Nursery says the extras aren’t included in the funded hours but I never realised it would cost this much

[Yluna47]

My ds is 2 and has been at nursery since January. He goes 3 days a week while im at work and generally he loves it there, runs in without looking back at me most mornings so no issues with the actual nursery.

He’s eligible for the funded hours now and I thought it would make a decent difference to what we pay but honestly im a bit shocked by the latest invoice. I know its not completely free and I wasn’t expecting to pay nothing but I thought we’d be saving more than we are.

Before the funding we were paying around £610 a month for the 3 days. Now its just over £360. Which is obviously a saving but when I looked at the breakdown there’s £250 for the extra hours, £55 for meals and snacks, £35 consumables and £20 activities. I thought some of this would be included in the funded hours but apparently not.

The meals one is annoying because you have to pay it, they don’t let you send food from home. The consumables is apparently things like wipes, nappies, suncream and craft stuff. He’s potty training so doesn’t use many nappies now and I do wonder what we’re paying for some months, but I know they still have things to buy for all the children. The activities charge is for things like music sessions and other things they do during the week.

I did read the paperwork when he started but if im honest I didn’t properly understand all the funding stuff. It said there would be additional charges and I signed it, so I know I can’t really say I wasn’t told anything. I just didn’t realise it would still be this much once the funding kicked in. I think I assumed the funded hours would come off the bill and then we’d pay for whatever hours were left, but it seems to work differently.

My partner thinks we should just leave it alone because ds is settled there and we both work, so what else are we supposed to do. He’s not wrong really. I don’t want to move him somewhere else just to save money when he’s happy and knows everyone. But £360 a month is still a lot for us and I was hoping we’d be able to put some of that money away instead.

I’ve asked another mum at nursery what she pays and she said hers was cheaper but her child only goes two days and I don’t know if she’s getting the same hours as us. I don’t really want to start asking everyone what they’re paying because it feels a bit nosy.

Are these charges normal? I know nursery staff need paying and the funding doesn’t cover everything but I can’t get my head around the fact its advertised as funded hours and there’s still so much to pay. Can you ask to opt out of the extras or would they just tell you to find another nursery? Has anyone actually managed to get their bill reduced without changing childcare completely?

This week my grandchild did, amongst many other things, the following activities:
digging for items in a play tray - requires playsand, gems, pom-poms, dried pasta
sticking items on card - requires card, glue, various craft items
making spiders with play doh - requires resources to make playdoh
decorating buns - requires buns, icing, food colouring, edible gems.

this is what the £35 helps cover

Just to counter balance all the people who think you should somehow be grateful??? for the immense privilege of contributing to a private business's profit, my daughter's outstanding nursery charges no extras and uses all the funding hours before starting to charge you. I pay £120 a month for 9-4 termtime only, because almost all of my hours are within the 30. It's obviously still a business, because as a country we've somehow accepted that's the best way to run nurseries, but it's a fair one.

We should not just accept that profiting from early years provision is a reasonable thing for big companies to be doing (or from care homes or children's homes or prisons or any of the other places they're draining us dry).

And they don't charge for activities because they consider that to be their job, not an optional extra.

im not saying its not worth it or that I dont want him there, he loves it and thats why he’s staying. its just more than I thought we’d be paying after the funding came in. I know childcare costs money and staff need paying, was just asking if the extras are normal really.

Absolutely normal. If it makes you feel any better, my DC never got any funded hours.

All you can do is power through this period and start thinking about what your plans are for when they start school.

We’re in Scotland and just choose council run nurseries and only starting once funded hours kick in (you can’t have not funded hours at LA nursery where we are)- we pay nothing. But it does come with accepting either typical school hours or less - we went with outdoor nursery for 2 days per week term time for a part-time place, ft would be 3 days (8:30am-4pm) year round (in that nursery, others have hours more aligned with local primaries). Snacks and lunches are covered, we need to provide our own nappies, but they lend you warm waterproofs for the year, any activities and consumables are also included.

So how are they breaking even when the costs of heating, property rental, water etc on top of staff are taken into account?

There are less than 400 council nurseries in England. And 55 million people. They’re also term time only.

There’s a reason private equity firms are buying up companies like nurseries. There are countless articles about it from the last year - I’m not linking any but it’s interesting reading. I appreciate that many nurseries struggle to break even on the funded hours they are given and totally agree early years workers are terribly underpaid, BUT it’s still seen as profitable business on the whole. Until everyone values quality childcare and the benefits it brings to our entire society, then this discussion will continue.

I appreciate the funded hours have made a huge difference, I am very grateful for them. When our DC started nursery he wasn’t eligible for them but it has been phased in and makes a huge difference. But it’s also ok to question the system - surely there must be a better way? Other countries have different models that I’m sure we could learn from.

You’re only paying 30 quid a day ans a fiver an hour, how cheap do you wish it, the price has dropped b6 nearly half,

The food and consumables can't actually be compulsory, they have to allow you to provide your own (though they could make this as difficult as possible eg very strict rules on food to discourage you).

The activities fee also needs to cover things that are additional to the curriculum - so they can charge for forest school, yoga, an outside music teacher but they can't charge for paper, paint, playdough.

Private nurseries may need to charge extras to cover their costs, but that's because they need to produce high profits for the owners.
Staff will be paid as little as they can get away with and food will be the lowest quality possible.

I am wondering if this will be something the Labour government review as guidance and funding as is, was a Conservative Party initiative when they were in government.

Perhaps not a priority for this government though, just yet, as there are so many ‘pots’ to fill, left empty by Conservative policy.

I think it's (kind of) analogous with the TV and radio competitions where you can win a huge amount of money by paying to enter via premium-rate texts or you can just go on their website and buy a block of entries.

There legally has to be a free alternative method of entering - which is usually made deliberately more onerous and time-consuming than the paid-for methods (like a pointlessly waffly, drawn-out phone call). They used to offer free postal entry, but that ceased to be a thing once the price of a stamp rose above the cost of a paid-for text entry!

Lots of people (including me!) gladly make use of the free-entry methods; but if the vast majority of participants didn't pay to enter, there would be no way that the companies could afford to run the competitions, so they would just vanish.

Not that the outside dream of winning half a million quid is quite as important as accessible childcare, of course! It's phenomenal chutzpah on the part of the government to not only force a provider to make a loss, but then to prevent them from being able to mitigate against that loss if parents don't understand the reality and comply.

I think the problem is they are a business and the whole point is to make a profit. Our nursery is a non-profit organisation and there are no hidden charges. You pay per hour used so 22 hours stretched funding literally covers 22 hours, then it’s charged at £5.70 an hour after that (22 hours can be used over the whole week not 11 hours = 1 day that some places do). Healthy home cooked lunch is £3.50 per day, but you can take your own food if you want. Consumables like nappies, creams etc have to be provided.

It’s an outstanding nursery with very limited places and has been running for over 20 years - I had no idea how lucky we were until I started reading threads. My toddler is really happy and I’m happy at paying approx £100 a month. Could you see if somewhere like that is local to you?

It does make me wonder if they make the funding work why can’t other places?

There are only three LA community nursery schools in my local LA. They have had to run with massive deficits. They have reduced their deficits by providing a mixed offering of early childhood education and childcare. The childcare elements are outside of school hours and through a whole year.

It does make me wonder if they make the funding work why can’t other places

No share holders, no private business profits.

The Conservative policy of running down state provision and supply and demand meaning private venture fills the gap, means that costs escalate. Same with provision for children with SEND, same for residential care, adult social care etc.

Where the LA cannot provide to even meet their statutory duty, it costs the LA much, much more than it would have to provide it themselves.

I know its dropped and im not saying its not a saving. I was just surprised by the extra charges and wanted to know if thats what other nurseries charge as well. didnt realise asking about it meant I thought childcare should be practically free 🙄

Dunno, but they are.

It’s is not LA council ran. It is an independent private nursery, but non-profit.

It sounds pretty standard going by what we paid when our 6 year old was in nursery.
I wouldn’t ask if you get a discount for sending in your own nappies/wipes if you have a good relationship with the nursery and your son enjoys going there because it will create bad feeling.
You are paying appropriately £5 per hour, the staff on minimum wage will be paid whatever the rate is for their age but it will take around 3 children paying to cover 1 staff wages, pension etc
Ratio of staff to children is low in early years around 1:5 for toddlers, so they aren’t racking it in by the time they are paying wages, electricity, water, tax, rubbish collections plus activities etc
The trouble is nurseries aren’t allowed to charge top up fees to cover what it actually costs above the funding they get, they have to charge for consumables etc to make it work.
Good nurseries usually have waiting lists, the one local to us doesn’t have any spaces in their 0-2 2-3 rooms until Sept 2027 as my friend tried to get hers in.
For everyone that quibbles the cost, there will be people happy to pay it so I’d be very careful about how you raise it.

Profitable businesses are what employ people and generate NI, PAYE, Corporation Tax and maybe also VAT to fund public services. So, profit isn’t all bad ;)

Yes….so no profits for business owners or shareholders. It keeps the fees at just what it costs without siphoning off profits through higher fees.

Do other nurseries chatge this?
Yes. I pay about £600 for 3 days funded at an excellent nursery with great facilities and wonderful staff.
Thry feed our child high quality nutrients food. Im happy to pay that.

It 2.2k for 5 days unfunded.

If you want it fully covered youll need to find probably an underfunded preschool that is term time only.

Or lobby the government - the hourly rate they pay is a joke.

I've had a quick check online, and it looks like they are not permitted to enforce compulsory meal charges when the child is receiving funded hours.

Something you should look into more yourself using gov.uk

Things have clearly changed since I sent mine to nursery, I only used the funded hours, sent in with a packed lunch and was never billed one penny ever.