|
Memorandum submitted by the National Day Nurseries Association
Summary:
· Innovative and creative models of children's centre development should be explored, particularly the way that childcare is provided, in order to achieve sustainability and quality. But guidance, support and training are central to deepening service integration.
· The range and effectiveness of services channelled through children's centres is advancing, but much more still needs to be achieved. However, this will require sustained or additional funding.
· Full daycare in children's centres faces its own sustainability challenge and has impacted on the sustainability of the nursery sector generally. A partnership model will help stability and value for money, as well as incentivise quality improvement across early years provision.
· Financial support may need targeting more firmly towards disadvantaged families in view of the likely squeeze on all public spending in the near future. This could level the playing field in a positive way, get effectively to low-income families and reduce subsidy that distorts the market.
· Councils and established PVI (private, voluntary and independent) providers should work hard to commission effectively and develop deep partnership, at the same time promoting quality improvement and service integration so that those families most in need can access the full range of health, employment and family support made available through children's centres.
1. About National Day Nurseries Association
1.1 National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) is
the national charity and membership association promoting quality care and
early learning for children in nurseries across the
1.2 NDNA's
vision is a society where all children and families receive the best quality
care and learning that enables them to reach their full potential. Our mission
is to support the delivery of quality care and early learning for children
across the
1.3 NDNA supports its members to develop their quality of care and to run a healthy sustainable business by providing members with information, training and support.
1.4 In this submission we attempt to address each of the six areas of inquiry identified by the committee. Given our area of specific expertise and experience, we concentrate on the roll out and development of integrated children's centre services mainly in terms of childcare provision.
2. Developing models of children's centres as the programme spreads from the most deprived neighbourhoods
2.1 In terms of childcare being channelled through children's centres, there has been some concern that this early years care and learning has duplicated existing provision. Duplication can have an adverse effect on providers' sustainability by reducing occupancy rates below viable levels. It also raises questions of value for money.
2.2 Initially, direct local authority early years provision was encouraged in response to perceived 'market failure': the assessment that private, voluntary and independent (PVI) provision could not establish itself sustainably in deprived areas or sufficiently extend access. Subsequent experience shows maintained children's centres too have had difficulty achieving sustainability. It should be noted that PVI childcare reaches the most disadvantaged, with 29% of PVI full daycare providers located in the 30% most deprived areas (see also 6.1).
2.3 All phase one children's centres, developed from 2004-06, were required to have a full daycare element, whereas phase two children's centres (2006-08) were only required to offer full daycare in the 30 per cent most deprived areas. Some chose to commission existing PVI early years settings: 68 per cent of full daycare settings in children's centres are run by a local authority or school (DCSF Childcare and Early Years Survey 2008, p.25). Phase three children's centres (2008-10) do not have to offer full daycare directly at all.
2.4 In delivering the children's centres programme's childcare element there has been some evolution towards a model based more on a culture of partnership between local authorities, children's centres and PVI childcare providers. This is not in evidence in every locality; but a number of areas have chosen a commissioned or offsite approach to childcare in phase two and three children's centres. It is also important that partnership is effective in rural areas, where there are particular challenges for sustainability of early years provision.
2.5 In the interests of efficient spending, multi agency joint working and sustainability in early years care and learning, partnership needs to go further. Awarding children's centres statutory status through the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learners Bill, thereby making them subject to the Childcare Act 2006, may help grow service integration and partnership working between children's centres and PVI early years full daycare providers, if backed up by good guidance, support and training.
2.6 Given the vacancy rate in early years settings, it is practical for children's centres increasingly to look for partnership opportunities with existing early years providers. So long as settings are registered as appropriate environments for early years care and learning, and are engaged in continuous quality improvement, it is good value for money for the children's centres to link up with established providers to deliver childcare either directly onsite or via a cluster of providers offsite. This can deliver affordability of access and convenience for parents.
2.7 If terms and conditions are right, and a strong relationship between stakeholders is maintained, this approach can help improve childcare's sustainability and underpin the early years sector's quality improvement agenda. This might be starting to happen more as the number of Ofsted registered full daycare places delivered directly in children's centres declined slightly in 2008. Anxiety over the long-term sustainability of children's centres should be noted.
2.8 In addition, the proportion of children's centres in the 30 per cent most deprived areas that offer full daycare onsite has fallen from 78 per cent to 71 per cent between 2006 and 2008 (DCSF Survey 2008, p.2). This might be explained either through the development of phase two centres on a partnership basis or by over-representation of maintained nursery schools in disadvantaged areas.
2.9 PVI childcare accounts for 86% of registered places and many families choose these settings. None the less, full daycare places in children's centres are still most likely (about 7 in 10) to be provided by the maintained sector and the proportion of PVI owned full daycare provision in children's centres appears to have fallen from 39 per cent to 30 per cent between 2007 and 2008 (DCSF Survey 2008 pp. 24, 25, 44).
2.10 It is, however, crucial that in developing new models of provision, children's centres with offsite childcare provision, or cluster arrangements with a range of local providers, create an infrastructure that ensures disadvantaged families not only have access to quality early years provision, but also to a variety of other support that they will find helpful, including health, employment and skills services. Networks to ensure service integration are essential.
3. The range and effectiveness of services provided in children's centres
3.1 Latest data suggest children's centres offer a wide range of child, parental and family support (DCSF Survey 2008, p.34) but there is a sense that this could have greater impact and achieve more (Ofsted Inspection). This is especially the case in deprived areas with acute socio-economic challenges, including addiction, health problems, unemployment and a skills deficit. A number of children's centres themselves feel that better partnerships with organisations, such as Jobcentre Plus and PCTs, are needed in order to deliver more effective services.
3.2 DCSF's own analysis of selected areas' childcare in children's centres also uncovered a need to improve integration of services in settings run by PVI providers rather than the local authority. More needs to be done to work in partnership with local PVI providers to support development of family services, information on entitlements, and guidance on where to go to receive further, specialist support. Central government and regional offices can help, as can other organisations: NDNA networks and regional officers work to facilitate local partnership.
3.3 PVI daycare providers and children's centres also appear to be responding better to initiatives aimed at making childcare provision more flexible around the needs of parents and families better than maintained early years provision, particularly around the free early education entitlement (DCSF Survey 2008).
3.4 Research has also identified a need to market children's centres' services better in order to improve outreach and uptake and so make further inroads into tackling child poverty. More progress in engaging black and minority ethnic families is needed in particular. Children's centres face other challenges too, such as working more effectively with families of disabled children and doing more to grow early intervention of special education needs. But this will require sustained, if not more, financial commitment from government and local authorities.
3.5 The framework for inspection of children's centres is presently under consultation by Ofsted. To ensure a robust evaluation of services, it is important that inspection is sufficiently flexible to take account of the differing models of children's centres and report clearly on the individual performance of each children's centre partner, as well as the centre overall.
4. Funding, sustainability and value for money
4.1 Full daycare providers in children's centres are less likely to record a profit or surplus than other types of full daycare, despite the number recording a loss decreasing in the last year. Thirty-four per cent of full daycare providers recorded a profit or surplus in 2008 compared with 10 per cent of full daycare providers in a children's centre, while only 16 per cent of the former category state that they made a loss in 2008 compared with 34 per cent of the latter (DCSF Survey 2008, p.163).
4.2 This casts doubts over the sustainability of full daycare in children's centres, particularly in the current economic and longer-term fiscal climate when a squeeze on funding could make government or local authority financial support scarcer. The figures are in part due to the fact that many children's centres offering full daycare on site are located in the most deprived areas; but they are not exclusively located there suggesting some in less disadvantaged areas also recorded a loss (DCSF Survey 2008, p.164).
4.3 This requires a substantial subsidy. Full daycare providers in children's centres receive more than 50 per cent of their income from the local authority, whereas for other full daycare providers the figure is less than 20 per cent. Average outgoings for full daycare in a children's centre are over £100,000 a year more than for other full daycare providers. As such, full daycare providers in children's centres generally need to achieve a high occupancy rate in order to break even and avoid a loss (DCSF Survey 2008, p.160, 162, 165).
4.4 The impact of the subsidy is bourne out in terms of lower fees - understandable as low income households are the beneficiary - and staff pay. In the last year for example, childcarers' pay has risen overall but staff working in full daycare in children's centres are paid best at an average £10.40 an hour. Staff in other full daycare earn less, on average £7.30 an hour (DCSF Survey 2008, p.84).
4.5 NDNA wants to see all early years staff improve salary long term, especially having trained for higher qualifications and skills. But the children's centre subsidy can distort the market as, were PVI settings to match children's centres' pay scales, parents' fees would need to rise significantly: in full daycare outside of children's centres, salaries account for up to 80% of the settings' outgoings. Other side-effects of the subsidy are discussed below.
4.6 Independent analysts believe government-backed supply-side growth through neighbourhood nurseries, children's centres and extended schools created excess supply and a tail off in occupancy. Nursery occupancy ran at 79.5% in 2008 compared with 77% in children's centres and neighbourhood nurseries. If funding dries up for the latter in the near future, many could see their sustainability problems multiply (Laing & Buisson Childcare Market Report 2009). As such, it is critical that phase three of children's centre development proceeds on a partnership basis, both for their own long term sustainability and stability in other forms of childcare provision amid difficult economic and spending conditions. Indeed, as public spending contracts, children's centres funding may need to be focused more on children from disadvantaged families.
4.7 Internal qualitative analysis of childcare in children's centres in five particular local authority areas suggests children's centres where early years provision is run directly by the council are generally of higher quality than those commissioned from the PVI sector, but that the latter are significantly more sustainable. Closer partnership working is necessary to merge the best that both sectors have to offer children and families in achieving service integration, quality and sustainability. It should also be noted the PVI sector is demonstrating its commitment to continuous improvement, with Ofsted inspection gradings showing year on year improvements and 64% of group daycare rated good or outstanding in 2008 (Ofsted Early Years: leading to excellence, 2008).
5. Staffing, governance, management and strategic planning
5.1 Local authority and PVI settings report difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff. However, due to the higher salary and benefits package that can be afforded through a significant subsidy, there is a risk that talent will drift into early years provision in children's centres. It is understandable that qualified professionals will want to earn the best salary available, and that all settings will want to attract the best managers. But a retention problem emerges for PVI providers who are supporting training to level 3 (which all early years staff must achieve by 2015) or graduate leader Early Years Professional Status (a 20,000 target, also by 2015).
5.2 PVI providers can themselves receive support to help pay for staff development through the Graduate Leader Fund and local authority Outcomes and Quality Budgets (although ease of access can vary in different areas). But PVI providers will still bear some costs, and see no real return on investment, if staff leave for the better paid, subsidised maintained sector once successfully qualified. It is notable that children's centres were the type of full daycare provider most likely to be recruiting in 2008, especially in senior management positions accessible only to trained and qualified staff (DCSF Survey, 2008).
5.3 Children's centres should also be regarded as a service for the entire family to use, not just mothers and children. As such, it is right that more children's centres are seeking to employ men and develop outreach services to fathers. In addition to facilitating integration and coordinated, joint working between service delivery arms (as discussed, above), local authority and government regional office advisory teams should also work with local PVI childcare providers to improve knowledge and uptake of funding support streams, like the childcare element of the working tax credit, in order to build access for families on low to moderate incomes.
5.4 The support teams are also working to improve local authority commissioning capabilities, help that should extend to the management approach of children's centres. The need would seem evident from the profit and loss data on children's centres offering full daycare directly, as well as to cope with downward pressure on public spending and inevitable demands for better value for money. DCSF's own research reveals that local authorities need to consolidate their capacity and skills in business planning and support for children's centres, which could reduce overall costs, lead to better budgeting and enhance sustainability generally.
5.5 Further central government guidance and closer working with the local PVI sector and regional children and learner specialists in the government offices will be needed to facilitate this progress. Consolidating expertise to commission PVI providers and building dialogue that leads to effective partnership working can also be advanced through linking up with trusted third party organisations with experience of the early years sector.
6. Working with other partners and services
6.1 We have discussed partnership with early years
providers at length. DCSF's most recent survey of childcare provision in
6.2 With offsite childcare provision, however, it is vital that more is done to facilitate integration and access to: PCT health services; return to work employment and skills services; plus family and parental support services. This will maximise outreach and make the most of the role of all childcare providers in their respective communities and with the people who use the services they offer.
6.3 Commitments to public/PVI partnerships that may have been made under phase one of children's centres need to be maintained, for example, lease agreements should be reviewed and renewed to enable PVI partner involvement to continue.
7. Are services being accessed by those most in need? How effective are they for the most vulnerable?
7.1 The best children's centres work with local families and partner nurseries to help access to early years provision. More needs to be done to reach those children and families most in need, which in part explains DCSF's recent marketing drive on Sure Start Children's Centres.
7.2 Children's centres have acquired a reputation for providing subsidised childcare to middle income families rather than their core purpose of providing support and early intervention to less advantaged families. More needs to be done to challenge that assumption.
7.3 Equally, it is important that children's centres do not become a 'them and us' service, whereby families who use childcare services in these settings are stigmatised as low income, disadvantaged groups.
7.4 Better therefore to work hard to commission and develop deep partnership with established local childcare settings offsite, at the same time promoting quality improvement and service integration in order that those families most in need can access the full range of health, employment and family support made available through children's centres.
7.5 Please refer to previous comments on how children's centres need to do more to support families with disabled children, and promote early intervention on SEN, ideally in close collaboration with local PVI providers. This will accrue not only child welfare and family wellbeing, but also longer term savings and value for money that early intervention produces.
October 2009
|