Top up fees

[amsopen]

Our nursery have said from April we will be paying £1.40 an hour each hour our daughter is in nursey because they are not getting enough from the government for funded hours..for the younger children not her, so our hourly rate has had to increase.
So we will paying three times as much even though we had to wait until 3 for any funded hours..spending ten of thousands, surely this can't be right?!

Bump!

My daughter is in nursery 4 days a week with 30 funded hours. We pay full price on one day and £12 for the other days. It's a mix of food costs and admin cost and something else that are normally included in the day rate.

£1.40 per hour is pretty cheap childcare....

The 3yo funded rate is shocking. They either charge parents extra or close.

@KnickerlessParsons
Right, so it should be when we have paid £1000 a month for years. The point was this didn't exist before they brought in the new funded hours, which we haven't benefited from so I'm unsure why we are now having to pass 3 times as much for other people to benefit

You need to contact the government to complain, not the nursery. Government needs to pay more for the funded rates. Nurseries can’t cover their costs.

How are you paying three times as much?

The hours are subsidised not funded. I'd be bloody delighted to pay £1.40 an hour for good quality child care.

I don't understand your maths. £1.40 per hour is three times as much....as what? And what are your current nursery fees so we can see the difference that £1.40 might make. Don't your nursery put their fees up annually anyway?

That aside, reshape your thinking on it. I bet your paying national insurance from your salary, right? That pays state national pension for a generation that is not yours as well. It's just framed in a different way.

They are funded but not fully funded.

@Puddingpieplum
Yes I bloody know they are!
We aren't paying £1.40 an hour, we pay a daily fee for days covered by her 30 hours and then her non funded hours plus now this hourly extra charge which is because (in the nursery's own words) they cannot afford the new funded hours for two year old, so we are also being charged an extra hourly rate to fund this so parents of two years old etc can access funded hours.
It's not about expecting childcare for nothing, we have paid out over £35,000 since she started nursery it's not wanting our bill to increase by 30 x £1.40 a week x four weeks a month to subside the new hours

I've got you now. I would be extremely pissed off at this and ask if they could review their fee structure. They should be holding flat by charging the parents of two year olds the difference in additional fees (yes I know, top ups not allowed but whatever they call it), not you guys.

How much demand is there for nursery space where you are, is there another nursery option? Your best chance of success is if all of the parents in your shoes threaten to leave.

Ahh thanks now you've explained.

If nursery should have just said "fees are going up in April" would you have felt any different?

Nursery/EYFS budgets are SO squeezed I'm hardly surprised.

We are not eligible for the new funded hours and our nursery bill is increasing by £100/month to subsidise the new hours for others. We are also losing a lot of perks of our lovely, small nursery such as being able to have a minimum of 6 hours/day (changing to 8) and flexible scheduling and day swaps for sickness etc as they're now expecting to be operating at full capacity. I'm also very annoyed.

Essentially the government has decided it's ok for parents to subsidise other parents as they aren't funding the new hours properly.

@VintedoreBay
Yep I probably would have been a bit fed up on the increase but written it off, but it's the fact they have said it to subsidize the two years olds funded hours that has really fucked me off.
We haven't had a holiday for years just to pay childcare and I appreciate the government are at fault, but their overheads haven't tripled in April, they are using our fees to subsidize others childcare when we have paid full whack for years

@bluebird3
Yes thank you! You have written exactly my point

Our nursery needed to increase our fees so much in September that they had to do it in two stages over 6 months because they didn't want to be hit so much even doing this there was push back about the increase. They still charge less than our previous nursery their margins are squeezed with costs.

As others have said it comes down to the government over promising and under delivering. I was listening to a news piece the other day with nursery owners complaining that the government aren't being transparent and how the funding will work in April and what they will be expected to do on what budget. It's tough

they're now expecting to be operating at full capacity. I'm also very annoyed. Surely being at capacity is a good thing. I'd rather that than a nursery at risk of closure for low numbers. If it was small you wanted, would a childminder not be a better fit? @bluebird3

Essentially the government has decided it's ok for parents to subsidise other parents as they aren't funding the new hours properly.

they are using our fees to subsidize others childcare when we have paid full whack for years How do you think the funded hours under the current /previous model works?! And presumably if your eligible for funded hours then you've been eligible for tax free childcare so probably haven't paid 'full whack' for childcare in the first place? @amsopen @bluebird3

I work in education/EYFS and I will soon have 2 in nursery myself so I feel the pain, I absolutely do! And we do pay 'full whack', as well. It's just not the nursery's fault that they are having to be creative with the limited funding they receive.

Top up fees should be voluntary with a breakdown of what it covers.
you shouldn’t be funding other parents. A nursery can choose not to accept the funded hours so they are choosing to be paid less, why are they expecting parents to foot the bill?

I'd be annoyed too, but I'd direct your ire to the government. Nurseries are closing up and down the country because they can't afford to facilitate the new policy fairly.

There are different rates for different ages determined by your LA they frequently change the formula meaning rates can go down. The new scheme pays less for 3 and 4 year olds than 2 year olds so nursery has to charge a sustainability fee.
Nothing is fair many of us paid full fees from 3 months to 5 years

How in practice can they refuse to take funding when all their customers are entitled to it? Who is going to use a nursery at full fee if they can save most of 30 hours fees?

I agree that the nursery shouldn’t have said to parents of 3 year olds that they are subsidising 2 year olds when the parents of 3 year olds paid full whack when their kids were 2. They should have just announced a price rise to parents of 3 year olds.

I have 1 nursery available to me in my neighboring village and a childminder in my town.
So if my nursery decided to stop accepting gov schemes (which would also include the £500 a quarter tax relief) I would have no choice but to keep going there.
The only nursery in my town that opened past 4pm closed last February.

Shop around and see if you can get a better deal?
But if your DC is happy at nursery is it worth it?
Whole system is fucked

Most people are not in this position and have more choice but once funding kicks in more will find no nurseries as they can't afford to stay open