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ITEM EX13 - ANNEX A

EXECUTIVE – 22 JANUARY 2002

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

 

Sufficiency of Early Years Places in Oxfordshire

Report on the initial analysis

Marion Evans – planning officer – early years

  1. Objectives

The Government’s target is that by September 2004 there should be a free Early Years education place available for every child whose parent wants this.

Since 1998 Oxfordshire has been committed to offering 4 year olds a free place and supply of places has risen to match demand and there now appears to be sufficient supply of places for 4 year olds both County-wide and within most local communities.

We now need to investigate whether there are sufficient places available as well for all those 3 year olds whose parents may want one.

This project was undertaken to analyse:

    • Whether there are sufficient EY places in the County as a whole

    • How these are distributed locally

    • How much choice of provision is available

    • Where the "hot spots" are which need urgent action to increase supply to match anticipated demand.

  1. Methods used

    1. Definition of "place"

An EY place consists of 5 sessions per week of at least 2.5 hours for at least 33 weeks of the year. This is to be available for each child whose parents want a place from the term after his/her third birthday.

This list shows how the numbers of EY places within Oxfordshire were counted:

    • LEA place numbers were taken from Summer 2001 LEA Early Education Count (3 and 4 year olds) headcount figures.

    • Private, voluntary and independent place numbers were taken from Summer 2001 Nursery Education Grant (3 and 4 year olds) claimants count. The figures here for places were from the 1999 providers survey, subsequently updated by new providers’ registration certificate numbers and by occasional updates from the Independent Inspection Unit or by providers themselves. Where only a total no. of places was shown for both 3 and 4 year olds, then the split has been assumed to be one third of places for 3 year olds and two thirds for 4 year olds.

    1. Data sources

      2. Summer 2001 Nursery Education Grant (3 and 4 year olds) claim files

      Summer 2001 LEA Early Education Count (3 and 4 year olds) files

      1999 DETR Index of Child Poverty (Oxfordshire wards)

      1998-based County, District Council and electoral ward populations for 3 and 4 year olds

      2001 projections of 1998-based School Partnership area populations for 3 and 4 year olds

    2. Analyses carried out

There were three main ways of analysing the data:

    • To show the numbers of EY places per head of population County-wide and within each District Council area

    • To show the numbers of EY places per head of population in each electoral ward (and to show how this related to the relative deprivation in each ward)

    • To show the numbers of EY places per head of population in each School Partnership area.

The following paragraphs show precisely how the analyses were put together:

        1. Each ward was assigned to one of three Bands dependent on its rank in the DETR Index of Child Poverty:

          2. Band 1: wards ranked in lowest 25% (most deprivation)

          Band 2: wards ranked in middle 50%

          Band 3: wards ranked in highest 25% (least deprivation)

        2. A spreadsheet was created to show for each EY provider:

          3. Provider name, provider type (M,P,V,I), postcode, ward, Partnership, no. of 3 year old places, no. of 4 year old places, total no. of 3 and 4 year old places

        3. A table and chart was created to show for each School Partnership area

    • Total no. of EY places per 100 children aged 3 and 4

    • no. of LEA places per 100 children aged 3

    • no. of LEA places per 100 children aged 4

        1. A table and chart was created to show for each ward within Band 1:

    • total no. of EY places per 100 children aged 3 and 4

    • no. of LEA places per 100 children aged 3

    • no. of LEA places per 100 children aged 4

        1. As above for Bands 2 and 3:

        2. Figures for each District Council area and for Oxfordshire as a whole were also calculated.

No account was taken at this time of the effects of cross-border flows (where children attend a provider in a different authority from where they live).

This study relied on data about places collected during the summer and does not include new provision operational from September 2001, nor any planned new provision.

Population data used originated from the OCC Demographer and is based on 1998 base figures with some projections to 2001. No account will have been made of new building post-1999.

  1. Main conclusions

    1. Oxfordshire as a whole

      2. District

      4 year old places

      3 year old places

      Total EY places

      3 and 4 year old pop.

      Places per 100

      Cherwell

      2,070

      667

      2,737

      3,708

      74

      Oxford City

      2,038

      894

      2,932

      3,061

      96

      South Oxon

      2,412

      1,028

      3,440

      3,299

      104

      VOWH

      2,121

      923

      3,043

      2,645

      115

      West Oxon

      1,747

      707

      2,454

      2,515

      98

      Oxfordshire

      10,388

      4,219

      14,607

      15,228

      96

      Table 1

      Table 1 above shows that within Oxfordshire as a whole there are 96 EY places per 100 children aged 3 and 4.

      DfES advice is to aim for 85 places per 100 3 year olds and local experience shows that about 95 places per 100 4 year olds is sufficient. Overall, then we can see that about 96 EY places per 100 3 and 4 year olds ought to be sufficient and allow for some local variation in supply.

      However, as will be evident in the following sections, the supply of places is, of course, not even throughout Oxfordshire and action will be needed in certain areas to ensure there is sufficient local supply.

    2. Within each District Council area

      3. Table 1 above shows that within Oxford City, South Oxon, Vale of the White Horse and West Oxon there are at least 96 EY places per 100 3 and 4 year olds. Again, this number ought to be sufficient overall, but action will be needed in certain areas to ensure there is sufficient local supply.

      However, Cherwell with only 74 places per 100 is severely disadvantaged and the overall no. of places within Cherwell will need to increase by about 600 to bring Cherwell up to a target supply of about 90 places per 100 children.

    3. By Ward within Bands

The ward-based picture (see Table 3) is very complicated and further work is urgently required to investigate local factors in more detail. Included in the detail of an individual ward analysis could be factors which influence the overall picture such as:

    • A heavy imbalance of provision between the M,P,V,I sectors

    • The location of major travel arteries (e.g. stations, Ring Road)

    • The location of large workplace nurseries (e.g. hospitals)

    • Over- or under-provision in neighbouring wards

    • Whether urban or rural

We could argue that, where the supply in a ward is less than 60 places per 100, then children will have to travel, perhaps unnecessarily, to areas where there is more supply.

Where it can be shown that the supplies in neighbouring wards (particularly within towns) are all less than 60 places per 100 and the wards fall into Band 1 (most disadvantaged) then action to increase the supply should be seen as a top priority.

Such wards include:

    • Neithrop, Hardwick and Grimsbury in Banbury

    • St Clements, Cherwell and Old Marston in Oxford

A second priority should be to increase the supply in the following Band 1 wards where local evidence supports that there is a need that is not easily met in a neighbouring ward. Further investigation should be carried out for:

    • Didcot Northbourne

    • Garsington

    • Greendown

    • Kingham

    • Bicester South

Wards in Bands 2 and 3 where there is severe lack of provision (less than 30 places per 100) are:

    • Milton-under-Wychwood

    • Rollright

    • Witney East

    • Thame North

    • Brize Norton and Curbridge

    • Ardley

    • Central

    • Combe and Stonesfield

    • Longworth

    • Radley

A third priority should be to increase the supply in these wards where local evidence supports that there is a need that is not easily met in a neighbouring ward.

    1. By School Partnership area

It is interesting that, at first sight, (see Table 4) the number of EY places within each School Partnership area presents a different picture from that obtained by analysing by electoral ward. The reason for this may be that School Partnership areas (outside of Oxford City) include a mix of urban and rural wards which may involve an averaging out of ward-based data.

The Partnership areas with less than 90 EY places per 100 3 and 4 year olds are:

    • Marston (matches with ward-based data)

    • Burford (includes Milton-under-Wychwood and Brize Norton wards)

    • North Oxford (matches with ward-based data)

    • Kidlington

    • Thame (includes Thame North ward

    • Bicester (includes Bicester South ward)

    • Chipping Norton (includes Rollright and Kingham wards)

Faringdon area was selected for a Case Study to be carried out to illustrate how ward-based data may show us differing detail from School Partnership data. Faringdon School Partnership area has 145.6 EY places per 100 children aged 3 and 4. However Faringdon ward has just 78.79 EY places per 100 children aged 3 and 4 (which supports local anecdotal evidence of a lack of places). Reasons for this difference include:

    • Faringdon School Partnership area includes a large geographic rural area stretching along the A420 from Southmoor to Shrivenham

    • The rural areas are on the whole well-supplied with EY places

    • Within the town of Faringdon there are only 42 places available for 3 year olds compared with a population of 99.

    1. Promoting choice and affordability

Most wards in Oxfordshire include a healthy mixture of provision from the maintained, private, independent and voluntary sectors. However, in some wards there are large workplace nurseries or independent schools which may not cater to the local population, particularly in areas of relative deprivation.

Table 2 below illustrates wards which need further detailed examination to see if there is sufficient choice and affordability of provision.

Table 2: Wards with more than 50% of EY provision in Private and Independent sectors

Wardname

Band

Total places

MV places

%MV places

PI places

%PI places

Minster Lovell

3

30

0

0

30

100

Witney West

1

114

8

7

106

93

North

3

202

19

9

183

91

Filkins and Langford

2

55

9

16

46

84

Heyford

2

77

13

17

64

83

Finstock and Leafield

3

41

8

20

33

80

Forest Hill

1

138

30

22

108

78

Cholsey

2

183

41

22

142

78

Bicester South

1

63

19

30

44

70

The Coxwells

3

102

33

32

69

68

Chalgrove

3

144

48

33

96

67

Thame South

2

174

58

33

116

67

Headington

1

228

78

34

150

66

Craven

2

58

20

34

38

66

Aston Rowant

3

119

45

38

74

62

Wolvercote

2

179

71

40

108

60

Sutton Courtenay

1

200

80

40

120

60

Tackley and Wootton

3

54

22

41

32

59

Calthorpe

2

151

66

44

85

56

Kingston Bagpuize and Southmoor

2

107

47

44

60

56

Henley

2

407

179

44

228

56

Bodicote

2

88

39

44

49

56

North Leigh

2

59

27

46

32

54

West

1

129

61

47

68

53

Launton

2

89

44

49

45

51

 

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