The Government intends to ensure that there is true partnership between private and voluntary early years providers and local authorities in England, says minister for children Margaret Hodge.
In an interview with Nursery World at the Department for Education and Skills last week, the minister stressed the importance to the Government's National Childcare Strategy of partnership between the sectors and local authorities. She also gave her personal assurance that the Government wanted to 'maintain the diversity of providers'.
Mrs Hodge said, 'We want to involve voluntary and private providers going right the way through from nought to 19 - because it doesn't stop at five - and not just providing but also planning and commissioning services.' She said that she was aware of complaints from providers about local authorities whose idea of partnership seemed to be to exclude the private and voluntary sectors, but stressed that the 'bulk' of authorities were committed to partnership between sectors.
Mrs Hodge also said the Government had no intention of ever re-imposing ring-fencing on the money for nursery education grants. The ring-fencing was abolished in April so that central government gave the money directly to local authorities in their education budgets. Ring-fencing the grant money was no longer necessary because there was now 'a duty on local educational authorities to deliver part-time nursery education', she said, and it had 'fulfilled its purpose'.
Asked about providers who complained that local authorities were 'top-slicing' some of the nursery education grant and not giving all of the grant money to them, Mrs Hodge said, 'I've had letters from people about that and I am concerned that local authorities should ensure a level playing field. We are just looking at that issue to see what, if any, action we can take to put that right.'
Mrs Hodge's comments were welcomed by Judith Thompson, chair of trustees of the Pre-school Learning Alliance, which represents around 15,000 pre-schools in England. She said, 'We don't mind if the money is ring-fenced or what method is used. What we want to know is how the Government is going to monitor partnerships, as our experiences in some parts of the country don't lead us to be very hopeful.'
She said that in some cases the problems pre-schools had were not with a local authority but individual schools that had 'destroyed good-quality provision because new provision was being put in its place'. Ms Thompson said, 'There are cases where successful pre-schools that have met in school premises have had these premises withdrawn because the school wanted to put in its own early years provision. This is a nonsense.
'We are asking how the Government is going to make sure that partnerships are brought up to best practice with all sectors. Nobody doubts the Government's intention, but we are asking that that recognition doesn't get jeopardised at a local level.
'We think it's all about the Government sending out a clear signal to local authorities and the voluntary sector that reassure that partnership is being fully supported by Government.'
Mrs Hodge praised a school in north-west England that had established a local authority-run nursery school onsite for three- and four-year-olds that worked with a private day nursery down the road. She said, 'That sort of partnership of public-private working together on the same site is what I'd like to see where it's appropriate, where it meets local needs and aspirations.'
