Agenda item

Childcare sufficiency assessment 2020-2021

The annual assessment of the provision of quality, accessible and affordable childcare provision for under 5s.

Minutes:

The Executive Director of Children’s Services – Education, Early Help and Social Care, Brighter Futures for Children (BFfC), submitted a report sharing the 2020/21 Childcare Sufficiency Assessment (CSA).  A copy of the BFfC Reading Childcare Sufficiency Assessment 2020/21 was appended to the report.

The report explained that under Section 6 of The Childcare Act 2006 there was a requirement on local authorities to produce an annual sufficiency assessment on the availability and sufficiency of childcare in their area.  The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the sector had created challenges in producing meaningful data and analysis of the childcare market in the Borough.  However, the CSA did provide an indication of trends or areas for further investigation and action, and the tools used in the production of the assessment enabled ongoing analysis and monitoring of the childcare data for future planning.

The main findings were as follows:

·         There were no sufficiency issues related to quality of childcare provision, as 97% of providers in the Borough had been judged Good or Outstanding by Ofsted at their most recent inspection (Ofsted inspection of Early Years provision had been suspended throughout lockdown);

·         There were currently sufficient childcare places for 0 to 4 year olds, including funded early education entitlement places for two, three and four year olds, albeit that some might not be in the area preferred;

·         The town centre and Whitely had been identified as areas to monitor regarding future growth where the number of families was anticipated to increase over the next few years in line with housing development; sessional care in Whitley was particularly low;

·         Parents had a varied choice of childcare providers in most areas of the Borough.

In response to a question about the impact of the pandemic on nurseries and the support being offered, Corinne Dishington – Service Manager 0 to 5’s, BfFC, explained that the Council had had various schemes over the previous year that had been open for nurseries to apply for which had included holidays on business rates and grants that could be applied for.  The entitlement funding from the DfE had been paid for the summer and autumn terms and providers had been funded to at least their Autumn 2019 funded places, so if they had fewer children than they had in autumn 2019 they had been funded to that level.  From January 2021 for the spring term the funding had been based on actual numbers however, the government had committed to top-up, if the uptake of places increased through the term, to 85%.  The resilience of the sector was good, although it was fairly fragile.  Entitlement funding would be increased from 1 April 2021 by 6p per hour for three and four year olds and by 8p per hour for two year old places.  In addition, the government had published a policy paper, “The Best Start for Life: A Vision for the 1,001 Critical Days”, which had been developed as part of the Early Years healthy development review.  The paper included a review of funding that was going to be put to the Treasury before the next spending review and was asking for additional funding for Early Years.

Resolved –    That the 2020/21 Childcare Sufficiency Assessment be noted and endorsed.

 

Supporting documents: