Tom Jeffery, director general of the DfES's children, young people and families directorate, told a Pre-School Learning Alliance conference this was one option being discussed.
The concept was welcomed by delegates who voiced concern about current and future funding.
Emma Jones, manager of a community nursery in Tottenham, said she struggled to retain trained staff, who were lured away by higher salaries offered by schools. This was one problem highlighted by the alliance's new Meeting the Workforce Challenge campaign, which calls on the Government to take urgent action to support the recruitment and retention of up to 180,000 extra childcare workers.
Jeffery said the Government was developing a workforce strategy and consulting with the voluntary sector on the best way to ensure providers were integrated within trusts.
He posed the question: "Can this be done through how we regulate funding?
Should you ring-fence funding that is for the voluntary sector and then channelled down?"
The alliance's chair of trust-ees, Judith Thompson, said that "a range of sanctions", including ring-fencing, could well be necessary in situations where local authorities were failing to work with the voluntary sector.
Last week, children's minister Margaret Hodge said the Government could not force local authorities to work with the voluntary sector.
She told delegates at a con-ference on the future of young people's services: "What we can do is make it clear that we expect the voluntary sector to have a role and we will inspect against that."
Hodge said the Government would look at strengthening the voluntary sector's capacity to work in partnership.
- See soapbox, p15.
