ITEM EX13

EXECUTIVE – 22 JANUARY 2002

ENSURING SUFFICIENCY OF FUNDED EDUCATION
PLACES FOR 3 AND 4 YEAR OLDS

Report by Acting Chief Education Officer

1. This report sets out some issues facing Oxfordshire County Council with regard to the roll out of funding for education for 3 year olds and the implementation of the Foundation Stage

County Council’s statutory duty as a planner/broker of places

2. The County Council has a statutory duty to ensure sufficiency of funded places for eligible 3 and 4 year olds. There is a requirement to expand this entitlement to universal provision by 2004. Currently all 4 year olds in Oxfordshire and 40% of 3 year olds have a funded place. In total, approximately 85% of 3 year olds have access to a place in a registered setting. However most children only receive funding for the term in which they have their fourth birthday and some children only attend for one or two sessions per week. The next expansion phase for places of 3 year olds will be in April 2002. More parents are likely to want to send their children for the full 5 sessions per week once they are no longer required to pay fees.
3. In order to ensure that the County Council is in a position to meet its statutory duty, officers have undertaken an initial needs analysis to identify areas in the county with a potential shortfall of available spaces. See Annex A. This analysis prioritises need based on sufficiency of places and the national index of child poverty. The Executive is recommended to approve this analysis as a basis for prioritisation for the development of new places for 3 year olds.

County Council as a provider of places

4. The County Council is also a provider of education places for 3 and 4 year olds within nursery schools and classes, reception classes and Early Years Units. 35% of Oxfordshire's 3 and 4 year olds attend County Council provision (January 2001). Nationally, 58% of the age group attend maintained provision (39% in the South East Region).

Revenue Funding

5. Funding for all four-year-olds is managed by the County Council. Funding for places in the private and voluntary sectors is paid on a termly basis, based on headcount data, at the national early years grant rate. The County Council also funds Local Education Authority places for three-year-olds. Funding for new places can be claimed from the Department for Education and Skills up to Oxfordshire’s maximum allocation (£2,745,072 in 2001/02 – enough for just over one third of Oxfordshire’s three year olds). 3-year-old places in the maintained sector will need to be funded by the County Council after the first year. It is therefore anticipated that the majority of the new places funding will be used for the private, voluntary and independent sectors.

Expansion Programme and Capital Projects

6. The County Council has, for many years been committed to the steady expansion of its early years places, and has set aside annual sums (c £300K) for the development and improvement of early years places. The County Council has already agreed its priorities for this budget for the next 3 years and committed this budget until 2004 as set out in the table below.

2001- 2002	Stephen Freeman, Didcot Outdoor Learning Areas Integrated Centres       Nursery class extension, Faringdon Harwell Primary School	New Nursery Class   Existing EYUs   (matched funding for Slade, Wood Farm, Grandpont, Charlton on Otmoor, and Rose Hill family centre) nursery class from 26 to 39 place   EYU	£125,000   £26,000   £28,200         £8,800     £110,000 (part cost)
2002/2003	Harwell Primary School St Christophers	EYU Nursery Class	£ 84,000 (part cost) £222,000
2003/2004	Bartlemas/SS Mary and John Matched funding	Relocation of nursery school Integrated centres (to be identified)	£260,000   £40,000

7. New funding announced in July this year gives Oxfordshire the opportunity to benefit in two financial years (2002/03 and 2003/04) from £220,236 capital funds in each year to provide LEA nursery education in disadvantaged areas. This is pump-priming money and must be matched on a pound for pound basis by LEA funds. There is discretion about the definition of disadvantage – but plans must be agreed by the Early Years Development & Childcare Partnership (EYDCP). Provision for 4 year olds is acceptable use of expenditure if provision for three-year-olds also exists within the same premises.
8. The table in Annex B (download as .rtf file) shows the projects already identified as being in need of early years provision and confirmed as areas of need in terms of sufficiency of places. The Executive is recommended to approve the proposals for capital developments in 2002/03 to be funded from the new grant for early years capital expenditure, and to ask officers to undertake further assessment of need and costs for potential developments for 2003/04. Priority would be given to provision in Band 1 Wards (see Annex A) where there is a demonstrated need for further places for 3 and 4 year olds.

Nursery Classes

Admissions

9. The County Council has maintained a policy that all new schools will include nursery class provision. It also has a policy to only fund a percentage of planned places for 3 year olds in each nursery class. In practice this is confusing for schools: it is difficult to predict the percentage of 3 and 4 year olds in any year, and many schools cannot stick to their planned number for 3-year-olds. It is recommended that in the revision of the nursery class admissions policy, the ‘planned places’ scheme is removed, providing schools continue to give priority to a half time place for all eligible four years olds.

New places

10. Over the last year there have been two requests to extend the number of places in 2 nursery classes: one in Faringdon and one in Rose Hill. Both proposals were approved on a temporary basis until July 2002. Numbers in Faringdon have grown rapidly and there is insufficient capacity, without the extension, for rising four-year-olds, and for four-year-olds to be offered a half time funded place. This extension is supported by the on-site pre-school, which also has a waiting list. Rose Hill nursery class is the main early years provision in the Sure Start area which is one of the areas of highest social need in the whole of the County. In the recent past the nursery class was funded by the Education Action Zone initiative. However this was for one year only, and now that it has been withdrawn the school requests that the provision is funded by the County Council. The Executive is recommended to approve these places on a permanent basis, and to fund the places for 3 year olds in these schemes from savings from Harwell Nursery School, which is due to close in July 2002.

Oxford City

11. Following re-organisation of Oxford City schools, there will by only 4 schools without a nursery class: St Michael’s in Marston and the 3 Roman Catholic aided schools: St Joseph’s, Our Lady’s and St Aloysius. The Executive is recommended to ask officers to undertake further work, in liaison with the Diocese where appropriate, to assess the need for and cost of early years provision in these schools, once the City re-organisation is complete.

Early Years Units

12. The County Council does not normally contribute to the capital costs of Early Years Units (EYUs). However there have been some exceptions: Harwell Primary School has been assisted as part of the arrangements for closure of the Harwell Nursery School, and contributions have been made towards the improvement of the outside learning areas of established EYUs.
13. Progress towards developing EYUs and especially joint EYUs (shared/partnership provision with onsite voluntary pre-schools) would be much more rapid if the County were able to contribute to the costs of building/refurbishment. Many schools and playgroups are able to part-finance these developments. Where there is demonstrated shortage of provision for places for 3 and 4 year olds, the Executive is recommended to consider such partnership provision as potentially eligible for capital expenditure. This might be in the form of relocatable buildings (owned by OCC) for use by a voluntary sector pre-school in a partnership arrangement on a school site.

Integrated Centres

14. The County Council and the EYDCP has a policy to develop integrated centres in areas of disadvantage, using existing nursery schools and family centres as the starting point, where appropriate. Oxfordshire has been successful in bidding for external funds for the development of such centres at Chipping Norton (ACE Centre) and Rose Hill (Sure Start). In addition new grant funding has enabled integrated services to be established at Grandpont and Lydalls nursery schools, and smaller scale developments at Slade/Wood Farm, CHUFF (Hardwick, Banbury) and Charlton on Otmoor. An integrated centre is planned as part of the relocation of Bartlemas Nursery School to the SS Mary and John School site in 2004, and proposals are being developed for Elms Road Nursery School in Botley.
15. A bid for a second Government sponsored Early Excellence Centre is under way for East Street Centre in Grimsbury, Banbury, and proposals are being developed for Barton in Oxford, Headington Nursery School in Oxford, Caldecott in Abingdon and Berinsfield. The County Council needs to be in a position to offer a contribution to matched funding and/or refurbishment/building costs in order to attract significant external funding for these developments.

Financial Implications

16. The permanent extension of 13 fte places in Rose Hill and Faringdon nursery classes cost approximately £26,000 per year in each establishment. However at least half of these places will be filled by four-year-olds, and the Council would have to fund these places in another setting in the locality, if not within the nursery class. Therefore the actual additional cost to the County Council will be approximately £26,000 for 26 full time equivalent nursery places. This can be met from savings on 3 year old places created by the closure of Harwell Nursery School in July 2002.
17. Projected capital costs are set out in Annex B. These project to be funded from the new DfES capital grant for early years with required matched funding from OCC of £220,236 in 2002/03. This will be matched from the current commitments from the Early Years Development Budget but will require an additional contribution of £195,000 (some of which would be potentially saleable land in kind) from the capital programme.

1. approve that the revised draft nursery admissions policy, including the removal of ‘planned places for 3 year olds’, subject to consultation with appropriate interest groups and to any amendment agreed with the Executive Members for Children & Young People and Schools in the light of the consultation responses;
2. approve in principle the development of further Partnership Early Years Units for the provision of Foundation Stage Education on schools sites, such Partnerships to be formally established and, where relevant, to be considered as eligible for new capital grant where there is a demonstrated need for additional places for 3 and 4 year olds;
3. approve on a permanent basis the extension of places at Faringdon and Rose Hill nursery classes from 26 fte to 39 fte, to be funded from savings from the closure of Harwell Nursery School in July 2002;
4. approve the capital projects set out in Annex B for 2002/03, providing additional £195,000 can be matched from the County Council Capital Programme;
5. ask officers to undertake further work on priority areas identified in Annex C (download as .rtf file) , with a view to identification and programming of appropriate justified proposals.

ROY SMITH
Acting Chief Education Officer

Background papers: Nil

Contact Officer: Annie Davy, Education Officer Tel: (01865) 815493

January 2002

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