An evaluation of the Department for Education’s payment-by-results (PbR) in children’s centres trial concluded that reward payments for the scheme – which involved 27 local authorities between September 2011 and March 2013 – were too low to incentivise participants to achieve all the targets.
The study, carried out by Frontier Economics and the Colebrooke Centre, shows that the PbR model had some impact, including encouraging a greater focus on the core purpose of children’s centres, but it failed to raise awareness of the centres among local politicians and council officials outside of early childhood services.
The report, published on Wednesday, says: "It shows that money itself is unlikely to have an impact on local authorities and reward payment amounts must be sufficiently high to generate an incentive."
Register Now to Continue Reading
Thank you for visiting Children & Young People Now and making use of our archive of more than 60,000 expert features, topics hubs, case studies and policy updates. Why not register today and enjoy the following great benefits:
What's Included
-
Free access to 4 subscriber-only articles per month
-
Email newsletter providing advice and guidance across the sector
Already have an account? Sign in here
