Nursery fees during closure

Marcin_B

Does anyone know what nursery can charge during closure? Our place offered 50% discount from April but is still £600-700 in our case. I believe that staff will receive 80% from government anyway. If that's the case nurseries will make some good money!

Mrsn

Is this to retain the place? Or have they given a different reason?  There hasn’t to my knowledge been any official guidance on what they can or can’t charge. My sister is a child minder for example who really could do with still charging but isn’t (and because she’s self employed she doesn’t get the 80% either). Have also heard do other nurseries not charging through other posts on here.

Marcin_B

We are on 4 weeks notice and it was difficult to get place there. Whilst it isn't written in the letter you could read it that way. 
This is part of the letter we recieved.
"For those parents who do not fall under the key person category we would like to thank you for your patience.  Contrary to wide practice and your terms and conditions we will not be invoicing fully for April, to reflect the forced closure, but implore you to pay 50% of your invoice, so we are able to pay our staff.  We will keep you updated with any information we receive regarding retuning to your regular sessions.  Thank you for your support, we will continue to communicate throughout this uncertain period."

calcotti

Was the letter written before the government announcement re the Business Support package.

Bear in mind in any case that the package is only available to support wages of staff who would otherwise be made redundant and who are doing no work for their employer. If the nursery is running a reduced operation with staff still working but with reduced hours they cannot benefit from this support.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-to-employers-and-businesses-about-covid-19/covid-19-guidance-for-employees#furloughed-workers

Furloughed workers
If your employer cannot cover staff costs due to COVID-19, they may be able to access support to continue paying part of your wage, to avoid redundancies.
If your employer intends to access the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, they will discuss with you becoming classified as a furloughed worker. This would mean that you are kept on your employer’s payroll, rather than being laid off.
To qualify for this scheme, you should not undertake work for them while you are furloughed. This will allow your employer to claim a grant of up to 80% of your wage for all employment costs, up to a cap of £2,500 per month.
You will remain employed while furloughed. Your employer could choose to fund the differences between this payment and your salary, but does not have to.
If your salary is reduced as a result of these changes, you may be eligible for support through the welfare system, including Universal Credit.

AidanTWTW

We're in the same boat. The nursery is demanding half fees to retain our place but there's no indication of how long this will last so we've made the difficult decision to remove our child from their list. It's just too expensive given our income uncertainty. However, they're saying that we still need to give 4 weeks notice. It seems really opportunistic that they insist on 4 weeks notice of termination from us - and payment during this time - when they are no longer even offering a place to our child. Am not sure what to do.