Nursery World - Letters: Letter of the week - Let's have a debate about ourprofits

I was pleased to read Purnima Tanuku's article on why making a profit is essential to a healthy nursery (Special report, 13 September). She is right when she says that profit is a word that we avoid in the early years sector because the idea that a setting is 'making money' out of parents and children is abhorrent.

However, profit is central to the survival of nurseries as a business and to the sustainability of the day nursery sector as a whole. Without profit, we have no means of raising the funds to invest back and improve quality. The last few years, where Government policies have clashed, have resulted in a number of casualties. Many small local voluntary sector nurseries have gone to the wall because of under-occupancy and no reserves to tie them over a difficult time.

I think the issue is not so much profit, but how it is used. The perception about what we do with the profit is crucial. The idea that we are all floating on the stock market is common, but the number of chains doing million-pound merger and acquisition deals is quite low. The majority of small local nurseries fail to make any profit.

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