PVI settings counting where grants go
Local authorities are deciding how to spend the capital grant allocations they have received to help private and voluntary sector nurseries adapt their buildings and outside space to extend the free early education offer and deliver flexible provision.
Last month, children's minister Beverley Hughes said PVI settings would get £642m for 2008-2011 to improve their environment, including facilities for disabled children and better outdoor play areas.
Birmingham City Council is to receive an annual grant of £5,314,200 for the next three years. Lesley Adams, the council's head of early years and childcare, said, 'We'll be looking at prioritising settings that can offer the enhanced hours. I anticipate we'll have a range of needs.'
She added, 'Developing outdoor areas is key for us. It's been one of our priorities for the past few years. We encourage settings to think creatively about their outdoor areas.'
She said the cash could also be used for making 'building alterations for kitchen and toilet facilities or knocking down walls'.
However, she said she did not think the funding would necessarily encourage more sessional providers to offer full daycare, because she believed those pre-schools who wanted to offer full daycare were already doing it.
She also said there were still 'challenges' around offering earlier and longer opening hours for nurseries but that the city's 1,000 plus childminders offered more flexible hours.
Early years providers in the London Borough of Newham will be able to bid for an annual share of £1,766,836 for 2008-11.
Although the majority of provision in the area is in the maintained sector, the number of PVI providers is growing. There are currently around 70 PVI nurseries.
Janet Hicks, head of early years and childcare, said, 'We will be talking to our voluntary sector partner, the Pre-School Learning Alliance.'
She said that improving access to childcare for disabled children would be key.
She added that as Newham is an inner-city area, pre-schools were often in shared buildings with limited space to develop because they had not been designed with outdoor play in mind like children's centres.
'There are converted houses and community halls, so you have to be very imaginative. We do a lot of work looking at how to develop outdoor space creatively,' Ms Hicks said.
CAPITAL FUNDING
Annual local authority grants 2008-11 for extra cash for PVI settings
(pounds)
Kent 6,147,978
Essex 5,573,670
Birmingham 5,314,200
Hampshire 5,044,663
Surrey 4,710,555
Hertfordshire 4,604,839
Lancashire 4,519,564
West Sussex 3,242,280
Staffordshire 2,868,489
Suffolk 2,805,094
