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?

“Free hours” is incorrect, it’s subsidised.

With this rationale no company should make any profit absolutely ridiculous, why wound anyone do it, the profit margins are small in these businesses circa 15%z They could not be run in the public sector for anything like these costs including the profit margins they make (tried and proved). These sectors are also extremely high risk

council nurseries are a good way to go but sadly they don’t cover traditional working days!

They can be compulsory during the ‘extra hours’ the OP mentions.

There only has to be free (or a free option offered) on the funded hours. As the OP mentions ‘extra hours’ the nursery is within its rights to charge for both the extra hours and a mandatory extras charge/food etc on these extra hours.

But you’re absolutely right that for the funded hours they cannot insist on the OP paying for food and snacks. They can offer it, but must also offer a free option eg sending in her own food and snacks. It’s the same with nappies.

Yes that is the actual point of my post!!!

I have been supporting my dds childcare since 2010 when her eldest child was 5 months old. She has always started work at 6am.

My point is if OP used a council run nursery they would still have much expense and a lot of faff covering the other times in the hols and kiddo would be in nursery when you didn't want.
a nursery doing stretched hours is easiest and suck up the money.

I don’t know how much the funding per hour where you are is but where I am it’s £7.08/hour and I charge £9.50/hour. I don’t charge for consumables but I have increased my private hours instead. £7 per hour is what I used to charge in 2018. Playgroup, softplays, transport are expensive ! 7.08 per hour is a joke

Aak for a breakdown of what you are actually paying for for each section. If you don't use the nappies then you shouldn't be paying for them, does your son attend when the music activity is on (can'tthey do musoc themelves without paying someone to come in🤔) The lunch thing I get due to allergies. It does sound like they charge a lot extra to cover their staffing/utility costs. Could you reduce your hours a bit to save money? If not then unfortunately although you're saving some you'll still have to pay.

My son’s nursery took the hours off the total and that seemed a much better way to manage it.
no extras charged, except for those that just used the funded hours… £10 a month for snacks.

Some extras nurseries charge for just seem made up… yes I know nurseries don’t get their full costs from the funding but the extras are supposed to be voluntary!

When the government says it's funded hours - it's very misleading and never how much it actually costs to run the childcare setting.

For example, it might cost £5ph/pc to run a nursery but the funding only covers £2.80ph/pc.

The nursery are not allowed to explicitly charge the £2.20 difference to parents.

They have charge these as additional items (nappies, meals, activities) but also take into consideration the shortfall they are not receiving from the funded hours.

Additionally, each local authority gives their nurseries a different rate - so one local authority might give £2.80 and another gives £3.20.

But then you also have childcare settings who replenish resources frequently and buy quality resources who are now struggling to do this and others who don't replenish resources as often or include additional activities.

I think the fact that the nurseries have to itemise (meals, nappies etc) and parents might say well I can pay less than that to bring nappies in myself- is something that is fair enough but also confusing. It's likely that the charge is inflated but maybe it's the inflation that helps fund other things in the nursery.

It's so hard. I think ultimately it comes down to your circumstances as a family and whatever is right for your family, but maybe a little explanation might help?

(I've made these figures up! The principle is the same)

Wow this is making me appreciate our nursery all the more. I've checked our last two payments: September £325 and October £265.

This is for 5 days a week 8am-4pm x4 and 8am-5pm x1. Inclusive of breakfast, lunch and tea on the 5pm day. Term time only. This is at a small independent in the East of England and we have been extremely happy with the care our child had received.

This is not a new issue but has probably been perpetuated by the additional funded hours from 9 months.
My oldest got 15hrs free, and my youngest 30hrs about 3 years apart and I ended up paying the same for both of them.
My biggest bugbear about the whole thing was that the staff get paid so little out of the enormous amount that childcare costs.
If your child is settled and happy probably worth sucking it up til they go to school - wraparound and holiday club care will end up being very similar!

Is this a nursery attached to a private all-through school @WinnieWonderWilber ?

Some schools run the nursery as a loss-leader, deliberately under-charging compared to the real cost of the service, in order to make it feel like an easy decision to keep the child there at reception age rather than moving to a free state school. The fees then ramp up slowly over subsequent years using the lobster-in-a-pot effect.

Normal.

Sadly, as someone who did the nursery years pre the new funding, I would have have been flipping delighted at that nursery bill. Not saying it's right, but sadly there's no such thing as 'free childcare'. It would be better if they called it subsidised imho.

An I remember this when my kids were in Nursery.

I was paying £38 per day for everything included and this would be for up to 10 hours.

When the 30 hours came in, they would claim £4.50 per hour from the council (£45 per day) and then added food on top of this. While this worked out a lot cheaper for me, I still felt it was a pisstake. They also didn’t do school runs. There was also a dispute when we left over funded hours, I’d given them 2 months notice (only needed 1) that we were leaving at the start of the summer school holidays and they still tried to charge me for the school holidays saying I had to pay for those. I disputed and she was adamant. I called the LA and they soon put them right but it left a sour taste at the end. To be fair, it was in its infancy and I was one of the first in our area to get it as part of a trial. But still.

In the end I found another nursery locally who did school runs and who would include everything in the money from the funded hours.

I work in childcare. This is 100% normal I'm afraid. I'm not really sure of people's expectations when it comes to childcare costs. People seem to think funding equals completely free childcare. This is not possible. I think that the amount you pay is pretty reasonable for your child to be somewhere safe, stimulating, educational and fun, cared for and educated by qualified professionals whilst you work.
I wouldn't be comfortable paying much less as I'd feel that the standard of care and education would be pretty poor.
Childcare seems to be very much that people expect the highest quality care and education for the lowest possible price.
Whilst the funding is wonderful, we already get paid next to nothing and the strain on nurseries financially isn't going to help.

I would email and politely query certain charges, are they pro-rated as they seem high?

Also, I hope you are also using the 20% Tax Free Childcare scheme. Look on the Gov.uk website. You set up and account and pay your nursery through this. You pay in 80% of the monthly fees and the government tops up the remaining 20%.

@LiveTheDream8998 exactly: it just needs to be promoted accurately, as a subsidy rather than free hours. I said earlier, if the OP has been told she’d get £250 a month off the nursery bill when her child became eligible, she’d be chuffed. But because it’s promoted as ‘free hours’, people’s expectations don’t match the reality.

like some others on here, my children were in nursery long ago, before any childcare subsidies, and the nursery phase lasted quite a bit longer too because maternity leave was much shorter. I had a September baby and we paid full costs from when he was 12 weeks up to the day he started in reception class and was almost 5 years old . It felt like we’d won the lottery when we were only paying for wraparound and holiday care! As others have said, that difference probably isn’t so noticeable now, and parents may find they’re paying as much or more once their children start school - but that’s not really a negative thing, it’s a result of their earlier care being heavily subsidised.

in all honesty, the OP is getting an excellent deal in terms of what she’s paying for nursery. Even though I never personally benefited from them, I fully support the subsidies because I remember how crippling it was paying the full amount - for nigh on 5 years for my first child. The govt and childcare providers should just market it as what it really is - a subsidy, not totally free care.

No, it's just a small, one nursery, independent in a market town. I was equally amazed when they happily offered us term time only as they keep their places over the holidays. So DD does a couple of extra days over summer to keep her in the swing of it and to give me a few days off childcare. It can't be making mega profits!

We provided our own nappies when she was a baby but wipes etc were included. DD potty trained early (pre 2) for health reasons and they were extremely supportive of that.

I’m confused OP - how come you only got the free hours recently? You should get them from 9 months if you and your partner are both working (in England)

Yes its normal and its disgusting, I also think there needs to be a bigger discussion in this country about profit in childcare (and all care services) I think all childcare settings should be non profit.

My DC was in nursery 3 years ago and we had these charges, an extra £22 a day on funded days. With the 30 hrs "free" childcare they averaged it out over a full year so it was only about 24 hrs a week as its only funded for term time and because they were open 11 hours a day we only got 2 fully "funded" days a week with a £22 surcharge for both. Any extra days were at their full rate even if you only took your child in for 7 or 8 hours.

Our nursery was also owned by an individual and then sold to a chain (investment company) the year after I left, and I've heard things have got worse in terms of what is offered and more expensive.

I agree the government doesn't give nurseries enough funding to really function but I checked companies house and before our nursery was sold it was making an obscene amount of profit for under 100 children.

This is why many nurseries are keen to attract parents who don’t qualify for funded hours.

When we went to look at local nurseries, as soon as we mentioned we had to pay full funding ourselves they were all falling over backwards to offer us priority for whatever sessions we wanted. They also allowed us far more flexibility for changes than they did to those on funded hours.

I agree with earlier posts that the issue is the naming of the benefit. It should be called childcare support to avoid confusion.

I didn’t get any ‘free’ hours until mine were almost 3.5, and I was paying for twins - I’d have killed for an invoice like yours!!

As others have said it’s subsidised - what the government offer is peanuts compared to a nurseries actual outgoings and so they must recoup the loss with these extras. It sounds like he’s very happy there, and your bill has really come down so I would take this on the chin, absolutely. They’re only covered term time, too.

Do they all know you've signed up to multiple settings?

This is one reason I have started charging decent deposits, I had a parent last year let me down last minute and its financially very difficult to work like this.

@Whatwerewetalkingabout I am surprised the nursery was filing full accounts when it was an independent, I would have expected it to be exempt. What was the level/£ of profit that you found obscene?

You can’t make people set up not for profits. The only way to achieve that would be governmental support. How do we get from here to there?

• some nurseries charge you all the way up to 6pm even if you won’t use it that long. Some let you pay as you go.

Because they cannot fill the remaining hours with another child, but can’t necessarily send staff home mid shift when yours leaves, because of ratios.