Clause 8 - Powers of local authority in relation to the provision of childcare
Childcare Bill
10:45 am
Justine Greening (Putney, Conservative)
I take on board the hon. Lady’s point, but we are seeking to provide clarity in the Bill. If the clause merely said “assistance”, I might agree with her, but as it refers specifically to “financial assistance”, that additional detail must be correct. Therefore, we want to ensure that the detail is broad enough to capture the other forms of assistance that a local authority may want to provide.
It is always incumbent on local authorities to use their resources to the best value for the taxpayer. If councils can provide non-financial assistance, they may be able to free up financial resources, which they can churn back into providing perhaps even more child care locally than purely through financial assistance. It seems a common-sense amendment, and I hope that it will be accepted.
Amendment No. 95 brings me back to my opening remarks about our amendments strengthening a process, and it is a process that local authorities will go through to assess the sufficiency of local child care provision. We want to make sure that the process contains a complaints mechanism and that those who are concerned about the outcome of the process, particularly providers who are already providing child care locally and who feel that they have been disadvantaged, can flag up their complaints. We believe that the amendment will place a valuable check on the process, which will help the final decision. Complaints mechanisms are used to great effect by companies in industry. Many chief executives will say that most of the improvements in their processes and products have come about as a result of complaints from customers and suppliers or other companies with which they have been working. We must not deprive local authorities of that valuable feedback when they are assessing the sufficiency of local child care provision.
The amendment would insert that safeguard into the Bill and would enable existing providers to challenge a process that they are unhappy about. That would be valuable for two reasons. First, the process may not have been adequate in an individual case and the local authority may not have ensured that its decision does not have a detrimental effect on existing child care providers. Secondly, a challenge may flag up a general problem with the underlying process and approach that a local authority is using to take decisions about providing child care locally. Whether a complaint brings up an individual, isolated problem, or whether it flags up something that is more fundamentally wrong in a local authority process, the amendment will ensure that those problems are uncovered rapidly and on an ongoing basis, because, as we have said, the reality is that local authorities will probably frequently have to reassess whether the sufficiency test is being passed.
Similarly, in relation to amendment No. 198, it is surely in the interests of everybody—whether they are a parent or a child care provider—to understand the basis on which decisions have been taken by the local authority as it goes through the process. Surely transparency must be good. It will engender best practice across local authorities because they will be able to consider the way in which other local authorities have approached the process. They might be able to consider similar local authorities in similar urban or rural areas and get a far better understanding of the situation, thanks to the fact that local authorities would have to be clear cut and publish the criteria by which they made their decisions.
Amendment No. 246 relates to guidance. We talked about guidance earlier this morning. If we are going to have guidance from the Secretary of State, let us ensure that it is genuinely helpful and useful to the local authorities. I support guidance that would encourage local authorities to promote partnerships. A potential risk has been flagged up by research on Sure Start, which shows that there has been a danger that the most disadvantaged children and families have not ended up getting a Sure Start place. There is some merit in ensuring that all parents, especially those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, have more choice, not less. Surely it is positive to include in the Bill provision for guidance that encourages local authorities to promote partnerships with the private, voluntary and independent sectors.
In the context of the process that the Bill is trying to put in place—we have tabled amendments to try to strengthen that process—the guidance will also provide a benchmark against which the performance of local authorities, in putting in place the process, can be judged. That must be valuable. Such guidance will minimise the risk that things will go wrong. It will give local authorities, which are going through a new process, a better chance of getting things right the first time. In the context of the people who will be affected most—not just parents, but most of all children—the guidance will minimise the risk that children will end up having to move nurseries and change child care providers, when that could have been avoided in the first place. That is why we need to be careful with the guidance and ensure that it helps local authorities to get through the process in as good a fashion as possible.
Amendments Nos. 101 and 238 take us to the next stage in the process that a local authority will find itself in. Having made an assessment, ensured that the sufficiency test has been met, considered the existing child care provision locally and taken steps to help meet those needs, the local authority must consider the ongoing provision of child care. Clause 9 relates to how we can ensure that that ongoing provision is well managed and has a good outcome locally. It would be sensible to include amendment No. 101, which puts in place an appeals process. If a local authority goes through the initial assessment and comes up with a theory of how to provide child care locally that everybody agrees with, but, having done that, suggests an implementation process that is not agreed by child care providers, there should be an appeals process for the providers to challenge, if not the theory, the practice.
Amendment No. 238 reflects amendment No. 246. Guidance could be helpful for local authorities in setting up initial provision of child care locally. Once guidance has been given to authorities as to how they manage the relationships that they set up, amendment No. 238 says that there should be a national commissioning framework that will establish best practice for the management of those arrangements. I support these amendments that would include an appeals process and, earlier on in the clause, a complaints mechanism.
These are common-sense amendments that maximise the chance local authorities have to get through a new process in a robust way in order to come up with conclusions that providers are happy with. However, if there is a problem there should be a mechanism by which those decisions can be challenged and amended if appropriate.
The amendments that I have already talked about relate to part 1 and deal with local authorities in England. Amendments Nos. 265 and 268 would align the changes that we wish to make to part 2, which relates to Wales, with those we have suggested for part 1. I look forward to the Minister’s reaction to those amendments and I hope that they can be incorporated in the Bill.