30 Hours, Part 11: North Yorkshire and Leicestershire - Well prepared

The 30 hours extended entitlement rolled out nationally this month, but some local authorities have been preparing for a while. North Yorkshire became an ‘early innovator’ in April 2016, sharing £4 million with 24 other areas to look at issues such as delivery in a rural area. In April 2017, the local authority joined Leicestershire, Dorset, Tower Hamlets and eight existing early implementers to take part in the early roll-out of the scheme.

While the county has learned valuable lessons from this preparation, this September still represents something of a leap into the unknown, says Andrea Sedgewick, head of early years, education and skills at North Yorkshire County Council. ‘There have been benefits in supporting providers in their preparations, trialling local authority systems and getting information out there for families, but the real test will come in the next 12 to 18 months,’ she says. ‘Providers are concerned about the low funding, and with new cohorts of families this term we are anticipating take-up may be different.’

During the early roll-out, North Yorkshire was able to boost government rates with extra funding obtained from its Schools Forum, enabling the county to pay providers the same rates as it had for the universal entitlement. However, from this September all providers will receive a flat rate of £3.90 an hour. Childminders, who represent the largest group of providers in the county, have the biggest adjustment to make, dropping from £5.56. Nursery classes in schools also now receive less money, falling from £4.16, while day nurseries receive slightly less, falling from £3.92. Sessional providers, such as pre-schools, received an increase in funding from £3.72 to £3.90 in April, which will continue from September, and the authority will provide extra support to maintained nursery schools.

‘Our early years provision is characterised by large numbers of PVI settings, most of which are single providers – there are very few national chains operating in our county council area,’ says Ms Sedgewick. The 30 hours were taken up by 3,926 children during the trial period, 87 per cent of the Government’s initial estimate for the area. Around 571 providers and schools are offering the extended entitlement, 455 of which took part in the trial.

‘North Yorkshire has some very rural, remote areas, and some families have to travel long distances to access their entitlement,’ explains Ms Sedgewick. Distances between providers make blended offers more challenging – it’s much harder for a child to move from one to another. If a child attends two settings, the council says reasonable charges can be made to parents for transporting their child between the two shared settings, as this is an additional service.

A key challenge for North Yorkshire is ensuring parents can access accurate information wherever they are. ‘It’s about making sure there is no wrong door,’ says Ms Sedgewick. ‘Whether it’s Job Centre Plus or a Children’s Centre, we want people to be able to answer questions about eligibility, or signpost to the Family Information Service for information about places.’

The council ran a dozen briefings for providers at the beginning of this year, as well as business support workshops led by its finance team, and locality partnership planning events with Childcare Works, to help settings develop a blended offer.

LEICESTERSHIRE

While in North Yorkshire, 70 per cent of children taking part in the early roll-out accessed the extended entitlement through PVI settings, and the rest through schools, in Leicestershire the funded hours are delivered entirely by the PVI sector. The council focused on rolling out the offer to all eligible children, from April 2017. Leicestershire settings were paid the same rate for the 15 and 30 hours – £3.97 an hour with additional deprivation supplements – and this rate is continuing from September.

‘Overall, the timescales have been tight, and have required additional work from staff. Our approach to delivery has been to work closely with the PVI sector and childcare professionals throughout the county,’ says Jo Fisher, team manager, childcare sufficiency business support within Childcare and Family Services at Leicestershire County Council. ‘We produced a range of clear communication materials to support providers, and focused on supporting them to disseminate that through their networks.’

Providers can download postcards, posters and other resources, tailored to different types of settings. Settings also receive a fortnightly e-newsletter, encouraging them to consider ways in which they could deliver the 30 hours, and keeping them updated with training opportunities. ‘We have also been sharing good practice and lessons learned with other early implementers through Childcare Works meetings both regionally and nationally,’ says Ms Fisher. The council worked with the local NDNA providers group to try to give settings a voice in the development of the offer.

As the national system was not yet available, the council ran a dedicated telephone line for parents from 21 February until 21 April. However, demand was so high it had to widen the scheme to include email. Some 4,699 parents, or 95 per cent of those eligible, received a unique reference number that they could use at their chosen provider – as long as it was offering the 30 hours. Around 85 per cent of Leicestershire providers are delivering the extended entitlement, and more than half have said they are willing to work in partnership with other providers to enable more parents to take up their entitlement.

As every local authority rolls out the extended entitlement from this month, they will each have their own challenges to face. However, insufficient funding remains an issue all over the country. ‘Some providers are already saying they may face closure, but we don’t know the scale,’ says Ms Sedgewick. ‘There isn’t yet a true indication of where providers will be limiting places, or what additional charges they will make. I will be interested to see if parents’ fees do reduce overall by a significant proportion. We will know more following our October headcount and analysis in November, but like other local authorities, we are remaining watchful.’

Charnwood Nursery and Pre-School, Leicester

Charnwood Nursery and Pre-School decided to tweak its opening hours to take full advantage of the 30 hours offer. ‘We have three pre-school rooms, and one is term-time-only,’ says Beverley Coltman, nursery owner and chair of the Leicestershire NDNA group. ‘From September, we have changed the hours of the term-time room, starting earlier and finishing later, because at present we would only be able to claim for 25 hours
a week.’

During the trial period, 35 children took up the 30 hours offer, almost all of whom took the full 30 hours, and currently 40 children are accessing it. The local authority application system during the trial period put some parents off, says Ms Coltman, as it was hard to get through. But she says there are also problems with the national system. ‘We are seeing issues with parents who are self-employed, where the system says they are not eligible when they are,’ she explains. This term, eight of the 40 children accessing the 30 hours are not claiming the full 30 hours, and three of the eight children are claiming some of the entitlement at another setting.

Ms Coltman feels the funding rate is disappointing, although she feels supported by the local authority when it comes to making additional charges. ‘They have encouraged us to be confident about what our offer is, as long as we are not going against the local agreement,’ she says. ‘We make a bit of a loss on funded pre-schoolers, but we do have a before- and after-school club, which helps to ease the burden.’

While the funding is designed to help working parents, Ms Coltman is concerned about how they will cope when children go to school and need wraparound care.

She says, ‘This 30 hours funding is supposed to help parents return to work, but what happens when their children go to school and need wraparound care? There aren’t many jobs where the hours fit around school hours. The extended entitlement makes a significant contribution to childcare costs, and that support then goes to nothing. I think that will cause some problems.’

DOUBLE TIME

James Hempsall, who has the support contract to aid delivery of the 30 hours, on the pilots in N. Yorks and Leicestershire

In North Yorkshire, Andrea clearly demonstrates how high parental demand is for 30 hours, and the challenges for families who want more than their traditional universal 15 hours – specifically, the need for travel to access additional provision. While this challenge is not new, it is different because we are now talking about government funded hours. For settings, a new way of delivering, partnership working and connecting-up is required.

North Yorkshire and Leicestershire rely on their PVI settings. The way Jo and her team in Leicestershire communicated with the sector is an example to all. It has been clear, regular and delivered in multiple ways – including personal contact and events, and meeting with provider groups and networks.

The concerns around funding, and the shift from parents being full fee-paying to receiving government funding, must continue to be a vital dialogue – so settings can monitor and demonstrate the financial change, make informed business decisions, and parents can make informed choices. For some settings, this will mean small changes, like those in Charnwood Nursery and Pre-School; for others, changes will be larger and more complex to manage.

With parental demand comes the challenge of responding to parents wanting to know about the extended entitlement and to gain their code, before approaching their provider(s). Leicestershire did an admirable job of managing a manual telephone system, before the online system was launched over the summer – but I have heard parents saying that accessing their phone line, due to the volume of calls, was really difficult.

That is why the Childcare Choices system is so important to support parents to find out about all the early years and childcare entitlements and gain their code in a convenient and reliable way, at times and in locations that are most accessible to them.

www.childcareworks.co.uk

www.hempsallconsultancies.com