Clause 3 - Specific duties of local authority in relation to early childhood services
Childcare Bill
6:00 pm
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
One of the issues that we have already covered is the importance of ensuring that the new places and services are as accessible as possible, not least to those disadvantaged people who tend not to come forward as easily as the others who are more conversant with the system and who are able to take advantage of it. Clause 3(2) lays an obligation on the authority to
“make arrangements to secure that early childhood services in their area are provided in an integrated manner”.
I am sure that we all applaud the sentiment behind the reference to “an integrated manner”. It is important that all the considerations that we are discussing—geographical access, the appropriateness of access, the quality of the care and the appropriateness of the care that parents seek to access—are joined-up.
The obligation on the local authority is to
“facilitate access to those services”.
That is fine in as far as it goes. It is important that access is facilitated—that is, that there is a perfectly usable form, poster or leaflet, or information on the internet, so that if someone is so minded and able to find that information, they can seek to gain access to the service. However, it is surely more important that access is facilitated as widely as possible, so that as many people as possible for whom the child care services are appropriate can find out about and gain access to them.
By elaborating slightly on the phraseology in the clause, my hon. Friends and I are trying to achieve what I am sure the Minister intends. It is a helpfully intended probing amendment that would address the disadvantage that we spoke about at length this morning. It would ensure that people were provided not only with access but were encouraged to gain access if they would benefit from the service.
Amendment No. 2 is contingent on that. We suggest including after subsection (3) an additional consideration:
“The authority shall publish the criteria used to identify such parents and prospective parents under subsection (3)”.
That means the parents who are being encouraged to use the child care services that will now be provided. The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that the local authority has not just gone through the motions and made limited access available, but has gone the extra mile to ensure that access is advertised and explained as widely as possible and that disadvantaged parents in particular take advantage of that. If, in the Bill, we explicitly encouraged local authorities to facilitate access to the services “as widely as possible”, it would be fair that they should publish as part of their reporting mechanisms, which we have already spoken about, the basis or criteria on which they identified the parents who will need the child care services that the Bill is all about.
Again, these are probing amendments, but they would strengthen the intention behind the legislation by giving a little more detail to the phrases used in clause 3.