Camden Council’s proposals, which went out for consultation last week, aim to address the high levels of spare capacity within its maintained childcare settings and make better use of nurseries based in primary schools.
Currently the council runs nine maintained nurseries and five children’s centres.
According to Camden, it has an oversupply of childcare places for three- and four-year-olds. It says this is due to the introduction of the national funding formula which meant it had to withdraw its offer of 25 hours of early education for all three- and four-year-olds in school and council-maintained nurseries. Many families do not meet the criteria for the 30 hours. Also, the number of children under five living in the borough has fallen since 2013.
The council says making changes to its maintained provision will enable it to make necessary savings and invest in new services for families in their children’s first 1001 days.
The consultation, which will run until 12 February, includes three options, they are:
- The closure of two maintained nurseries.
- Reducing the number of places and introducing cost-saving measures across Camden’s maintained nurseries. However, the council warns this could impact the quality and sustainability of its settings.
- Re-purposing four Camden maintained nurseries (Gospel Oak, Hampden, Kilburn Grange, Konstam) to Sure Start children’s centres – the council’s preferred option. Additional services than already offered in the borough would be developed in partnership with parents but may include specialist communication and language support for children and implementation of the HENRY healthy start programme.
Councillor Angela Mason, cabinet member for Best Start for Children and Families, said, ‘Camden has a proud history of supporting families of children aged under five through our Camden Sure Start services - and we know how important it is for their future to give them the best start in life. Due to changes in Government funding arrangements and a drop in the birth-rate, we now have too many nursery places in Camden. This means we have to make some challenging choices about how we deliver early years services.
‘While Camden children are achieving in line with others across the country by age five, there is still a significant gap between the achievement of disadvantaged children and others in the borough. This gap needs to be narrowed if Camden is to deliver on our commitment to be “a place where everyone has a chance to succeed and where nobody gets left behind”.’
‘Attending a high-quality nursery helps children achieve well but we also know that the time from pregnancy to the age of two is really important in ensuring that children get the best start. We are proposing some changes to early years services in the borough, which we think will help all children to achieve well.’
- The consultation is available here
