Nursery providers call for creation of early years ombudsman role

The early years sector is going through a period of rapid change. The massive expansion of free childcare places for disadvantaged two-year-olds, the revision of the Early Years Foundation Stage and the removal of ringfences on funding streams pose significant challenges for both local authorities and settings.

But when tensions between councils and providers arise and relationships turn sour, the parties involved can struggle to find someone to act as arbiter.

One of the country’s largest nursery providers Busy Bees is now calling for an early years ombudsman to be established to offer protection to settings that want to challenge council decisions.

“There is a local authority ombudsman, but it doesn’t have a remit to do anything specifically on early years policy, such as the free entitlement to childcare,” says Busy Bees head of external affairs Karen MacKay. “Given the amount of public money being invested in early years, coupled with the move towards localism and away from decentralisation, it is important to have an early years ombudsman to check what is happening to this money.”

Specific role
MacKay, a former Ofsted inspector, says an early years ombudsman would settle disagreements on contracts and manage disputes founded in bad practice. She cites anecdotal evidence of councils threatening to remove funding from nurseries offering free childcare places to three- and four-year-olds, unless they agree to take on additional places for disadvantaged two-year-olds, but stresses that this is the exception rather than the norm.

Another fear is that cutbacks to local authority early years teams have resulted in a loss of expertise that had once helped to forge solid relationships with providers.

“I have a huge amount of time for local authorities and respect for what they do in most cases,” she says. “But because local authorities have had to cut back on specialist staff, they don’t necessarily have the same knowledge or experience of the landscape that they once did.”

Claire Schofield, policy director at the National Day Nurseries Association, says the time is right to debate the potential for an early years ombudsman or an expansion of the remit of the current local government ombudsman, particularly as the government is so keen to shift accountability to local areas.

“There is an interest in the idea of an early years ombudsman because if you get to a situation where a provider is trying to work with a local authority, but it is not going right, they may feel they have nowhere to go to get an issue looked at and to get some sort of resolution,” she says. “That is the exception and in most cases local authorities will have very good and constructive relationships with providers. But it may become difficult when it comes to funding and negotiating contracts, and providers do sometimes feel there is nowhere to go for mediation.”

Schofield says the drive towards localism has left even less course for redress if councils fall short on their responsibilities.

But she admits that if the concept of an early years ombudsman is to take off, it will require “buy-in” from everybody, including local authorities.

Local accountability
“Over the past few years, we have had a move away from ringfencing and this means councils can spend the early intervention grant on whatever they feel like,” she says. “As providers, you can’t ask central government for help with local cases, because central government’s direction is about allowing local accountability and local decision-making.”

But Pauline Hoare, senior consultant at Cordis Bright, which hosts an early years network for local authorities across England, says the introduction of an ombudsman role appears unnecessary while disputes between councils and settings are relatively rare.

“Local authorities are packed full of principled people who are trying their best to support children and their families in a very difficult financial situation,” she says.

“Perhaps the money that would be needed to set up a new early years ombudsman role would be better spent on early years practice itself.”