Early years development and childcare partnerships (EYDCPs) are being rebranded and re-shaped in some areas because they are deemed to be too unwieldy to respond to the spate of Government initiatives to integrate children's services.
The four-times-a-year meetings of up to 40 representatives from a range of stakeholders are being streamlined, with EYDCPs being replaced by task groups dealing with specific areas.
John Thorn, early years and partnership officer in Nottinghamshire, said that the EYDCP still existed in name, but that its work was now led by an executive board comprising the chairs of various task groups and senior officers of the county council.
He said, 'We developed a policy that the task groups should be chaired by non-county council people. For example, training is chaired by someone from the Pre-School Learning Alliance and childcare by a National Day Nurseries Association representative.'
The new structure reflected the fact that most of the work in the EYDCP was led by a relatively small number of people, Mr Thorn said. But he stressed that every effort was being made to ensure continued wide representation from the non-maintained sector.
A similar restructuring has taken place in Blackburn where the EYDCP, soon to be renamed the early years development group, will be a sub-group of the children and young people's strategic partnership.
Partnership support officer Marie Coyne said that the new structure would be based on geographical districts, with local partner- ships in the 13 areas where children's centres are planned.
She said, 'Sure Start guidance stated that you could not disband an EYDCP without having something to replace it. We believe this is a progression. By creating local partnerships, all our stakeholders will have an input.' Task groups are also now in vogue in Devon, where the EYDCP was rebranded as zero/14-plus two years ago.
Ian Merrett, manager of Devon Information Services for Children, said that while there were still three full meetings of the partnership each year, most of the activity is centred around task groups for recruitment and retention, childcare development and training and other key areas.
Mr Merrett said, 'We had done all the big bits through the old EYDCP and we realised that all the important work could now be taken forward through the task groups.' He added that there had been a shift to greater local authority control and that the full partnership had really become an advisory body.
The role of the Derbyshire EYDCP is currently being examined by a scrutiny committee of the county council which is due to report in September.
Bob Janes, cabinet member and EYDCP chair, said, 'We have not abolished it but we are looking at it to see if we can do it better. It is often a very expensive beast to service. Initially there was a need for EYDCPs, but they may be outgrowing their usefulness.'
He said referring the partnership's future to a scrutiny committee was in line with proposals in the 2002 Interdepartmental Review which suggested an increased strategic role for local authorities and invited them to devise the most efficient and effective ways of working.
While the role of the fledgling children's trusts was emphasised in the recent five-year education plan, EYDCPs were not mentioned at all. John Thorn found this disturbing.
He said, 'The language now being used is that children's trusts are doing this and that, but of course they are not doing these things yet.'
