Nursery fees up 20%

[chopette5]

Our nursery has put up fees 20%, citing rising costs and staff shortages. Is this reasonable? It's a huge increase for us in absolute terms (around £300 a month) and I don't know whether to try to fight it.

It's all extremely depressing.

I didn't mean that to sound how I wrote it.

Apologies.

Different settings are more appropriate for different children and choosing one or the other isn't always based on cost. There are lots of things to consider.

Recruiting early years staff at the moment is impossible. Older, experienced staff are nearing retirement and the newly qualified staff aren't coming through as it's not an attractive (or well paid) career.

Lots of the large chains locally to me are paying their staff long service bonuses and golden hellos, other settings are closing because they can no longer recruit the staff they need.

The sector is an utter mess, and I fear that women and their careers will suffer due to lack of childcare or childcare only being affordable for high earners.

This is largely due to the chronic undervaluation of the EY sector for years. Most of the more mature staff trained and worked during the Blair era when EY was valued. Sadly the 'childcare' narrative has left many of us in despair. Those in home-based education are also undervalued. Childminder is a joke term for someone who has to jump through all the hoops. There is talk of offering the funding to grandparents at the same time as professionalising the sector. This is a total contradiction! The whole thing is unravelling due to govt short term thinking and misunderstanding of EY development. Doggy daycare would be SO much easier!!! And more profitable!

Absolutely. Apologies if this came across badly. The term childminder is also totally under-selling what happens in home based settings!!

My electricity costs have risen from £1800 a year to £12000. No nursery can just absorb costs like that - they have to be passed on to the parents.

@gogohmm I am not opposed to state-run providers. In fact I’d quite like the option!

And throughout the economy there is support for business.

This happens to be one area where state support matters hugely to women and families, and where investment will benefit society in the long term and it also frees up women to work.

Plenty of women don’t work or work reduced hours - when they would like to work, and in industries where there are staff shortages - because of the cost of childcare. That’s highly inefficient.

Ours has gone up - it’s now £60/day, up from £55.

£80 seems a lot… where in the country are you?

To be expected. Nursery workers have been paid an appallingly low rate for far too long. Rates have to rise to attract and retain staff.

We're in London. I don't think the increase is going to the staff. There's no mention of increasing staff pay.

There is state support, but it's not enough. If you're concerned about the waste of tax payers' money then state run settings will be the worst option. Look at the NHS! It's a total shambles with no one taking any responsibility. The 30 hours 'free' support should be 30 hours 'subsidised' support. It's not subsidising business. It's subsidising parents.

The issue is that NMW has increased by almost 200% but the hourly rate paid to providers over the same period has increased by only 38%. This pressurises the gap between the amount available for more senior and experienced staff. The amount needed was researched by a government-funded group. It should be about £8.50 per hour. Most providers only get £4.50. Write to your MP!

Nursery chains make HUGE profits. If your child is nearing school age I'd swallow it but if you've got a couple more years of it I'd consider mob

*moving to an independent

Yes I suspect plenty of nursery chains will cite energy prices/ "cost of living crisis" as an excuse to ramp up fees which then go straight to shareholders

I don’t think you can ‘fight it’ I don’t think it works like that. I think you either pay it or take your child out.

We have our two in a private nursery which was £57 per day when we signed them up a year ago and has since risen twice and is now £69 (we are not down south so this is considered VERY expensive - but also by far the nicest nursery in the area and our son has additional needs which make him a challenge so it’s still worth it)

Seriously though we’ve gone from paying £750pm to £1200pm

Most nurseries barely turn a profit anyway.

^^
Really?

Don't you all just wish childcare was subsidised?

I mean this is just getting ridiculous now

Yes. They should just call it subsidised and be done with it. In the late 90's each child got a redeemable voucher which was a value deducted off fees. Win win for parents who retained choice of setting, settings who could 'top up' (a village hall is frankly a lot cheaper than a beautiful house with huge gardens, for example), and the government who didn't waste money on bureaucratic departments in EVERY SINGLE LA!!!!

The real question is are they keeping profits constant. I know that there is a severe shortage of nursery workers in our area. No one wants the job anymore after Covid, so they have no choice but to substantially increase wages to find staff. Add in rising costs for food, energy and other supplies and the cost of operations may be up much more than 20%.

If you want to know what profits are being made a quick browse on the Companies' House website will probably tell you.

You assume they make a profit.

They have wages to pay, holiday pay, pension contributions, potential sick pay, and possibly employers national insurance (latter depends on business size and wage bill). If they are looking forward the national minimum wage increase predicted is high again this coming year.

Then the light and heat costs must have risen significantly.

Last year's increase was probably mainly the minimum wage increase.

I would suggest nurseries may well be suffering as power and minimum wages are likely to be a huge amount of their base costs and these have both increased a great deal in the past two years.

You can fight it but it might be more prudent to see if they will explain why. With hard numbers - if they are prepared to.share them - it may be clearer.

No. They're not. I have had a nursery since 1998. I bought a beautiful Georgian house with a huge garden for it in 2012, luckily I fixed the mortgage for the term, but I'm frustrated daily at the lack of realisation of the paltry funding increase vs NMW. BTW I don't LIVE in a beautiful Georgian house with a huge garden!!!!! Nor could I have bought this one without my husband's secure job. We're hoping that one day it may serve as our pension. It's a huge risk, and we have gone without a lot. I do this because I'm totally passionate about what I do. There would have been other ways to make a more profitable living! Most nursery owners are like me. They own small local settings and really care about what they do. We're all really, really worried. It's not just our businesses on the line - it's our homes, livelihoods and futures. Most of us are women.

@Phineyj

CH won't if its a small company as only balance sheets are filed.

It gives some idea of the reserves which might show if the business is in a bit of a precarious position or, the opposite, sat with wads of current assets

Lots of us are self-employed.

Our Government really need to look at the cost of childcare (not mine they are in their 20s now), or we will have an even bigger recruitment and production crisis in the future as people have fewer children.

Unless they allow immigration of course....but the current mob aren't making such noises (quite the opposite!)