Issue - meetings

To consider the report of the Director of Children and Families which provides an update following the decisions taken by Executive Board in June 2024 as part of the Little Owls Nurseries Review. Following on from this, the report also presents the outcomes from the ‘market sounding exercise’ undertaken with regard to a further twelve settings and provides recommendations regarding proposed next steps.

Further to Minute No. 7, 19 June 2024 and Minute No. 22, 24 July 2024, the Director of Children and Families submitted a report which provided an update on the withdrawal of service from three Little Owls settings and on the ‘market sounding exercise’ undertaken in relation to a further twelve settings, as previously approved by Executive Board. In addition, the report provided recommendations to Executive Board regarding proposed next steps in relation to those further twelve settings.

The Executive Member introduced the report, highlighting that in response to the financial challenges faced and as part of the review undertaken in relation to the Little Owls Nurseries, Executive Board had previously resolved to undertake a market sounding exercise in relation to the future of those twelve Little Owls nursery settings referenced within the report. The Executive Member provided an update on the work undertaken to date on this exercise together with details of the proposals regarding the future of those settings.  As part of any next steps, assurance was provided that engagement would continue with parents and carers, and that actions would be taken to ensure that any new providers continued to deliver a number of issues which had been identified as key by parents and carers during the engagement process. Such matters would be considered on a setting-by-setting basis, and if it was deemed that those critical needs were not met in a specific setting, it was noted that the default position would be for the Council to continue as the provider.

A Member raised a specific enquiry and concern regarding the extent to which child poverty was being taken into consideration as part of the proposals. In response, the Board was provided with assurance that the issue of child poverty remained a key concern in Leeds. It was also noted that whilst the appended Equality Impact Assessment took a broader view on such matters given that the submitted report invited the Board to agree the principle of a series of changes, the bespoke and localised discussions which would take place with potential providers moving forward would allow issues such as child poverty to be considered in detail. However, it was reiterated that the default position would be for the Council to continue as the provider, should it be deemed that any potential provision arrangements were not suitable for a specific setting.

Clarification was provided to the Board that the Local Authority’s statutory duty in this case was to ensure sufficiency of childcare provision, with it being noted that as part of the proposals, Leeds would retain at least nine directly delivered nurseries, which was more than any other comparator city and significantly beyond the Council’s statutory duty, reflecting the commitment to early years provision in Leeds.

The Board discussed the financial basis on which the review had been undertaken and the proposals being made. Members also discussed the issue of daily fee levels, with the Board receiving further information on the process by which appropriate consideration would be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 61