Issue - meetings

Report of the Interim Head of Education (Delivery) (CS/23/21) presenting the annual return on the sufficiency of accessible, affordable, high quality early years and childcare places, attached.

RESOLVED

(a) that the Childcare Sufficiency Assessment Annual Report as a true reflection of the Council’s current position in relation to meeting its duty to secure sufficient, accessible, affordable, high quality early years and childcare places so far as is reasonably practicable, be agreed;

(b) that Members confirm the sufficiency duty has been met this year, as far as is reasonably practicable, noting the work currently taking place to tackle hotspots; and

(c) note that the Report will be published on the website.

(Councillors Biederman, Brazil and Wrigley attended in accordance with Standing Order 25(2) and spoke to this item).

The Cabinet considered the Report of the Interim Head of Education (Delivery) (CS/23/21) which presented the annual return on the sufficiency of accessible, affordable, high quality early years and childcare places, circulated prior to the meeting in accordance with regulation 7(4) of the Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012.

The Cabinet noted it was a statutory duty for Local Authorities, set out in Section 6, of the 2006 Childcare Act,to secure sufficient, accessible, affordable, high quality early years and childcare places so far as is reasonably practicable. TheChildren and Families Act 2014 also required that a Report be prepared annually for Elected Members on how the Local Authority was meeting its duty to secure sufficient childcare. The Early Education and Childcare: Statutory Guidance for Local Authorities, set out that the local authority should make the Report available and accessible to parents.

Sufficiency was met through a variety of providers that included all types of schools, pre-schools, day nurseries, holiday clubs, breakfast clubs, after school clubs, childminders, etc.  These provisions were within the private, voluntary, independent, maintained and academy sectors.

The data analysis indicates that overall, there appeared to be sufficient early years and childcare provision within Devon, although the rural/urban spread of different types of provision varied and childcare sufficiency ‘hot spots’ (where there was concern about sufficiency) had been identified.

The overall number of providers had decreased by 47, which was mainly in the childminder sector and was broadly in line with national trends.

The Service recognise there was a lack of out of school provision in some areas of Devon and this was due to a number of factors impacting on this including recruitment, low levels of pay, working hours and lack of demand. Parents were opting to use informal arrangements due to costs due to the challenges of cost of living currently.

The percentage of two-year olds taking up a funded place (85.7%) remained higher than the national average of 72% and the percentage of three- and four-year olds taking up the early years funding at 96.1% remained higher than the national average of 92%. Children accessing their full universal entitlement and those taking up the extended (30 hours) entitlement had also increased.

There were a number of actions arising from the Report, as follows;

·       continue to assess sufficiency and identify hot spots through data analysis and discussion on the supply and demand of childcare with locality teams.

·       provide advice, guidance and support to providers to open or expand their businesses in areas where there was insufficient provision or more provision was required to meet the new entitlements.

·       use the provider self-update to inform knowledge of provision across the county.

·       continue the data review of out of school provision to ensure accurate data was held through the provider self-update and work with schools and providers to develop the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 439