Issue - meetings

Childcare Sufficiency Review

Meeting: 15/10/2007 - Executive Member for Children and Young People's Services and Advisory Panel (Item 34)

34 Childcare Sufficiency Review PDF 116 KB

This paper is to present the first Childcare Sufficiency Assessment for York. The aim of the Childcare Sufficiency Assessment is to identify any areas where childcare does not match families’ needs. This assessment can then be used to form an action plan of how these gaps can be filled in partnership with a range of teams, agencies and childcare providers.

Decision:

Advice of the Advisory Panel

That the Executive Member be advised to:

· Note the contents of the report and the comments made by Members at the meeting.

Decision of the Executive Member

RESOLVED: That the advice of the Advisory Panel be accepted and endorsed.

REASON: To ensure that actions arising from completing this assessment are considered and acted upon.

Minutes:

Members considered a report that informed them of the first Childcare Sufficiency Assessment for York. The Children’s Information Service Manager gave a short presentation to Members of the Committee; this covered the following points:

o Drivers – local and national

o Defining sufficiency

o York’s Approach

o Key findings

o Next steps

Members welcomed this report and presentation and made the following observations:

o Small businesses needed to be encouraged to offer the ‘salary sacrifice’ scheme and awareness of the scheme needed to be raised in general.

o The affordability of childcare in low income groups needed to be explored as there had been more responses to the consultation from those in the higher income groups.

o There was a need to ensure that there was a more balanced response across the various social groups in future consultations.

o The reliance on responses received via the internet should not be too heavy as this could be excluding certain social groups.

o There should be an annual report back to the Committee.