Education CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by UNISON
1. UNISON is the UK’s largest public service union and the lead union for Children’s Centre staff in England, including early years staff, social workers, parental outreach workers and centre managers. We have concentrated our response on those questions directly affecting the Children’s Centre workforce and their ability to deliver important services effectively. In the Department for Education 2011 Evaluation over half of staff were employed by the Centre, 28% by other organisations and volunteers were 18% of staff.
The new Core Purpose of Sure Start children’s centres, how this has evolved and is different from the original design and purpose of Sure Start
2. UNISON members working in Centres have mixed views about the evolution of Sure Start from a well funded first wave concentrating on areas of deprivation to later waves with a broader and more varied offer of services and a greater social mix of service users. Some believe that the focus on deprivation is paramount to success and others that more universal provision helps build community cohesion and aspiration. The two are not mutually exclusive.
3. The removal of the requirement for Children’s Centres to provide childcare has damaged centres and reduced participation across a range of services. The DfE Early Years Providers Survey published in September 2012 found that the number of staff working in childcare in children’s centres fell by 22% in 2010. Staff report that the childcare element of the offer was often the gateway to families, and particularly disadvantaged families, using the other services offered by the children’s centre. We believe this policy change has severely affected the scope and effectiveness of services offered by Sure Start Children’s Centres.
The effectiveness and impact of Sure Start children’s centres to date, including the role of Ofsted inspections
4. In the 2009 UNISON survey of Children Centre staff, 96% of staff believed that children’s centres had improved services to children and that children’s centres were making a difference in improving children’s lives and future life chances.
5. As one family support worker says,
“I think Children’s Centres make sense. There has always been talk of integrated working and sharing information but it has never actually been put into practice until now! The Centres are paramount in leading the way in integrated working and sharing information. We have to stop working in isolation as professionals and working together really does benefit families and children. By bringing experts together in one place it allows families and children to get real long term solutions that can break the cycle and give them confidence and choices. It raises aspirations and drives parents to want more and feel worthwhile too. I believe that we are at the beginning and there is so much more we can still do to make our services stronger. But the key is definitely working together with as many professionals as possible.”
6. When asked about examples of effective working practice, typical comments included:
“We can share information easily and involve other agencies in our group work to provide further support for families. Other agencies gain a greater understanding of the work we do and can signpost families to our services. We can refer families for further support by using our close relationships with Family Support Workers. It works really well to join up our working with workers who we have built relationships with and to appreciate each other’s work.”
“We have regular sessions and contact with the speech and language therapists attached to our centre. This has led to several children being referred for speech and language therapy much earlier than I have experience of when I was working in a day nursery. This early intervention has a positive impact on the children’s development.”
“We have helped people into training and in looking for work. As well as identifying opportunities for volunteering which then gives them the confidence to take up work. Health Services taking place in children’s centres have helped families to use other services.”
“We’ve taken a lot of stick about not improving ‘outcomes’, but a scheme like this takes time to be effective. I think it works—families from areas perceived as ‘better’ are clamouring for our services, but sometimes it’s difficult to engage with those that need the services most, but that’s why we’re here. I hope we can keep going and prove the critics wrong.”
The range of services and activities provided at Sure Start children’s centres, and their desired outcomes, and whether/how these differ from family centres, early Sure Start local programmes and early years settings
7. We believe that the childcare offer is key to the success of the Sure Start centres and contributes to successful outcomes, particularly in areas of deprivation where there may not be much other high quality child care provision. In children’s centres 96% of staff do have the relevant childcare qualification.
How to strengthen integrated working between health, social care and education as part of a multi-agency early help offer, including how to improve information-sharing and the proposal for children’s centres to have access to a “named social worker”
8. A UNISON survey of children’s centre staff in 2009 showed enormous support for the integrated working in the centre but went on to look at wider individual partnerships. Staff surveyed believed that children’s centres are working most effectively with health services, where 73% of staff believe they are working either effectively or very effectively. However, with schools and the voluntary sector this percentage dropped to 40% and 37% respectively.
9. When asked about their experience of working with partners, comments included:
“Whilst there is still work to do, the centres have made links with health colleagues especially health visitors and midwifes; the private, voluntary and independent sector providers such as day care providers and those offering other support services. There is also more LA inter-departmental working happening rather than working in silos.’
“Working alongside health professionals has improved communication and understanding of roles. This has increased referrals between agencies and openness and communication.”
“We have co located early years, integrated services team, health visitors, midwives, social care colleagues and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services workers. All being located in the same offices has made joined up working for families much easier and smoother.”
“Many parents are coming into the Centre to use the joined up services between health and Children’s Centre. These early services have brought some of the hard to reach families that have then continued to attend other groups. Children Centre’s are ice breakers and give confidence to parents about attending.”
“I think the joined up working between Health Visitors has improved vastly. I also feel that taking health services out of traditional venues and putting them into Children’s Centres has meant parents can access support from one convenient venue.”
“I work as a Psychologist in the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, and there is a service level agreement for my two days working at the Children’s Centre. This has enabled a really useful link between the two services for advice, consultation, supervision, effective referrals and sharing specialist knowledge.”
“It has taken some time to get there but I feel that we have finally got a much more joined up service at point of delivery for families with under-fives.”
10. The pressure on local authority budgets means that child care provision is often the part of the multi-service offer that is most vulnerable to cuts. Even before cuts and localisation UNISON had pointed out in our October 2009 submission to the Committee that childcare staff were often by far the lowest paid staff in the Centre and that the specialist childcare setting supervisor would be on about half the pay of the teacher (based on average pay rates from the Labour Force Survey). Teachers are also generally contracted to work only 39 weeks a year, less than their colleagues from the NHS, social work and childcare professions.
11. We also believe that leadership of children’s centres should be open to a range of children’s workforce professionals and not just those with an education background.
How the overall level and quality of provision is being affected by moves to local funding.
12. The Sure Start model was designed on having high quality service provision in areas of deprivation which would attract high quality and committed staff.
13. In 2010–11 40% of Children’s Centres reported making cuts to provision in the Department for Education (DFE) Evaluation of Children’s Centres in England (ECCE) Strand 1 survey of Children’s Centre leaders in the most deprived areas. Forty six different types of service were found in Centres taking part in the survey in 201, reflecting their mission to tailor local services to local need.
14. The DFE 2011 Survey of Childcare and Early Years Providers confirms that “staff working in full day care settings based in children’s centres earned more per hour than staff at other childcare providers, earning an average of £11.30 per hour in 2011. This was followed by staff in holiday clubs and after school clubs, who earned £8.20 on average. Staff in sessional providers earned £7.90 per hour and full day care staff earned £7.80 per hour in 2011”.
15. The Survey also confirms the DFE view about the benefits of quality provision:
“There is strong evidence showing that early education has a positive effect on children’s social and cognitive development only if it meets certain quality standards, but some providers still operate below these standards.12 The quality of staff, and in particular their qualification levels, is strongly associated with good quality provision, hence the Government’s commitment to improve the quality of the early years workforce.”
16. Since 2010, however, there have been cuts in Children’s Centre provision, or charges introduced, and removal of childcare provision as a result of moves to local funding though some local authorities have sought to protect children centres in the first wave of annual cuts.
17. The DFE 2011Childcare and early years providers survey (page 23) confirms:
“It should, however, be noted that the number of full day care settings based specifically in children’s centres decreased by 31% in 2011 and the number of such settings now stands at 550 (a 45% decline from the peak of 1,000 that was seen in 2009).”
18. According to the DFE survey (page 43) the number of places of full day care in children’s centres in the 30% most deprived areas has fallen from 38,200 in 2007 to 20,000 in 2011.
19. It has also been a retrograde step to remove the requirement to have a qualified teacher (though not necessarily one with specialist early years training) in every centre and in some centres this is now no longer the case due to funding cuts.
20. This is confirmed by the 4Children charity in their 2012 Census published in July; 20% cut in qualified staff, 20% cut in childcare staff numbers and about half of all centres reporting a rise in the use of volunteers.
21. The other conclusions from the Census were:
Whilst 60% of Sure Start Centres stated they were coping with significant budget reductions, 15% of centres indicated that they are currently struggling whilst a massive 50% of centres said that their finances were less sustainable;
Although many centres are providing more services, they are becoming more reliant on charging with over 20% of centres charging for services that were formerly free;
Sure Start Children’s Centres continue to be a pivotal service for those that need them most, but this has sometimes come at the expense of universal services; services which are often crucial for bridging class barriers and cultures within the community;
55% no longer provide any onsite childcare. This appears to have had a knock-on effect in some centres as 50% of respondents claimed that they were being oversubscribed.
In 2011 the duty upon centres in deprived areas to provide childcare was removed. Our census shows that they have seen some reduction in full-time childcare places. We are concerned about the long term impact of the removal of the duty and the potential for this supply to reduce further. Provision of good quality affordable childcare needs to increase and children’s centres should be part of this. We are also concerned that whilst some children’s centres have continued to provide childcare they are providing fewer places—of the 43% of centres providing full time childcare places 30% provide less than 50 places.
(source: 4Children 2012 Census of Children’s Centres, July 2012).
22. Quality is also under pressure where services are passed from the local authority to the Private and Voluntary sector providers, with less grant money, as this inevitably means that lower pay, pension, sick pay, holidays and conditions for staff are on offer and there are greater difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff.
23. There are concerns for funding in the future too in addition to general austerity measures as the Government has announced changes to the Early Intervention Grant (EIG) which replaced a variety of grants including the Sure Start grant. The changes are linked to the expansion of the offer of early education for disadvantaged two year olds and the Business Rates Retention consultation. The EIG two year old money will be put in the ring fenced Dedicated Schools Grant with the three year old and four year old money—a reduction of 27% in non ring fenced funding which will create pressure on other services. Other EIG monies will be transferred into general non ring fenced Local Authority funds and the DFE will hold £150 million back for each of next two financial years for central spending. Children’s Centres funding is particularly vulnerable as a result of these changes.
December 2012