Rebecca's Reviews
Parent
Below are the reviews that Rebecca has written.
I first contacted this provider in 2025 regarding childcare for my son. She contacted me on the 16/01/2026 advising she now had availability.
We discussed on the phone how it worked in her setting. She stated she had a comsumable fee of £18. She sent me an example client invoice which showed this sum also. This includes lunch, snacks, milk, drinks and wipes. At the time, I didn’t question this.
We then met with this provider in person on the 31/01/2026 to review the contract. To my surprise, the consumable fee had increased to £25. This was over a 30% increase in less than 3 weeks since our prior discussion. I didn’t question this in person. We really needed childcare for our son so accepted it.
After discussions later, we then asked the provider to opt out of her ‘consumable’ charge.
The provider responded that she would reduce the consumable charge to £16 where I provide lunch, snacks, milk, drinks and wipes. I then questioned the provider what the £16 reduced daily charge was for. She responded ‘outings and other bits we get up to in the time he is here.’ She also then stated ‘funding only covers his hours here and doesn’t stretch to anything else I do you know.’
I looked into the department of educations laws enforced by ofsted. It was very quickly apparent to me that these ‘consumable charges’ were entirely voluntary. When I requested to opt out, I was told the daily fee would be reduced to £16 and that it covered outings and other bits we get up to during the time he is here. As per the department of educations guidance, activities/ toys/ actitivies to fulfil the early years framework cannot be charged for. Outings must be strictly optional and itemised. This provider wanted to charge a flat fee of £16 pd for the above.
She also referenced ‘I am here to help but I have to run a business at the same time.’
I feel this provider has been ‘chancing’ it for a long time, making up top up fees under the disguise of ‘consumable fees.’ I mean how can a fee increase from £18 to £25 in less than 3 weeks? She knew we were desperate for childcare so thought she would exploit that. This would mean that she would be getting paid the government rate for under 2’s of circa £92 per day + her ‘consumable’ top up of £25. That’s a net of £2340 for one child, full time over 4 weeks!
I urge parents to review the legislation from the department of education enforced by ofsted. All ‘consumable’ charges must be voluntarily and you are within your rights to opt out. Invoices must also be clearly itemised.
Another thing, her day rate on this public profile states £78 inclusive of lunch, milk, drinks, snacks and wipes. I looked at Somerset councils website and she would be paid £9.78 under gov funded hours . This for a 9.5 hour day totals £92.91. This is higher than her inclusive day rate on here and also on the local councils website where she states £52.50. So why then does she stipulate an extra £25 for consumables considering her advertised inclusive day rates are already covered?
It is incredibly misleading.
No childminder I know charges these sort of fees. £25 a day for lunch, cows milk, snacks and wipes is day light robbery, I can only assume the provider relies on people being desperate and not looking into it/ challenging it.
Do your research on the legislation parents. I have provided a direct and factual account of my communications with this provider.
When I raised my concerns with this provider and stated I gave 5 working days to transfer the holding deposit back to me- they sent the monies back, no justifications and blocked me on all platforms.
To me this reads that they know they are behaving unethically and it’s just unfortunate for them this time it didn’t work in their favour.
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