing upfront, and just £6 an hour for non funded hours.

They don't get the rates until closer to the beginning of the financial year. Plus new budget changes only announced last week they are probably having to work out what they need to charge to cover the increased minimum wage etc. it's just bad timing I think for getting concrete information. You could ask how they currently apply the free hours. Eg. Some take it off their daily rate but the daily rate is cheaper than hourly (some offer a discount if you book a full week) and then others may only apply the hourly route and discount it.

If it's a day care nursery you need, there won't be much difference in prices across them so I'd go for the one you think you want and pay the deposit to secure the place. Places are hard to come by!

They won’t have the rates yet as the local authorities don’t give the funding rates to them until much nearer the time. If you want a rough guide, ask them for the cost for ( days with the 15 hours of funding for 9ninths old which is out at the moment, take the difference from the full fees and then double it. The won’t be completely accurate but you’ll get an idea.

They won’t have the funding information from the local authority yet. They also don’t know how much rent, utilities, food costs are going to increase. They also have to factor minimum wage increases and employers NI contributions.

The problem is that under 2s don’t receive any funding at the minute and whilst they might have worked out what the 15 funded hours looks like, I doubt any have worked out what the 30 hours looks like. You have to take the risk and pay the deposit, it’s obviously a good nursery if you need to put their name down before they are born, then when baby is here and you’re working out what back to work looks like then you work out what it costs. Spoiler alert - it still costs more than you think it should with the funded hours and the charging structure may not be clearer when they know the funded hours as each nursery has their own way of working it out and where to add supplemental costs.

9 month olds get 15 hours at the moment, it came in September.

Re planning. We took the whole figure as our starting point of what we are liable for financial forward planning. And then I assume each year it'll go up by about £100-200. We've been pretty accurate so far.

That's how we plan for return to work. I used my accrued annual leave to stagger their entry to nursery and work up to full time over a few months, thereby reducing how long I've got two in FT nursery care.

Yes our nursery only had concrete plans for how the new 15 hours funding would implemented in September, by June time. Expect the same for the 30 hours.

Like everyone else you'll have to sit in the unknown, and just be glad you'll get some money off compared to before the funding was in place!

(Don't expect the reduction to be as big as you think/hope, is my advice).

When the new 15 hours was implemented, our LA told us the rates in July ... but we had to have done our headcount for September in May in order to get paid correctly. The nursery aren't being deliberately obtuse, the LA just aren't helpful (which I imagine is down to the government rather than individuals in the LA).

Work on the assumption that the "free" hours will be effectively no more than a modest discount. The amount yhe government pay the nurseries isn't fixed but is always far short of the actual cost and each nursery uses their own fee model to find way of making up the difference. If you assume that with "30 hours" funding the real effect on your bill will feel more like you are getting 10-15 hours free and paying full whack for the rest, that will be close to what they finally set when they can.

Of course they can start booking in places and taking nonrefundable deposits. There are plenty of children from families for whom money is no object and who aren't considering the fees as an influencing factor in their decisions.