In his keynote speech to the Laing & Buisson Annual Children's Nurseries Conference in London last week, Andrew Fitzmaurice, chief executive of Nord Anglia, which owns Leapfrog, said that direct procurement of places was the solution to spare occupancy in private and voluntary sector nurseries and would be 'a win-win solution' if they were deemed children's centres.
Mr Fitzmaurice told Nursery World that guidance for local authorities should direct them in the first instance to buy places in existing settings. 'Why are we looking at building new provision when we have spare capacity in existing settings?' he said.
A Manchester Leapfrog nursery has just become a 'satellite Sure Start' with a local authority procuring six places directly.
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