The Pre-school Learning Alliance supports and represents 16,000 pre-schools, playgroups and community nurseries which provide sessional and full-day care for 500,000 children. In the next year alone, we hope to create 8,000 childcare places and up to 50 neighbourhood nurseries in some of the UK's most disadvantaged communities.
But, important as this is, it's not enough. Too often, parents can't find the type of provision right for their children. Too often, sweeping changes of policy affecting children, such as early entry to school, are not properly understood by or justified to parents.
As part of our new charter campaign Changing Lives, Changing Life, we are lobbying for a change in the way early years services are delivered, to secure:
* a childcare or nursery education place for every child who needs one
* continuity of care for children so that they are not moving frequently from one setting to another
* full consultation with parents, in the planning of local childcare to ensure provision is matched to family needs
* the formation of parent boards for all early years settings to give parents a voice in the development and management of provision
* drop-in and advice services for parents, together with family and lifelong learning opportunities, developed as part of childcare settings.
The expansion of childcare services has a key contribution to make to a range of public policy objectives, such as welfare to work, combating child poverty, family literacy and neighbourhood renewal. The current early years and childcare targets, and funding streams, do not give equal weight to all of these objectives, and the separate strands in the planned expansion of services are not always completely aligned with each other or with a cross-cutting strategy.
