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ITEM EX5

EXECUTIVE – 13 NOVEMBER 2001

INTEGRATED EARLY YEARS AND CHILDCARE SERVICE

Report by the Chief Education Officer, the Director of Social Services and the County Treasurer

Introduction

  1. The report asks the Executive to approve a proposal to establish an integrated County Council Early Years and Childcare Service with effect from April 2002. The service will be based in the Education Department and will include all existing Social Services Early Years and Childcare functions.

  2. The proposal arises from the recent Best Value Review of Early Years and Childcare. It was approved in principle by the Best Value & Audit Sub-Committee in February 2001 and by the Children’s & Young People’s Sub-Committee in May 2001.

  3. The main reasons for creating an integrated service are:

    • to provide a stronger and more coherent identity for this vital and growing area of work within the County Council;

    • to ensure a more efficient customer focus;

    • to enable the County Council to give even better quality support to staff and settings in the field.

The Best Value Review noted that at national level, early years and childcare functions are now fully integrated within the Department for Education and Skills.

Key Issues

  1. Since May 2001 a joint Social Services/Education Steering Group has been working on the details of the new integrated service. The Steering Group has:

    • carried out consultations with the staff affected, with key voluntary agencies and with the County’s Early Years Development and Childcare Partnership

    • assessed the resource implications of the proposal

    • proposed a management structure for the new Service

The Steering Group’s report is attached. It has been approved by the Senior Management Teams of the Education and Social Services departments.

  1. In its consultations with staff and other bodies, the Steering Group has found a high level of support for the proposal. In the discussions that have taken place so far, officers have consistently given the message that social care values will be just as important for the new service as those relating to learning and development.

  2. Two main budget issues have been identified by the Steering Group:

    • The need to transfer resources from the Social Services budget to Education from 2002/03 onwards to help cover the additional cost of management and other departmental support functions.

    • The desirability of ending the Social Services recharge to the Education budget as from the end of this financial year. The recharge has existed since 1997/98.

Broad agreement on both matters has been reached between the two departments concerned and the County Treasurer.

  1. The Steering Group estimates that the additional costs to Education of establishing the new early years and childcare service will be £114.5k per annum from 2002/03 onwards. This includes the creation of three posts (2.5 full time equivalents) within the early years and childcare section of the Education Department. One of these posts will be at Senior Education Officer level and will lead the new integrated Service. Further details of the costs involved are given in paragraph 27 of the Steering Group’s report. The costs of establishing the new service will be financed from the following sources:

    • Transferred funding from Social Services;

    • Savings in other education budgets;

    • External grant funding (i.e. Childcare Grant).

The establishment of the new service is not expected to have any additional resource implications for the County Council’s budget.

Staff and Financial Implications

  1. 45 individual staff (31.7fte) working in Social Services will transfer to the Education establishment in April 2002. Existing conditions of service, pay rates and work patterns will not be affected by the change. Amongst the staff groups transferring, there will not be any reductions in staffing levels.

  2. The financial implications of the proposal are set out in paragraphs 6 and 7 above. It needs to be borne in mind that any transfer of funds from Social Services to education will mean a corresponding reduction in the Social Services budget.

Implications for People Living in Poverty

  1. The creation of a new integrated early years and childcare service will help to improve the provision available for young children and families in Oxfordshire, particularly for those living in poverty.

RECOMMENDATIONS

  1. The Executive is RECOMMENDED to:

  1. approve the establishment of a new integrated early years and childcare service within the Education Department from April 2002, as set out in the joint Steering Group’s report;

  2. note that the new service will operate as a single County Council service in which social care values and those relating to learning and development will have equal importance;

  3. approve the creation of a new Senior Education Officer post and 1.5 new administrative posts within the Education Department as part of the establishment of the new service with effect from April 2002, the new posts and the other costs of the new service  to be financed from either existing resources or from external grant funding;

  4. agree that the Social Services recharge to the Education budget should be discontinued from April 2002.

G M BADMAN
Chief Education Officer

MARY ROBERTSON
Director of Social Services

CHRIS GRAY
County Treasurer

Background papers:       Best Value Review of Early Years and Childcare (February 2001)
Contact Officers:            Rick Harmes, Principal Education Officer, Tel: 01865 810626

Phil Hodgson, Assistant Director, Social Services, Tel: 01865 815833
Matt Bowmer, Assistant County Treasurer (Education) Tel; 01865 815474

November 2001