David Amess (Southend West, Conservative)

I remind the Committee that with this we are discussing the following amendments: No. 86, in page 6, line 13, at end insert—

‘(1A)An assessment under subsection (1) must include the childcare needs of children whose parents are not working.’.

No. 272, in page 6, line 13, after ‘assessments”’, insert

‘which must include an assessment of—

(a)the supply of childcare provision available locally, and

(b)the childcare requirements of parents living in the area’.

No. 271, in page 6, line 23, after ‘criteria’, insert

‘which must include an assessment of the quality of the childcare provision available locally’.

No. 304, in clause 26, page 12, line 40, at end insert—

‘(2A)Regulations made under subsection (1) shall include provision requiring a local authority to review an assessment following the provision of relevant evidence, not previously considered, by parents.’.

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister, Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)

It is a pleasure, Mr. Amess, to serve on a Committee under your chairmanship. As you will recall, you were involved with my board for the approved list of parliamentary candidates, and my fear is that all your worst fears are coming true.

I think that this morning I was bringing my remarks to a close by referring to the briefing from the four child care organisations, the National Childminding Association, the Preschool Learning Alliance, 4Children and the Daycare Trust, which believe that making specific reference to both supply and demand in clause 11 will assist local authorities in fulfilling their strategic leadership role. Indeed, the guidance that the Minister has kindly sent us refers at great length to both the supply and the demand sides. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the comments that I made just before lunch, if she can remember them.

Annette Brooke (Shadow Minister, Education & Skills; Mid Dorset & North Poole, Liberal Democrat)

In some ways it is fortunate that we might not remember all the words of the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr. Gibb), because that allows me to be repetitive without having to apologise. There are similarities, as we said this morning, between the Conservatives’ amendments   and amendment No. 272, which I wish to address. We have exactly the same objectives and those are echoed by some of the major organisations.

The purpose of amendment No. 272 is fairly clear: it is to ensure that the regular child care assessments that the new duty would oblige local authorities to carry out would include an assessment of parents’ demand for child care, both met and unmet, as well as of local child care provision. We have already heard that it is important to consider both supply and demand. I should like to add to this morning’s comments by saying that I welcome the proposals under clause 12 on the children’s information service and the idea that a local authority has to be proactive, possibly by engaging in outreach work to identify additional demand. There is a case for demand to be mentioned in the Bill.

Amendment No. 271, which was also covered towards the end of this morning’s debate, seeks to include quality in the definition of sufficiency—that is to say that the criteria should include an assessment of the quality of child care provision available. We debated the matter at great length under clause 6 and I remain unconvinced that it should not be the local authority’s duty to have anything to do with quality. We are aware that Ofsted will be involved, and although it can—and might well—be called in to make an inspection, inspections will generally take place once every three years.

It does not seem to me unreasonable to include quality as a criterion. It is difficult to define, but I am minded to say to the Minister that I am sure that precise definitions could be included in guidance. It is not our job, we are told, to write the guidance. We will read it in the Library in due course, when we notice that it has arrived. I cannot accept the argument that the fact that there is no definition of quality in the Bill is a reason for not accepting the amendment. Quality is an established concept in child care and early years provision, and part 3 of the Bill does take on the issue of quality in an important manner. Everyone is agreed that we are not talking just about the quantity of child care. Quality is of great importance and will be the real determinant of the future development of children who have benefited from child care.

When a local authority is in a commissioning role and it has the job of mapping out the child care that is available locally, it is all-important to include quality in the mapping. As a minimum, that could mean a reference to the latest Ofsted inspections, but I hope that it would go further. As I have explained several times before, I am keen on self-evaluation quality assurance, and the mapping could make reference to that, indicating which providers had, for example, achieved various awards in that sphere. The approach could be quite simple. The definition of quality would need to be worked up between local authorities and the main providers. I ask the Minister seriously to consider including quality in this part of the Bill, because the issue returns again and again; the use of the term “sufficiency” has a clear quantitative element. Yet in the sphere that we are considering, of all spheres, quality is all-important.

I should like my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) to speak to amendment No. 304, which relates specifically to Wales.

Roger Williams (Brecon & Radnorshire, Liberal Democrat)

I am sorry that I was not present at the beginning of the debate this morning. It is a pleasure to speak to amendment No. 304, which relates to part 2 of the Bill on child care provision in Wales. It would give an element of parent power to the parents of children in local authorities in Wales. After an assessment of the sufficiency or appropriateness of the amount of child care in an area, things would change, almost from the day of the assessment. The amendment would bring changes in local circumstances to the attention of the local authority; a request could be made to reassess whether child care was sufficient.

The issue was brought to my attention recently when parents in a community were unable to get access to child care because a bus service had been taken away. As a result, all the parents who did not have a car or access to a car could not get to the facility that had been available. A question arises from that, given the local authority duty under the Bill to provide an assessment. There would be a huge difference in the facilities available to those families. The amendment would therefore enable parents to tell the local authority that there had been a material change in their circumstances and ask it, before the next full assessment in two or three years or whatever the Assembly might require, to take matters in hand and carry out an assessment immediately.

Beverley Hughes (Minister of State (Children, Young People and Families), Department for Education and Skills; Stretford & Urmston, Labour)

The issues that we are now debating are considered in more detail in the paper that I made available to the Committee yesterday evening about local authority assessments of the sufficiency of child care. It might be helpful if the Committee were to realise that clause 11 replaces and expands current provisions in the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, which contains a duty requiring local authorities to review annually the sufficiency of their child care, but which does not require them to take any action in the light of what they find.

I agree absolutely that the needs assessment must relate to the child care that parents require, but some of the amendments would have unintended and unhelpful side effects.

Amendment No. 11 wishes to tie clause 11 to the duties under clause 6. Although clause 11 relates to clause 6, it relates also to clause 7, which provides the individual child with the entitlement to early years provision for children of a prescribed age. I should not want to downplay that important link with clause 7.

Amendment No. 86 would require the needs assessment in clause 11 to include the child care needs of non-working parents. That is unnecessary. If hon. Members have had a chance to consider the document I circulated yesterday evening, they will have seen that the assessment must take into account the needs of all parents. It must be a comprehensive assessment.

The second page of that document proposes that the regulations would require an undertaking assessment. That includes a range of matters: the current level of each type of care available; the needs of lower income families; the requirements of all parents of children up to 14, or 16, if the child is disabled; the views of parents, children, carers, providers and the community; parents’ and carers’ demand for child care to enable them to work if they choose to; issues relating to localised under-supply, or inappropriate patterns and types of child care; and even the needs of parents who live outside the local authority area, but use providers in it, possibly because they work there or want to work there.

The regulations in line with what I have just said will lay out clearly which groups the local authority should consult to ensure that it meets the needs of parents, families and employers. Local authorities will need to understand also what child care the private and voluntary sector can provide to ensure a diverse market to give parents a real choice.

Turning to amendment No. 272, I agree that the issues are important for inclusion in the assessment process, but such factors would be better and more fully addressed through regulations. It is inconceivable that a meaningful assessment could take place without taking those issues into account, but it is not helpful to include them in the Bill.

As the document lays out in some detail, we expect local authorities to take account of a range of factors when deciding whether provision is sufficient. They include, on the supply side, the number of places, their hours of opening, the type of provision, the price charged and the accessibility of provision; and on the demand side, the number of places required and the hours at which places are required—both for parents who reside in the local authority, and for other parents who travel into that area for child care. We cannot and should not attempt to include all those issues in the Bill, and I should not want any list to be interpreted as a constraint on what could be included.

Amendment No. 271 would require local authorities to assess the quality of child care provision, as part of their overall assessment of the child care market. I have already stressed how much of the Bill is about quality. There is a fundamental misunderstanding or misconception about the arrangements for ensuring and assessing quality. The arrangements are enshrined in national standards that are regulated by Ofsted, the inspecting body. Local authorities do not want another layer of inspection, and nor do providers, particularly those in the voluntary and private sector. They should not thank us for imposing another layer on them.

By way of reassurance, I say to the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) has tried to make clear, the process of registration will ensure that only those providers who meet the quality standards for registration will succeed in being registered. The provider will demonstrate the evidence that it is meeting the quality standards. Ofsted will make an initial visit at the point of   registration with an unannounced follow-up visit within seven months to ensure that the standards have been implemented. We have to get it right in our minds. Ofsted is the national body to ensure national standards and we cannot expect local authorities or providers to want another layer of quality inspection to intervene as a result of the process. We have to leave that to Ofsted.

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister, Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)

I thought the point of the amendment was not to set up a new inspection regime for child care quality assessment but to point the assessment process towards quality. It is perfectly possible for the local authority to use the Ofsted reports in assessing the quality of the provision. To rely only on the inspection from when the child care provision is first established may not be enough because in two, three, four or five years’ time the quality may have deteriorated. When the authority is making a periodic assessment every three years, it should take into account the current quality and not just the quality of the provision when it was established several years before.

Beverley Hughes (Minister of State (Children, Young People and Families), Department for Education and Skills; Stretford & Urmston, Labour)

This is not an assessment of quality. Clause 11 relates to the assessment of sufficiency. As we debated in clause 6, the extent to which local authorities are required to fulfil their duty under sufficiency includes, crucially, sufficient child care for parents who can claim working tax credit. To claim working tax credit, child care has to be registered. We are talking predominately about registered child care, and for registration purposes the Ofsted process is by definition the guarantee of quality. I accept that in ongoing work with local providers through the provision of training—both by local authorities and visiting providers—local authorities will act if they have concerns about quality.

In general, Ofsted is the national body established to ensure that quality standards are reached. We cannot establish such an assessment because it would involve another layer of apparatus and we cannot expect local authorities to do that. We would have to define what we meant, whereas the Bill defines quality standards for the early years foundation stage which Ofsted will translate into the indicators for which it will look. Assessing child care is a complicated job and it is not something that can be simply done in a short space of time. That is why we have a well established and detailed apparatus under Ofsted to perform that function for us. As appealing as it might sound, simply saying that local authorities have to be concerned about quality in the assessment would mean in practice that they would replicate what Ofsted already does.

Annette Brooke (Shadow Minister, Education & Skills; Mid Dorset & North Poole, Liberal Democrat)

I want to ask a simple question, which is not meant to be particularly deep or profound. The local authority has a duty to provide sufficiency, which is only a quantitative measure. Does the definition of sufficiency include settings with an Ofsted report which, although poor, is not enough to close them down?

Beverley Hughes (Minister of State (Children, Young People and Families), Department for Education and Skills; Stretford & Urmston, Labour)

Clearly, in those circumstances, Ofsted, with its risk-based approach to assessment, will consider making further, unannounced visits to any child care provider about whom it has concerns or who is only just above the approval threshold. I am sure that it will talk to the local authorities in those circumstances and they will work with the providers to see whether, through training and other support, they can raise the standard of their provision. Ultimately—this is important, because it assures parents of the consistency of decision making—it will be Ofsted that decides whether that child care meets the right standard. It will not be the case that no one looks at a provider who is causing concern: Ofsted will go in successively and will talk to the local authority, which will work with the provider to try to raise standards. It is a process in which people will be talking and working together. Only if Ofsted ultimately decides that the provider is not coming up to standard will the registration be removed.

Ann Coffey (PPS (Rt Hon Alistair Darling, Secretary of State), Scotland Office; Stockport, Labour)

Does my right hon. Friend agree that local authorities would be put in a difficult position if they were given the additional duty? If there was a provider with places whom Ofsted had registered as being of sufficient quality and the local authority decided, on some other basis, that it did not meet their quality standards, what would the local authority’s position be if the provider decided to appeal against its decision?

Beverley Hughes (Minister of State (Children, Young People and Families), Department for Education and Skills; Stretford & Urmston, Labour)

My hon. Friend graphically starts to take us into the tortuous processes, decision making and confusion that would arise if there were two standards of quality—one operated by Ofsted and one by the local authority. The hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton said that he was perfectly happy with that possibility, but I do not know how parents would begin to make sense of it, let alone how local authorities and the providers would understand such a convoluted and two-tier system.

We established Ofsted because we wanted to ensure that there was a nationally endorsed standard that made sense to parents and which parents knew about. Indeed, the Ofsted brand has been successful in being recognised by parents, who have a great deal of confidence in its process and the results of its decision making. That is the validated way that we have established to assure quality standards, and it is one that parents understand. We should not confuse the situation by bringing in something else that is undefined and not thought through, which would totally complicate the situation for parents and providers.