Sure Start Children's Centres - childcare sustainability support

reducing the cost of delivering Sure Start Children's Centres

NDNA can provide valuable support to local authorities considering different ways of reducing the cost of delivering Sure Start Children’s Centres. NDNA’s primary concern revolves around the childcare element of Sure Start Children’s Centres. We can help achieve desirable outcomes for local children and families, providers (private, voluntary or maintained) and the local authority in the following ways:

Business and sustainability support for nurseries delivering the childcare element of Children’s Centres. We can help nurseries establish whether they can cope with reduced levels of funding and advise on what they can do to remain sustainable in their own right
Establish and embed a local communication strategy to support the local authority to engage their PVI providers to encourage interest in tendering for the delivery of Children's Centres
Independent support and advice to providers regarding the tender process – group training, individual surgeries, telephone and web-based support
Consultation with local people – to support the local authority to meet its statutory duty.

our experience

In one Sure Start Children’s Centre in the East of England, loss-making childcare settings and out-of-school clubs were spread across three sites. The NDNA consultant proposed merging a breakfast club, daycare, an after-school club and a holiday club onto one site. Following this course of action has allowed the local authority to not only keep all its services and avoid redundancies, but the centre is also predicted to generate a profit by the second year.

NDNA has provided sustainability support to two childcare settings within a Midlands-based Children’s Centre. The council-run settings are running at a loss and will ultimately face closure if they can’t be made sustainable. NDNA has proposed the re-modelling of the settings into a social enterprise. This model will help the settings to generate their own income, which in turn will save the council money. It will also ensure the continuation of a valuable service to the local community.

For more information on how we can help you to provide sustainable childcare within Sure Start Children’s Centres, please contact Glenn Rothwell on 01484 40 70 64 or email glenn.rothwell@ndna.org.uk