Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

Amendment 205 seeks to protect centres of excellence in early years education when the new budgetary framework comes into force. During Committee, I expressed my concern that these leading-edge settings, which set the standard for the high quality of early years education, to which we should aspire for all children, are being threatened by the way local authorities are planning to implement the single funding formula. The Minister did not think that I had any cause to worry. I hope to disabuse him of that view in the next 10 minutes. I apologise to the House as I will need to go into some detail. Unfortunately, there are a lot of very important issues at the end of this Bill, and it is tempting late at night, when we are all tired, not to give them the consideration they deserve. In this case, however, I really feel that considerable detail is required. I have obtained evidence from Early Education, the leading UK voluntary organisation that supports practitioners, parents and others who are not just involved in the development of young children, but are committed to ensuring that they receive the best possible care and education. It carried out a survey of 138 heads and teachers in maintained nursery school provision between 26 June and 24 July this year. It found that only one in five of maintained nursery schools and children’s centres had yet been advised of their single funding formula base rate. It found that almost all of those maintained nursery schools that responded to the survey did not believe that the single funding formula would create a level playing field in the early education and care market through raising qualifications and training staff. The survey found that less than a third believed that they would also be in receipt of a quality supplement, and many said that they would not be able to maintain the level of quality and effective practice that their schools and centres deliver now. Few respondents—17.6 per cent—know how or if the local authority will manage any adjustment of the single funding formula once it has been implemented. The majority of local authorities—74 per cent—have yet to say whether there will be any transitional arrangements to manage the significant cuts in funding that the implementation of the single funding formula will bring. My noble friend Lady Garden of Frognal mentioned the press coverage yesterday: there is considerable concern out there and, although the single funding formula has not yet been implemented, things are going wrong already. I hope there is still time to put things right before too much damage is done. While I accept that the Government’s aim is to improve the fairness and transparency of the way the funding is allocated to providers who deliver the free entitlement, and thereby support its extension to 15 hours, I have serious concerns that it is being implemented in such a way as to throw out the most important baby with the unfairness bathwater. Many of those working in the maintained sector report that they are increasingly being threatened with closure or significant budget cuts with immediate effect. Others working in the private, voluntary and independent sectors report that many of the rates currently being proposed by local authorities under the early years single funding formula amount to little more than pennies, and are not enough to support them to deliver their aims. Many are also noting that the proposed rate will leave them unable to comply fully with the draft code of practice on provision of the free education entitlement. As the implementation of the funding formula enters its final phase of consultation, there is increasing evidence that many local authority proposals will have significant adverse consequences for services to the most disadvantaged children and families. It will especially affect the most vulnerable and at-risk children, and those with special educational needs—in other words, those who need the highest quality provision. So local authorities must be both supported and rigorously monitored to ensure that the aims of the single funding formula are genuinely achieved across all sectors. Can the Minister say how this is being done? I am particularly concerned about the maintained sector, as there is a growing body of evidence that demonstrates its good outcomes for children. Results from the Effective Provision of Pre-School Education project showed that combined centres, described as similar to nursery schools, which have developed their provision of extended care to include full day-care and parental involvement, ranked in the good to excellent range in regard to quality of provision. EPPE concluded that well-resourced pre-school centres with a history of integrating education are more successful at providing care in education than centres from the care tradition. The effectiveness of maintained nursery schools is also confirmed by Ofsted reports. The 2007-08 annual report of the Chief Inspector of Schools noted that nursery schools are particularly effective, with 96 per cent of those inspected being good or outstanding and, of those, 47 per cent fell into the outstanding category. By comparison, Ofsted’s 2005-08 review of all childcare and early education settings, excluding maintained nursery schools, revealed that only 3 per cent were judged outstanding and 57 per cent were good. Ofsted was also concerned as to the ineffectiveness of early education settings outside the maintained nursery sector in disadvantaged areas. Any discussion of maintained nursery provision should include their value as a quality provider, as demonstrated by Ofsted and the EPPE research. Maintained nursery schools are often copied by the private, voluntary and independent settings as models of effective practice and as a resource to improve the leadership, pedagogy and practice across all sectors. They play a significant role in the provision of training qualified teachers for other early learning and childcare providers. Maintained nursery school head teachers and their management teams also facilitate a significant leadership within their local areas, and in some cases regionally and even nationally. Over the past 10 years, there has been significant investment in early education and care, and we must give the Government credit for that. But if the single funding formula is implemented in its current state, a decade of investment benefiting the most disadvantaged children and their families is at risk and the highest quality and most effective early education provision will be lost. Your Lordships know the long-term costs of not investing in early years: lower education achievement; poor physical and mental health; crime and delinquency; and so forth. The economic benefits of investment far exceed the costs. High quality programmes are necessary for large economic returns but where the quality is meagre, they are likely to be less effective. As it is presently proposed, the implementation of the single funding formula risks undoing all those benefits of the significant investment that the present Government have made. Any levelling of the playing field must take into consideration differences in the quality of the early learning experiences on offer as well as the impact on poverty, ill health and other adversities. These disadvantages are beyond the control of the individual child and their family, and social justice therefore demands that adequate provision should be made. That is why I feel it is so important to put in the Bill that one of the things each local authority must take into account when devising its formula is the need to protect centres of excellence. Without them, all settings will suffer since they are in the vanguard and have pulled up the whole sector to a higher standard than ever before over recent years. Please do not let us destroy that. I beg to move.