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Save Facilitating childcare markets
The Childcare Act 2006 expands and clarifies in legislation the vital role that local authorities (LAs) should play as strategic leaders in facilitating the childcare market.
First laid out in the Children Act 2004, the 2006 Act reinforces the framework within which LAs already work in partnership with families, and with providers in the private, voluntary and independent (PVI) sector to shape children's services.
This section contains examples of how authorities are going about carrying out their duties. It draws on the work of:
- The Childcare Implementation Project – this was a group of 12 authorities who have undertaken early testing on parental demand surveys, working with parents, employers and providers. The LAs were: Barnet, Blackburn and Darwin, Camden, Derbyshire, East Sussex, Gloucestershire, Northumberland, Rochdale, Sheffield, Southampton, Telford & Wrekin, and West Berkshire
- The Childcare Regional Network (CRNs) – each Government Office is coordinating a network, with participation from all the LAs in their respective regions together with an external facilitator, to provide on-going support for LAs as they undertake work on meeting the new childcare duties.
- The Disabled Children's Access to Childcare (DCATCH) programme – a three-year childcare project to help improve access to childcare for families with disabled children, and to reduce the attitudinal barriers which currently inhibit such access. The first wave of pilots will begin in September 2008 in ten LAs, with best practice subsequently rolled out more widely.
The LAs in the first wave of pilots are:
Northumberland (North East Region)
Sefton (North West Region)
Bradford (Yorkshire & Humber Region)
Nottinghamshire (East Midlands Region)
Solihull (West Midlands Region)
Luton (Eastern England Region)
Barking & Dagenham (London Region)
Camden (London Region)
Oxfordshire (South East Region)
Cornwall (South West Region).
Resources and documents
Examples of the work being undertaken by local authorities on childcare markets are available under two headings:
Assessing childcare sufficiency (a link to examples, case studies, etc. will be available shortly)
Securing sufficient childcare (a link to examples, case studies, etc. will be available shortly)
The OPM Report on Reviewing Childcare Sufficiency Assessments is available on the Assessing and Securing Sufficient Childcare page.
Download the contents of this page:
as a Word Document
Last updated on 30/04/2009
