UK nurseries charge parents non-refundable fees of up to £199 to get their child on the waiting list

Seventy percent of nurseries in Britain ask parents to pay a non-refundable amount in advance before their child has started, data shows.

On average, parents spend €71 to get their child on the waiting list for a daycare center. The fees often also take the form of non-refundable registration fees.

With 34 percent of nurseries imposing a non-refundable waiting list fee, the average fees imposed range from £5 to £199, according to Direct Line Life Insurance.

Childcare and parenting organizations have criticized the practice as putting further financial pressure on parents already dealing with rising costs of living.

Parents of two or more children could spend a three-figure sum just to put their children on a waiting list for a daycare spot that may not exist.

In London, the average non-refundable upfront fee is £103, with 89 per cent of nurseries in the capital charging such fees, the findings show.

In Leeds the average waiting list cost for childcare is £85, while in cities such as Bristol, Exeter and Manchester this figure is closer to £50.

At £30, Belfast emerged as the city with the cheapest childcare waiting list rate.

With many daycare centers oversubscribed, many parents are faced with multiple non-refundable childcare waiting list fees, despite there being no guarantee of a place.

A problem can cost years in advance

Alison Traboulsi had problems with a future daycare center for her daughter

Alison Traboulsi, 43, lives in Hayes, Kent, and works in marketing. Alison has an eight-year-old daughter and a four-year-old son. She was going through a stressful time dealing with the upfront costs of childcare for her daughter.

When Alison became a mother for the first time eight years ago, she had to look around fifteen different nurseries and had a torrid time securing a place for her daughter.

Alison and her fiancé paid a non-refundable £50 upfront fee to secure their daughter’s place on a nursery waiting list. A year passed and there was still no room for Alison’s daughter. Alison didn’t hear from the nursery and had to contact them to find out what was going on. The fee was not refunded.

Alison said: ‘It would have been one thing if I could get regular updates from the nursery and therefore be able to see which administration covered my payment, but I ended up chasing them! The cost of daycare centers is already high, and people are simply not becoming aware of these hidden costs.”

She added: ‘It felt like the nursery was taking the waiting list fee even though they knew it could be years before a place became available.’

Alison had to find another nursery for her daughter and pay a £200 deposit, which was eventually refunded after the first invoice came through. She has since had a son and her daughter’s daycare had a spot for him.

Hannah Donnison, product manager for Direct Line Life Insurance, said: ‘It is not surprising that some parents find it unaffordable to cover the up-front costs of a nursery before they have even secured a place, especially in circumstances where many may have already been in place for a few months have had no income. or it is reduced during maternity or paternity leave.

‘Individual nurseries are known to take different approaches, but a large percentage do charge extra fees, so keep this in mind when doing your research.’

She added: ‘If you are eligible, there is support available for childcare through the government’s tax-free childcare scheme, and in some cases also childcare vouchers.

‘Currently, when your child turns three, you can claim additional financial support. Depending on your circumstances, there is also additional support for children under the age of two.’

In addition to waiting list costs, parents often also have to pay a refundable deposit to the relevant childcare provider.

This can sometimes be the equivalent of a month’s worth of daycare costs. Life insurance experts at Direct Line said that in the most expensive locations, parents can pay more than £2,000 before their child has even secured a place at nursery.

The research was carried out for Direct Line by FleishmanHillard between October 16 and November 22 last year and included 108 nurseries in cities across the UK.

Of the childcare centers surveyed, 20 percent have not stated their rates in advance on their website. The information had to be requested via online forms, by telephone or via a physical visit to the nursery.

‘Bank of Family’ saves young parents £38 billion a year

Separate research from Legal and General and the Center for Economics and Business Research this week found that more than 40 percent of parents and grandparents over the age of 55 have helped younger relatives with childcare.

‘The Bank of Family’, the findings show, has offered childcare support to family members, amounting to around £38 billion a year.

Parents and grandparents typically spend around nine hours a week looking after children or grandchildren, which equates to around £5,400 in childcare costs a year, the research found.

Recent data from the Office for National Statistics shows that in 50 percent of working families in Britain, both parents work full-time.

Bernie Hickman, CEO of Legal and General Retail, said: ‘People assume that Bank of Family is all about financial support.

‘But as our research shows, people depend on their parents and sometimes their wider family for many things, including the gift of time.

“The recent childcare reforms to help families are a step in the right direction, but many people rely on their parents to keep working.”