Council slashes provision in fourteen nurseries as first wave of childcare cuts executed

Article published: Monday, July 9th 2012

Town hall bosses have admitted they “can’t guarantee” that some families will not be left worse off when the council scraps its childcare service. Universal daycare in 14 centres across Manchester will end as soon as September, in the first wave of £11.6m cuts over the next four years.

Up to 268 children will be affected by the initial phase of cuts, which will see Manchester City Council end its provision of “universal” daycare open to all families in some of the poorest areas of the city including Cheetham Hill, Harpurhey, Miles Platting, Ardwick, Whalley Range and Longsight. The council says centres in the first wave of closures were chosen because they have identified “suitable” alternate care within one mile of the withdrawn services.

While over two thirds of the affected children are to move into school nursery or reception classes by September, alternate daycare places for the remaining 86 as yet still needs to be found among private and voluntary providers. Childcare waiting lists for the council’s remaining centres will also close, with all universal provision expected to be scrapped by 2014.

The council states it will “remain a provider of last resort” for some childcare however, and will continue to commission the private and voluntary sector to provide “targeted” care for vulnerable children. The town hall will also beef up its outreach services, and says it will ensure that every child is visited at their home within their first three years.

At a town hall meeting to scrutinise the plans, Children’s Services director Mike Livingstone conceded that some children “may have to move from good to satisfactory provision over time” in future waves of cuts. He insisted, however, that no families in the first wave of closures will be forced to depend on childcare of a lower standard.

Up to 400 centre staff are expected to lose their jobs due to the closures, although the council hopes to retrain many of them or offer voluntary severance packets and continues to promise there will be no compulsory redundancies. Livingstone said transferring workers to private providers was “inconceivable”, as “alternative providers would not absorb the cost of those staff and would not be interested because our offer is so heavily subsidised and so comparatively expensive”.

Parents reacted angrily to the closures. Stephen Perris, a teacher whose family uses a Longsight nursery, accused the council of “ripping our community apart” by segregating daycare into a “targeted” service. In response, Livingstone said the council wished to “attract into the market” private and voluntary providers who would deliver “an integrated, non-stigmatised system”.

Previous research by a 2011 sufficiency report carried out for the council by the Daycare Trust found that 48.7 per cent of the city’s childcare settings were only rated as satisfactory by Ofsted standards, meaning they meet the bare minimum of legal requirements. Earlier in the year Livingstone had recognised council-run daycare, which typically has far better trained staff, to be more likely to be good or outstanding.

Parents had previously highlighted the quality, affordability and sufficiency of childcare as priorities following a three month consultation carried out by the council late last year with thousands of families. Over half of families in Manchester struggle with childcare costs according to the Daycare Trust report, with council-run daycare fees recognised as “significantly lower” than private or voluntary sector according to the consultation.

In response to questioning by councillors, Livingstone said “I wish I could sit here in front of you” and say that in every case alternative childcare “is at least the same quality” as “the provision we are withdrawing from”. While he claimed that “in the vast majority of cases” such private alternatives “would be at least as good if not better”, he warned “at this moment in time I can’t guarantee [that] in every case”.

To try and raise private sector standards, Livingstone said the council expected to “identify the good providers in the market and ask them to support and develop the less successful providers.” He added the council would “pay them a certain amount of money to do that”, using around £1m of his department’s remaining £7m ‘early years’ budget after all currently proposed cuts have taken place.

Some parents doubted that private daycare could be raised to public standards. One mother, Joanne Coggin, whose daughter had been on an 18 month waiting list for council daycare, said “they’re saying there’s no demand for daycare, there’s certainly a demand”.

She praised care for her children at the council’s existing centres, saying in contrast to poor experiences with expensive private nurseries “they’ve been absolutely fantastic, we get a written report about them, they’re approachable staff, we go to meetings, we didn’t receive that same care we did with the private sector.”

The council plans to make information available to parents on alternative care within the area, including Ofsted reports and the city’s own quality assurance assessments once they have been developed. Livingstone admitted he had few legal powers available to regulate the private sector, but claimed “whatever the regulatory or strategy function if we’ve got the right people leading this work in key areas” they could raise standards “without a statutory authority.”

Others expressed concerns over how this could be achieved in the future and whether private providers would have the same duties and accountability as the public sector when faced with paying “customers”. Paula O’Reilly, a parent member of the Save Manchester Sure Start campaign, asked “are they going to listen? It’s all about profit.”

Richard Goulding

See below for a full list of centres where council-funded universal daycare will be cut:

1. ASHBURY MEADOW SURE START CHILDREN’S CENTRE
ASHBURY MEADOW PRIMARY SCHOOL
RYLANCE ST
BESWICK
MANCHESTER
M11 3NA
Ward: BRADFORD
Designated Sure Start Children’s Centre

2. BOXGROVE WALK CHILDREN’S CENTRE
1 BOXGROVE WALK
CHEETHAM
MANCHESTER
M8 7TN
Ward: CHEETHAM
Provides: Full Day-care

3. BROADHURST PARK SURE START CHILDREN’S CENTRE
BROADHURST PARK
LIGHTBOWNE RD
MOSTON
M40 0FJ
Ward: MOSTON
Designated Sure Start Children’s Centre
Provides: Core Offer & Sessional Childcare

4. BROOKDALE PARK PLAY CENTRE
DROYLSDEN ROAD
NEWTON HEATH
MANCHESTER
M40 1PE
Ward: MILES PLATTING & NEWTON HEATH
Provides: Sessional Childcare

5. BUSHMOOR WALK CHILDREN AND FAMILY HOUSE
2-12 BUSHMOOR WALK
ARDWICK
MANCHESTER
M13 9FN
Ward: ARDWICK
Provides: Sessional Childcare

6. CARISBROOK CHILDREN’S CENTRE
CARISBROOK STREET
HARPURHEY
MANCHESTER
M9 5UX
Ward: HARPURHEY
Provides: Full Day-care

7. CHORLTON PARK CHILDREN’S CENTRE (NELL LANE SITE)
30 NELL LANE
CHORLTON
MANCHESTER
M21 7SJ
Ward: CHORLTON PARK
Provides: Core Offer & Sessional Childcare

8. CLAYTON CHILDREN’S CENTRE (PIONEER STREET SITE)
37 PIONEER STREET
CLAYTON
MANCHESTER
M11 4FT
Ward: ANCOATS & CLAYTON
Provides: Sessional Childcare

9. DAISY BANK CHILDREN’S CENTRE
78A DAISY BANK ROAD
VICTORIA PARK
MANCHESTER
M14 5GL
Ward: ARDWICK
Provides: Sessional Childcare

10. HIGHER BLACKLEY SURE START CHILDREN’S CENTRE
160 VICTORIA AVENUE
BLACKLEY
MANCHESTER
M9 0RN
Ward: HIGHER BLACKLEY
Designated Sure Start Children’s Centre
Provides: Core Offer, Sessional Childcare and Private Day-care

11. MANLEY PARK PLAY CENTRE
YORK AVENUE
WHALLEY RANGE
MANCHESTER
M16 0AS
Ward: WHALLEY RANGE
Provides: Sessional Childcare

12. OLD MOAT SURE START CHILDREN’S CENTRE
OLD MOAT LANE
WITHINGTON
MANCHESTER
M20 1DE
Ward: OLD MOAT
Designated Sure Start Children’s Centre
Provides: Core Offer & Full Day-care

13. SCOUT DRIVE CHILDREN’S CENTRE
SCOUT DRIVE
NEWALL GREEN
WYTHENSHAWE
MANCHESTER
M23 2SY
Ward: BAGULEY
Provides: Full Day-care

14. SLADE LANE CHILDREN’S CENTRE
21 SLADE LANE
MANCHESTER
M13 0QJ
Ward: LONGSIGHT
Provides: Full Day-care

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Comments

1. Top of the league for ‘severe child poverty’ Manchester Cll slashes child care provision. Remember the I Love Manchester campaign for business? How much did that cost?

   Next October Tory Osborne will no doubt announce further cuts … which Manchester Labour will push through. Is there no cut that they would not make to satisfy the Tories and the Bankers?

   Comment by Mark Krantz on July 9, 2012 at 8:44 pm

2. Manchester already has the sorry reputation for having the most Looked City After Children in the UK. All the excellent work that the City Council nurseries do with these vulnerable children will be lost-the private sector do not have the experience or the expertise these children and their families need.
   Even Margaret Thatcher didn’t resort to this. We will see a rise in the numbers of looked after children and a consequential rise in children failing at school and delinquency.
   Do the City Council not forsee this or do they just not care??

   Comment by pamela goddard on July 30, 2012 at 12:51 pm

3. This is just to let the local Community know that the Scout Drive Children’s centre will be re-opening in September 2013 as Paintpots Day Nursery.

   Comment by Andrew Howarth on July 30, 2013 at 4:27 pm

The comments are closed.