40% fee increase - can it really be justified??

[Honey2]

Hi all

My nursery have just increased their fees for the new FY following the government announcements back in Feb.

I was expecting an increase but am totally shocked at 40%!

For an 8-6pm day the rate has gone from £78 to £110. They have also increased the charge for food from £9 to £14 per day - this is for a 2 years old!

I appreciate the increases in NI and minimum wage, but I just can see how they can use that to justify 40%?

They did this with no warning or consultation. It’s likely many of the parents will need to cut hours or move to a new setting following this change.

any others experienced a similar increase?

Yet they want more people working? It’s all backwards

The funded childcare scheme was brought in by the conservatives. Blame them.

Settings should always have been offering the funded hours without additional costs. Labour has simply tightened up and advertised the rules.

NI and any other increase in costs now won’t help though hence the op’s fee going up this year.

Not 40% though! That is simply price gouging because they can!
NIC has only gone up just over 1%, minimum wage 6.7%.

Other parents will be paying that 40% too (eg 1 staff to 3 babies or 1 staff to 8 children aged 3/4) but there will only be one member of staff that needs to have an increase in NIC, NMW.

That’s why the government thankfully are putting capital into funded new school nursery places. It will pay off in the long run as there won’t be a mortgage or rent to pay (unlike subsidising private nurseries where the money isn’t just spent purely on care).

See my calculations above - it is not ‘only’ a 1% raise in NI, the threshold before paying has been halved.

What did cost the business £1,900 a year in ers NI per employee now costs them £3100.
10 employees that’s 12k a year; overnight - in just NI costs. Not the added 1700 a year per employee in min wage costs, with 10 employees that’s an extra cost of £29,000 per year.

What age are these staff?

@Honey2have you decided what you will do ?

@BurntBroccoli that rate is for all employees 21 and over 👍

Hi all, thanks for your comments. I’m going to move her to the other nursery in the village. It’s a shame as she has made relationships where she is, but the new nursery is lovely with great staff. It actually does more trips out which sounds fun and has some people come in for activities. All food is included and the daily rate is more manageable.