Decision details
Proposed closure of the remaining two Council run Nurseries
Decision Maker: Cabinet Member - Children and Young People
Decision status: Approved
Is Key decision?: Yes
Is subject to call in?: Yes
Purpose:
The local authority does not have a statutory duty to directly provide nursery places, and therefore it now seems prudent to allow the provision of nursery placements to be taken on by the private sector.
Decision:
The Cabinet Member agrees;
A) With the proposal for the two children’s nurseries to close, while staff work with local private nurseries and other providers including child minders to ensure where possible, appropriate levels of placement sufficiency in both areas. In addition, staff will work with parents to ensure a smooth transition of placements over the coming months to ensure all young children have identified nursery or child care placements.
B) To approve the likely staff redundancy costs which are currently estimated at £105k for staff that do not transfer to other posts within the council. In addition, the report requests agreement to dispose of surplus assets; Radstock nursery portable building, and nursery rooms/accommodation at St. Martin’s Garden School.
Reasons for the decision:
Given the continued development of private nursery and child-minding provision across the B&NES area, it is right that the Council reviews its requirement to directly provide nursery placements for young children. The private market has an established record of providing these resources more efficiently than the Council can provide.
Recent reviews of sufficiency show that private provision is at, or near to levels that would allow all existing places provided by the Council to be taken up by private nurseries. Where the sufficiency is slightly lower (Radstock), we are confident that we can use the ensuing months to work with providers to increase capacity sufficiently to ensure all children will be able to find alternative provision.
Alternative options considered:
The Council has actively explored whether or not other private providers could take on the running of the nurseries. However, it will also be important to acknowledge that feedback from potential providers has consistently been that this would be difficult due to some of the potential financial implications of TUPE costs.
Publication date: 15/03/2018
Date of decision: 15/03/2018
Effective from: 23/03/2018
This decision has been called in by:
- Councillor Liz Hardman who writes Reasons for a Call In of decision E3038 - The proposed decision has not taken into account the impact on families and children in crisis, families with challenging children and children with disabilities protected under the 2010 Equalities Act. Under the Children Act 2006, this Council is required to assess the local childcare market and to secure sufficient childcare for working parents. In Radstock the sufficiency figure is only 0.73% meaning that already there are fewer places than required. The papers give no indication about how long the nurseries have been running at a loss. The papers do not indicate how long the nurseries have been below numbers and whether the threat of closure has impacted on the numbers. The Call In of decision E3038 has been signed by 10 Councillors. "
Accompanying Documents:
PDF 83 KB