New Statutory Responsibility - Securing Sufficient Childcare Places

What does this mean?
Local authorities have a duty to ensure that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area.  This is so that parents can work or undertake education/training that may lead to work.

In order to meet this new duty, the Childcare and Market Development Team, in close partnership with the Families Information Service, is in the process of carrying out a detailed analysis of the supply of childcare within the district, including the number of places available, times, range of sessions and charges.

We will need help to gather this data
We will be carrying out extensive consultation across the district to determine the levels of demand and will identify gaps between supply and demand.  We will incorporate this information into a Childcare Sufficiency Assessment.

We will be asking childcare providers to complete an audit which is crucial to this process in order to provide us with an accurate picture of the childcare market. The information collected will be shared with potential new entrants to the market in a de-sensitised format to help avoid over provision in an area that could potentially lead to sustainability issues to current providers.

What are the benefits?
Increased knowledge - we will know more about family needs that are not currently being meet.

Increased flexibility - we will be able to provide targeted support to help childcare providers either to stay open and remain sustainable or to improve the services they offer.

More Information
If you are interested to know more about this new duty, please contact any of the following officers on telephone 01924 305630:

• Judy Colquoun - Programme Manager Childcare and Market Development
• Amanda Jenkinson - Service Planning and Monitoring Co-ordinator
• Ellis Leung - Sustainability and Business Support Officer
• Vicky Staveley - Senior Operations Co-ordinator