Pathfinder local authorities are testing innovative ways to extend the entitlement to free nursery education for three- and four-year-olds to 15 hours a week and deliver it flexibly to parents from next April. Judging by their experiences, the timescale is tight, funding problematic and there are serious practical implications for schools.
Perhaps the most delicate part of this process is the commitment to create a level playing field between the private, voluntary and independent (PVI) and maintained sectors. 'Proposals seeking to transfer funding from the maintained to the PVI sector are proving a major area of negotiation and development,' one local authority reveals.
The pathfinders form part of the Childcare Implementation Project, which is being run by the DfES, the Local Government Association and the Improvement and Development Agency. The project is also focusing on the making and shaping of the childcare market, the role of children's centres and workforce development.
The work of the 18 pathfinder authorities involved in the project to deliver the flexible offer is structured around four main themes:
* assessing demand and supply
* integrating and clustering providers
* communicating with parents and providers
* supporting and evaluating change.
Tight schedule
Rochdale Council has an ambitious plan to implement the 15-hour flexible offer across the whole borough, starting from April 2007. Childcare development manager Bob Adams says that 75 per cent of parents will be targeted from April, 85 per cent by September and the remaining 15 per cent by April 2008. The Government has set a deadline of 2010 for all authorities to introduce it.
Explaining his authority's involvement in the project, he says, 'We believe it is better to try to influence change rather than have it influence you.'
He acknowledges that the timetable is 'extremely tight' and that more work needs to be done with maintained schools whose hours currently do not fit easily with the flexible offer to be available in Rochdale between 8am and 4pm.
Mr Adams adds, 'We are fortunate that we have a really good relationship with our private, voluntary and independent sector providers. They have been well represented on all the steering and working groups.'
However, funding remains a critical issue, and a progress report on the Rochdale initiative warns, 'Without an increase in the PVI rate, approximately 45 per cent of providers in this sector would be making a substantial loss and might therefore be reluctant to participate, in turn affecting our ability to deliver the free entitlement fully.'
A proposal to increase the hourly rate given to PVI providers for nursery education from 3.14 to 3.40 has been submitted to the schools forum, which distributes the funding.
Level playing field
East Sussex County Council has been engaged in an initiative to establish a level playing field for all sectors as the flexible offer is introduced.
Childcare manager Ruth Szulecki says that the county does not have a history of a lot of maintained provision, but does have a strong history of early admission into reception, with many of the youngest children attending school part-time initially, and a vibrant private and voluntary-run nursery education sector. She adds that there are concerns about how the flexible offer can be implemented with schools 'where we have a practice of part-time admission'.
While discussing potential obstacles to implementation of the offer with providers, she says the East Sussex initiative is also looking at ensuring that a child attending both maintained and PVI provision can carry their entitlement across both.
The council is exploring ways to integrate care and early years education and introduce the flexible offer where maintained nursery classes are establishing links with children's centres sited at schools.
'One school has carried out a conversion so that it has a nursery class plus wraparound provision, to offer a flexible day to local parents,' she says. However, since it is linked to a children's centre, the new facility is being funded 'as if they are a PVI provider'.
Ms Szulecki explains, 'We provide them with business and financial support.
We help them to look at profiling their costs in a way in which they probably did not have to do before when they came under school funding.'
Nursery classes
In Leeds, Sure Start partnership manager Anne Kearsley says the authority is at the planning stage, with the appointment of two operational lead officers. She is optimistic that the offer can be delivered as part of fully integrated flexible provision, as there are many nursery classes in the city with surplus places, and 50 per cent of them are expected to introduce the offer within the first year.
She emphasises that wraparound care is not part of this process. 'We don't think a child should be cared for in one room from 8 to 9 in the morning and then go to nursery class. We don't think there is any division between early education and care; you can't do one without the other.'
Nursery classes and pre-school playgroups are hardest to include in this process, she says, because of problems with premises. 'That's why we have commissioned the local Pre-school Learning Alliance in Leeds to look at where pre-schools will have to be moved and, if possible, where they can be moved on to school sites.'
She points to the success of the voluntary sector Ducklings Pre-school in securing the contract to give fully integrated provision at a junior school built under the Private Finance Initiative. While parents have choice under the terms of the flexible offer to access their entitlement over three days, Anne Kearsley stresses that they have to book in advance.
Full daycare
Two early excellence centres and some neighbourhood nurseries in Wigan, Lancashire, have similarly been extended to provide full daycare. Parents can choose any combination of hours between 8am and 6pm for 51 weeks a year and can take two early education sessions on the same day.
Among other local authority initiatives, Blackburn and Darwen council has shown how extended schools must play a central role in implementing the flexible offer, and West Berkshire County Council has developed an agreement between parents and providers. Meanwhile, Telford and Wrekin council has supported the creation of a small company to offer a bank of childcare staff at different qualification levels to fill short-term childcare needs for a range of providers.
An initiative from Derbyshire County Council acknowledges that many parents want to use childminders to provide flexibility, but notes that non-accredited childminders are currently not eligible to claim nursery education funding. It demands examination of 'an alternative accreditation for childminders who do not wish to access the formal NCMA accreditation but who do want to secure the funding'. However, it recognises that 'the timescales for approval and recognition of this by Ofsted are very tight'.
Gloucestershire County Council used its annual audit to assess the potential to develop the flexible offer by identifying six possible pilot areas where demand for places outstripped supply. While this information is to be used in delivering the offer, the council hopes it can also help develop its market management function.
Funding issues
While funding issues loom large over providers and local authorities nationwide, there is no doubt that the biggest concerns are expressed by day nursery providers and councils in London and the south-east.
Anthony Keen, deputy head of early years and Sure Start in Camden, says that inner London authorities face substantially higher staffing costs and that there are serious underlying sustainability issues for children's centres in the capital.
He says, 'We had some consultancy work done because of our own concerns about the flexible offer. The running costs of delivering it cannot be met by the amount of money made available. Many of our providers say they will withdraw from the scheme because they have no choice.
'We want to keep them on board, because the children will be the most disadvantaged. We are fully in support of the aims of the flexible offer, but we can't ask providers to make these changes until we can solve the problems of funding.'
With 50 per cent of Camden's three- and four-year-olds already in school, he questions how the offer can be implemented flexibly for parents when school staff do not work from 8am to 6pm. He adds that having to use staff in a flexible way to suit parents' wishes will also force up costs.
Clearly, the Childcare Implementation Project has shown examples of innovative practice, but unless concerns over funding are addressed, it seems likely that many will delay introducing the flexible offer until nearer the Government's 2010 deadline.
Further information
* Details of the Childcare Implementation Project can be found on the Every Child Matters website at www.everychildmatters.gov.uk See also an at-a-glance-guide to the project in Nursery World, 7 December, page 9
