Providers call for more flexible code of practice for free entitlement
Catherine Gaunt
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Nurseries and local authorities must be able to operate 'flexibly' within the revised Code of Practice, a policy group of nursery providers said this week.
Private and voluntary providers should to be able to charge 'realistic supplements' for education and care outside the free entitlement hours for three-and four-year-olds, the Day Nursery Policy Group said, ahead of this month's publication of the revised Code of Practice.
The new rules will cover the extension of the free entitlement to a flexible 15 hours a week.
In a discussion paper, Finance: current issues and future policy proposals, the group says that while the free entitlement should stay universal for all three and four-year-olds, funding for two-year-olds should be focused on children 'at risk' or families in the most deprived areas.
Founder of the group George Bathurst told Nursery World that there would be 'increasing instability in the sector if nurseries are forced to offer uneconomic services. Funding has to cover the real cost.' He said that rather than forcing all nurseries to do the same thing, local authorities should give providers more flexibility.
'There is a lot of choice in the sector. Nurseries need space to breathe and innovate,' he said.
He also said some local authorities were insisting that children be allowed to take packed lunches to nursery if parents wanted, which would affect quality control over the food children eat at nursery.
The paper recommends that Sure Start Children's Centres should focus on addressing child poverty though family support, skills training, parenting help, childcare and early education and employment support. Where local authorities are struggling to fund existing children's centres, it says 'children would be better subsidised in places in other provision' in the private and voluntary sector.
Mr Bathurst added that it was 'arguable that too many children's centres were not in areas of deprivation'.
The group, which represents large and small providers in the non-maintained sector, was set up last October with the aim of influencing and challenging Government policy to improve pre-school childcare (News, 21 October 2009).
