A new report has highlighted the fact that good quality childcare can help to identify the needs of vulnerable children such as those with disabilities and speech impairments very early on in their development.

The report which was carried out by Ofsted, visited 25 childminders, nurseries and children's day centres in England who had previously been rated as ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ in their inspections system.

 

The report found that the main contributors to high quality childcare provision were regular observation and close collaboration with families.

An Ofsted chief inspector indicated that the best childcare can prove to be a massive boost for children in need, identifying their needs early and therefore leading to collaborative support from parents and those in health, education and social care services.

The Ofsted report also pointed to the fact that good qualifications and experience of early years childcare staff was vital in order to deliver high quality childcare.

As well as those groups of children indicated above, vulnerable children can also include those children in foster care, waiting for adoption and those children being protected by child protection plans.

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Labour's MP's last night demanded that parliament introduce a more formal maternity and paternity scheme, as well as having their childcare costs paid and a salary increase to £100,000 a year.
The calls come on the back of the expenses saga which means that a much tougher expenses regime has been introduced.

In a letter addressed to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, the Labour party Women’s Committee, chaired by Barbara Follett indicated that female MP’s struggle with childcare because of parliament’s unsociable hours and has requested that childcare bills, sometimes of up to £18,000 a year, should be covered by the taxpayer.

The committee added that 'Flexibility in childcare arrangements has to be paid for. We think it is wrong that individual MPs should bear the whole of this cost. A maternity and indeed paternity leave scheme should be in place for MPs.'

The £18,000 includes £12,000 a year for the childcare costs themselves, £1,000 a year for accounting costs, £1,000 a year for cleaning and £500 for furniture and maintenance.

No response to these demands has of yet been submitted.

Whereforcare.co.uk is the childcare ratings and reviews website- if you can write a review of a childcare facility to help other parents, we would encourage you to do so or pass details of the website onto someone who can!

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A lack of childcare places in Northern Ireland are trapping children in poverty ,a leading charity has said.
Employers for Childcare have said that a lack of childcare places are limiting parents' ability to return to work.
The charity is a major advocate of employers investing in employer supported childcare, which means that the likelihood of parents not being able to attend work due to childcare issues is reduced, thus increasing long-term productivity in the workplace.
Conservative MP's Iain Duncan Smith and Owen Paterson will attend a meeting in West Belfast to address the issue later this week.
If you have an opinion on childcare and can write a review to help others, please visit our homepage and write us a review!

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Children should be forced to care for their elderly parents and grandparents to payback for the ‘’free’ childcare they were once given, says one of the country’s most senior family lawyers.

Baroness Deech, a professor of law at Gresham College, believes that grandparents should be repaid for years of free childcare in her latest speech on family law.

She said: “In return for all that grandparents do, should there not be an obligation to keep them – and to keep parents – and reciprocate the care that was given by then to children and grandchildren in their youth?

“There is a dearth of affordable child care and an attempt to meet it by conscripting grandmothers” she continued.

It has been reported that four out of five children receive care from their grandparents, which on average has been worked out to approximately three days. Grandparents often provide financial support and set aside £470 million in trust funds each year.

Lady Deech, who is also the chairman of the Bar Standards Board, which regulates the work of barristers, made reference to the 400-year-old Poor Law whereby sons support their parents and grandparents throughout their lives, while for daughters the only obligation lasted only until they were married. This law was revoked in England and Wales in 1948, but Lady Deech says that the increased number of working women means that more grandparents are being asked to provide free childcare.

“This places particular burdens on grandparents who may need to work themselves, but feel obliged to help out the younger generation

“They are assuming burdens which deprive them of their own chance to continue to earn a living, and for which deprive them of their own chance to continue to earn a living and for which they are not compensated, and the child care they give is no doubt at some cost to them.”

In Singapore, the Maintenance of Parents Act 1995 means that anyone aged over 60, who cannot maintain themselves adequately, “can apply for an order that their child should do so via periodical payments or a lump sum.”

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CHILD protection in Colchester will receive a £10,000 boost after a Government report labelled safeguarding in Essex as inadequate.

Some of the money will be spent on increased training for staff who come into contact with children, such as leisure workers, cleaners, and street wardens.

Colchester councillor Tina Dopson made the announcement when she appeared before the borough’s overview and scrutiny meeting on Tuesday.

A report from the Audit Commission, published in December, lambasted safeguarding provision in Essex, and criticised all the organisations involved for not working closely together.

Mrs Dopson said, while Essex County Council was the body with primary responsibility for protecting children, everybody in the borough had a duty to help.

She added: “We started looking at safeguarding before the Baby P inquiry.

“These young people live in our borough, and it’s more than just a duty to co-operate with the county council.

“We need to heighten the awareness of the general public. Safeguarding is everyone’s business, even if you are a shopkeeper, fireman, or street cleaner.

“Every single person in the borough has a responsibility.”

Mrs Dopson said £10,000 would be set aside to keep council staff up to date with relevant safeguarding training and carry out an audit of services which come into contact with children.

The Audit Commission’s report reads: “Partners are not working effectively together to ensure all vulnerable children in Essex are adequately protected.

“Services for safeguarding children are not performing adequately.”

“Progress in bringing about necessary changes has been slow.”

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University bosses are cutting subsidy to campus childcare services. This will mean either the closure of the on-campus crèche, or privatisation which will make childcare prohibitively expensive for many staff student parents who currently use the facilities. A campaign group have been formed to oppose the move, and they released the following provisional statement:

Save Sussex University Crèche and Nursery

Sussex University Crèche and Nursery offer an outstanding service to parents on campus, be they students or staff. University management is currently threatening these facilities with closure – either in their present form (by being privately outsourced) or outright (by being shut down altogether). At present, childcare provision is subsidised by the University, but management have said that they are no longer prepared to continue the current level of subsidy.

Yet, decent childcare on campus enables student parents to pursue their degrees and allows staff to return to work relatively early, thereby saving the University from having to find maternity replacements. The provision of good childcare is a major consideration for prospective or current parents, when choosing to accept a job or a place at a University, and plays a major role in the retention of staff. Without it, the University’s stated commitments both to gender equality and to attracting the best faculty and students risk being undermined.

Parents are committed to working with staff to find effective cost-cutting measures to keep the Crèche and Nursery open and to demonstrate to the University management the value of these childcare facilities to the University’s future success. We are now collecting the evidence to demonstrate why and how the Crèche and Nursery should have a future.

We will shortly be launching an online survey and will invite current and prospective users and other interested individuals to fill it in. In the meantime, please send an email with any of your comments to savesussexnursery@yahoo.co.uk.

There is going to be a public meeting for all those affected by the proposed cuts and redundancies on Friday, 6pm. The location is yet to be announced, university has announced ‘equipment checks’ for all large rooms on campus.

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Nine former ministers today rounded on Gordon Brown's plans to cut childcare, warning the prime minister that he is threatening marginal Labour seats in the runup to the election by axing popular support for hard-working parents.

The warning came from normally loyal former ministers – including Patricia Hewitt, Estelle Morris, Hilary Armstrong, Beverley Hughes and Caroline Flint – who say the plans to cut childcare vouchers for more than 340,000 parents are "greatly unfair" and "mark the undoing of one of Labour's landmark achievements".

Brown announced he was removing tax relief for employer-based childcare vouchers, arguing that too much of the money was going to the middle classes. He has outlined plans to switch the money to provide 10 hours of free childcare for 250,000 two-year-olds by 2015. But removing vouchers, which are thought to save parents up to £2,400 a year on the cost of nurseries, nannies or childminders, would strip "effective and popular childcare support from hard-working parents", the former ministers said.

In their letter to Downing Street, the former ministers, including former women's minister Meg Munn, urge the government to review the decision: "Carefully considering the full impact of removing the tax relief on parents, employers and the childcare sector."

"Surely this is not the time for us to remove a key support from hard-working families at the very point we need them at their most engaged and productive to fuel the recovery from recession. Crucially, in the runup to an election, it will remove support for working parents and for businesses in key marginal constituencies."

More than 70,000 people have signed a petition on the Downing Street website criticising Brown's decision and urging him to reconsider. Some of the signatories to the letter have likened the revolt to the way the government was caught on the hop over opposition to the abolition of the 10p tax band.

The authors, notably Hewitt, believe the Treasury has mistakenly seen the childcare voucher as a middle-class perk.

The letter said: "Childcare vouchers are an essential support to over 340,000 parents enabling more than 33,000 employers to help their employees, especially women, balance family and work responsibilities. It added: "Withdrawing them will penalise a significant number of lower-rate taxpayers, reduce the overall amount of funding available for childcare, reduce parental choice and impact negatively on the economy as the UK moves towards recovery."

The vouchers can be used to offset the cost of childcare from Ofsted-registered providers, saving higher-rate taxpayers £1,195 and basic-rate taxpayers £962 a year. Both parents can use the vouchers, potentially saving couples £2,390 a year.

The government maintains that existing beneficiaries of the tax break will not lose out, and that the current scheme is badly targeted by providing too much relief to higher-rate taxpayers.

Downing Street said it would look at the criticisms carefully in advance of the pre-budget report. The critics said the government's belief that the relief is regressive was based on out-of-date figures, and that the latest surveys suggested 74% of the users of the scheme are basic-rate taxpayers. Other signatories include the former Scotland Office minister David Cairns, former Europe minister Denis MacShane, and the former international development minister Sally Keeble.

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Childcare voucher providers have joined forces to mount a campaign against government plans to scrap tax exemptions on the benefit.

Gordon Brown announced last month at the Labour Party Conference that the current tax relief on childcare vouchers would be stopped by 2015, with the money saved being used to fund free nursery places for 250,000 two-year-olds.

Simon Moore, managing director of Computershare Vouchers Services, told Personnel Today that a group of 16 voucher providers had met to discuss the best way to fight the government's proposals.

"What you will see is a united front because we want to give a single message and make it as easy as possible for ministers to make an evidence-based decision," he said. "That's not helped if a lot of people are saying different things. We are really working together to give a clear message."

The providers will lobby government and shadow ministers to raise awareness of the facts surrounding the uptake of childcare vouchers and combat the misconception that the tax exemptions only help more affluent families. Computershare Vouchers Services surveyed 1,000 people using its service last week and found 74% were basic rate taxpayers.

A couple on the basic rate of tax would be £1,808 worse off and the removal of the tax exemption would add £14.8m to the collective childcare bills of key workers – including nurses, teachers and medical staff – who use them. This figure, Moore said, was the equivalent of taking £800 out the pay packet of a nurse.

Childcare vouchers have been voted the most popular flexible benefit offered by employers in a survey of 120 firms by consulting firm Hewitt Associates.

A petition to Number 10 calling for the government to stop plans to scrap the tax exemptions – supported by the voucher providers – has already received more than 44,500 signatures. An Early Day Motion has also been tabled by Labour MP Mark Durkan.

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Inspectors should not interfere in private arrangements between friends looking after each other's children, says Children's Secretary Ed Balls.

This follows the case of policewomen who were told that helping each other with babysitting was illegal if they were not registered.

Mr Balls has written to education watchdog Ofsted to say this is not the intention of childcare legislation.

Such arrangements "should not be a matter for regulation," says Mr Balls.

Speaking in the House of Commons, the children's secretary told MPs that he had written to Ofsted chief, Christine Gilbert, to clarify the rules on informal arrangements for looking after children.

'Reward'

Mr Balls said he wanted "to make clear that reciprocal childcare arrangements between parents where there is no payment involved should not be a matter for regulation".

"I have agreed today with Ofsted that with immediate effect, this will be beyond the scope of their childcare inspections and will make this crystal clear by changing the regulations in the coming period."

The two mothers, Leanne Shepherd and Lucy Jarrett from Buckinghamshire, had been told by Ofsted inspectors that their reciprocal babysitting arrangement represented a "reward" - and as such should be covered by childcare regulations.

Inspectors ruled that these friends would need to be registered or face a penalty for failing to comply.

Mr Balls says that he has now asked Ofsted not to interpret these rules as applying to arrangements which have no "financial reward" and are for "mutual aid".

"When parents make their own reciprocal childcare arrangements with friends they retain full control and responsibility for the care their children receive, and I am clear that this should not be a matter for regulation," he has written to Ofsted.

A spokeswoman for the education watchdog said: "Ofsted welcomes the moves to clarify these regulations."

Childcare rules

The case of the two policewomen who swapped babysitting was prompted by the Childcare Act of 2006, which refers to "reward" without making a distinction between financial payment and other incentives, such as a swap between parents.

Before the intervention from Mr Balls, it raised the prospect that many informal arrangements in which friends looked after each other's children, or where parents took turns in bringing home children after school, could fall under regulations intended for people who were paid for child care.

There are complex rules surrounding when the childcare registration regulations apply.

Close family members are exempt from having to register and the regulations do not apply if the care lasts less than two hours, takes place between 6pm and 2am or the child is looked after in his or her own home.

Frequency is also a factor - with exemptions for 14 days or fewer in any year, if as Ofsted says, "you tell us in writing at least 14 days before you start to provide care".

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Chris Cleave has been a hands-on father since his children were born, but as a man he has often felt like an outsider at the nursery or school gates. Why do men feel unable to take on an equal role in childcare?


Why fathers don't get more involved

Chris Cleave has been a hands-on father since his children were born, but as a man he has often felt like an outsider at the nursery or school gates. Why do men feel unable to take on an equal role in childcare?

   
When our first child was born, I vowed to spearhead a movement of fathers who would take an equal share in bringing up children, participating in schooling, and generally being awesome. As my wife pointed out at the time, a woman will just do something, whereas a man must spearhead a movement.

According to the Fatherhood Institute, 82% of full-time, working dads say they'd like to do more childcare. But it's not easy. My own retreat from spearhead to spear butt is instructive. At first, as I was a writer (read "unemployed"), I looked after our firstborn while my wife worked. By the second month of this arrangement, I had become exhausted and gained undying respect for full-time parents, and so a childminder was found. We slowly figured out that she was just parking the children in front of the television set, so we tried a nursery. The nursery staff were all moonstruck, staff turnover was rapid, and I got weirded-out that the mums at the nursery gate wouldn't acknowledge my presence. The place was so ditzily feminine that we didn't want our boy there. So we found another nursery. It was exactly the same, only pinker.

When our second child was born, my wife went part-time. Shortly afterwards we were amazed to discover that a part-time nanny costs roughly the same as two nursery places. We hired a wonderful nanny, and she was not a man.

My defeat had become a rout. Now we have three children and I have a flexible job that lets me spend a good number of hours with them, but it's hardly the fatherhood revolution I envisaged. In an effort to redeem myself, I thought about volunteering as a class rep at our child's school. I even got as far as attending a fact-finding meeting. The teacher looked directly at the three mothers and one father (me) therein assembled and said brightly: "OK, mums, let's get started!" Now my wife is a class rep, and I get to read her newsletters.

Siân Rowland, the former deputy head of a primary school who now coordinates a healthy schools programme in south-west London, acknowledges that even great schools are not necessarily set up to involve fathers. "Dads are disenfranchised," she says. "There's a culture of 'Take your book home and read it to Mummy'. You have to be quite delicate, because not every family has a male role model in it. So we try to get male role models in, because otherwise the only people kids see reading, writing, and eating carrots and hummus, are women."

But this is where another set of problems begins. In the aftermath of the Soham murders in 2002, the level of public suspicion against those – especially men – who come into contact with children prompted the government's new vetting scheme, which is likely to require any adult spending more than one day a month with children to register with the Independent Safeguarding Authority. The general atmosphere of suspicion may lead to men in particular being put off from volunteering. There is certainly a shortage of men lining up to help out.

"You end up wheeling in the local vicar," says Rowland, "just so the kids can watch a man reading a book. We're so paranoid about paedophilia and the safety of children that perhaps we're nervous of bringing in men. A biological dad might just scrape the grade, but if it's a stepdad or an uncle, people get paranoid."

Less dramatic than the paranoia, but no less insidious, is a feeling harboured by many that there is something effeminate, and effeminising, about fathers who seek to develop caring relationships with their children. Responding to an article I wrote for the Guardian a couple of years ago, arguing that dads should get more involved, one man wrote: "Over 30 years ago, I changed nappies, nestled infant heads against my breast while lightly pulling on a bottle, talced pink bums and bathed soiled infants. Now as I contemplate my son's trajectory I wonder if I might not have done better to remain aloof, swoop down upon him when he turned 12 and drag him into the forest to make his first kill and smear his face with blood. It is conceivable that if sons do need fathers, it is because they are not mothers."

Suspicion and traditionalist views of fatherhood, it seems, conspire to prevent fathers from getting more involved with their children, at home and at school. On top of these are the economic factors that operate to keep fathers in work and force mothers out. Rob Williams, the chief executive of the Fatherhood Institute, thinks that parental leave is key. "Now maternity leave is so much longer than paternity leave," he says, "it has led to the woman becoming officially viewed as the child carer, which actually gives women less equality in the workplace. It's counter-productive. Before a working couple has children, the woman earns 91% of the man's salary. After kids, it drops to 67%. The driver is the leave system, which makes a break in women's careers but not in men's. The leave system itself is deepening gender inequality. The rational decision for any couple is for the mother to stop work and be the carer. This will be true until maternity leave and paternity leave are more equal."

The inequality of the leave system is arguably the sign of the government's failure to make the imaginative leap between its long-held policy of getting more mothers into work with its corollary: getting more fathers involved with childcare. And if that is bad news for fathers who want to look after their children, then surely it is equally bad news for mothers who want or need to work – at over 60%, the substantial majority.

Indeed, the closer one looks at how unfair the system is to fathers, the more one realises how tough it is on mothers. In the eyes of modern Britain, mothers seem able to do no right. A study published to fanfares last week found a very modest statistical correlation between mothers working and their kids imbibing fizzy pop and spending time in front of the TV. Naturally, the media sexed it up into Mammageddon. "Working mothers' children unfit" was BBC Online's headline. The same day's BBC News at Ten delivered a damning verdict on the children of working mums: they were sitting in front of the TV, eating too much and doing too little.

Why, in 2009, was our nation's mouthpiece scolding mums and ignoring the role of dads?

Working mums see this stuff and are invited to feel guilty. They also look at their non-working or part-time peers volunteering as school helpers and class reps, and maybe feel even more guilty. That's right, working ladies of Britain: now you're not only going home to your fat children, but also you're going to have to read about what your fat children did at school in a newsletter produced by women with thin children who never watch TV or drink fluid with bubbles in it. Oh, and full-time mums: despite the fact that you are doing an amazing job and making our schools work for us at the same time, you can feel guilty that you are not fulfilling your career potential or providing a professional female role model for your children.

It seems that the media, the schools, the spectre of paedophilia, the prevalence of absent fathers, the policies of the government and perhaps even our own machismo conspire to prevent dads taking an equal share in bringing up our young children. Meanwhile, working women are demonised as unfit mothers, while full-time mums are made to feel left-out or unfulfilled. Isn't modern Britain groovy?

On the bright side, there's always the global economic meltdown. "With the recession," says Siân Rowland, "we're starting to see more dads picking up kids at the school gate. So maybe they'll start a male gossip revolution and it will change the way dads get involved." When I put this to a friend, he suggested that the male gossip revolution will begin on the day that beer is served at the school gate.

Another friend has done the next-best thing. He has organised a dads' night for our children's school, and had the foresight to stage it at the local pub. Once a month we go along and, while it's hardly a school governors' meeting, it's an informative first step. It's here that I've learned how much more involved fathers would like to be in schools and childcare, and how frustrated both mothers and fathers feel at their exclusion. Most parents, I think, hope that we are at the start of an era that will be more inclusive of fathers and less judgmental about mothers. Maybe one day, mums and dads will go to the parents' meeting – or the pub – together. Assuming, of course, that a babysitter can be found

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Scottish Government figures show in January there were 4,274 centres, compared to 4,336 at the same time last year.

The number of registered childminders also dropped, falling from 6,055 to 6,039.

Labour education spokeswoman Rhona Brankin said: "This is another humiliation for the SNP. The First Minister promised more nursery teachers but numbers are down again. On the same day that the Primary 1-3 class size pledge was dropped we have another key area of education policy which is failing miserably."

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The closure of college and university nurseries in response to cuts to education budgets could see students with young children forced to leave their courses, according to a campaign launched last week by the University and College Union, the National Union of Students, and Unison. A recent NUS report found that 60% of students with children had considered packing in their studies due to problems juggling work and childcare. "Older students who have families could be forced out of further and higher education, making a mockery of government attempts to widen participation if nurseries close," says Jon Richards, Unison's senior national officer. "It will also be really tough for younger people who have children to continue their studies without childcare. They are having the rug pulled from under their feet."

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POORER families could be priced out of childcare at community nurseries under a proposed shake-up of Sheffield's services for under-fives, Labour councillors claim.
A leaked draft report on the issue recommends the scrapping of policies which allow nurseries to charge parents based on their ability to pay, the party says.

Proposals are to be debated at a council meeting council next week, with the Lib Dems set to argue the Labour claims are "scaremongering".

A review of childcare was ordered after the city's community nursery network said it was struggling to survive as funding was being increasingly directed at Sheffield's new network of Children's Centres.

Labour says the report now recommends a new two tier pricing policy based on the age of the child - which would result in price hikes for hard-up parents.

Currently charges are in three bands, based on the amount of hours parents are working and taking into account whether families are on benefits, in training or involved in higher education.

Labour's spokesman for children Coun Leigh Bramall said he found the draft proposals extremely worrying.

He told The Star: "The current price structure is based on parents' ability to pay. But the new charges based on the child's age are due to mirror the higher costs charged at private nurseries.

"We fear that this would leave many parents priced out of the market for their childcare. The whole situation is especially worrying given the current financial difficulties that many local families are faced with. We are also urging more support should be given to not-for-profit community nurseries in disadvantaged areas of the city which are under threat of closure and which are doing a fantastic job.

"We are urging the Lib Dems not to hike up nursery fees and to think again about supporting our struggling community nurseries."

Coun Andrew Sangar, Cabinet member for Children's Services, said the review of charges related to only seven council-maintained nurseries.

He added: "Unfortunately this is yet another example of local Labour councillors scaremongering.

"While they are correct to point out that a review process is going on at the request of community nurseries, to suggest that this will lead to families being priced out of childcare is simply wrong.

"The group looking at this review, which includes childcare providers from all sectors, will make recommendations to councillors in October.

"We will see what they suggest, however Liberal Democrats are 100 per cent committed to ensuring that nobody will be priced out of childcare."

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A Devon mother whose children attended a nursery involved in an abuse inquiry is calling for tighter controls on the use of camera phones in nurseries.

Cheryl Higgs from Plymouth said her aim was not a ban but to control and manage their use within child care settings.

Ms Higgs said many parents would feel safer knowing the opportunity to take pictures did not exist.

Nursery worker Vanessa George, 39, faces seven charges in relation to sexual assault and images of children.

Ms Higgs said she had received messages of support from more than 20 nurseries in Plymouth and Cornwall.

'Refined guidance'

She is hoping to set up a website to promote her campaign.

"There's a lot of legislation protecting children from photos being taken on cameras in schools, nurseries and swimming pools, but none to say staff can't take camera phones to work," she said.

"As a mum, I would feel a lot safer sending my children to a nursery where I knew the opportunity wouldn't be there to take pictures."

Ms Higgs said that since the investigation surrounding Little Ted's Nursery, several privately-run nurseries have already begun asking staff to leave their camera phones in a locked office which they can access during breaks.

Plymouth City Council said all nurseries had been given advice about best practice following the alleged incident at Little Ted's.

This included included "a clear recommendation that mobile phones be kept in individual lockers or trays where staff might secure other personal belongings or valuables".

Guidance for nurseries was being refined, the council added, with a written policy issued shortly which would fit in with council policy on taking photographic and video images of children in schools.

Ms George is charged with four counts of sexual assault and one count each of making, possessing and distributing indecent images of children.

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WORCESTERSHIRE County Council has won a national award for excellence in public procurement.

Beating off competition from six finalists, the county council and KiddiVouchers demonstrated how their excellent partnership helps working parents save money with their childcare costs.

This won them the best small business or third sector service provider category in the Government Opportunities Awards.

In January 2008 the council appointed KiddiVouchers to introduce a childcare voucher scheme for council employees.

The scheme, which saves parents up to £1,196 each year on the cost of childcare, has attracted about 500 members since it was launched.

Kenny Brown, head of human resources at the council, said: “This demonstrates our commitment to our staff as a good employer.”

KiddiVouchers was chosen to run the scheme following a thorough procurement process when then company’s quality of service and value for money approach helped it stand out from the competition.

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A 39-year-old nursery worker in Plymouth arrested in connection with the distribution of indecent images of children remains in police custody.

It follows a raid at the Little Ted's nursery in Laira, Plymouth, and at the woman's home in the city's Efford area.

The nursery, which has about 60 children, has been closed by police while inquiries are carried out.

Police said that the arrest of a 38-year-old man from Littleborough, near Rochdale, led them to arrest the woman.

'Fast-moving investigation'

The man appeared at Trafford Magistrates' Court earlier charged with possessing and distributing indecent images.

Devon and Cornwall Police said: "The charges relate to images recovered from a computer, mobile phones and other items of software.

"Following the investigation, information was passed to Devon and Cornwall Police, who have arrested a 39-year-old woman."

After the woman was arrested at her home, items seized in raids included computer equipment which contained "dozens of internet images", police said.

Ch Supt Jim Webster on the arrest of a 39-year-old nursery worker in Plymouth

Commanding officer Ch Supt Jim Webster said it had been a "fast-moving investigation".

He said: "We received information yesterday evening about nine o'clock, took it very seriously, had it researched straightaway and by midnight last night we'd arrested a person who we believe is concerned in the distribution of child pornography images.

"So our work today is to find out what's happened, where the images have come from, where they've been sent to and any risk to anybody in Plymouth."

He said the allegations raised "serious concerns" and police were contacting all parents of children at the nursery.

Letter to parents

Little Ted's opened in 1992 and operates from Laira Green Primary School and Laira United Church Hall.

Children in the nursery are aged between two and five, but children up to 11 can attend the breakfast and after-school clubs.

People arriving at the nursery to drop off children on Monday morning were handed a letter by police explaining what had happened.

The letter, signed by Supt David Sumner, read: "We are informing you that police have arrested a 39-year-old woman in connection with distributing indecent images of young children and that the woman is an employee of Little Ted's Child Day Care Unit, Old Laira Road.

"As part of our inquiries we have searched the home address of the woman and need to search units one and two of the unit today."

About 40 police officers are working on the case, including internet crime investigators. Children's care specialists are also involved in the operation, police said.

Mother Amy Gilbert said: "It's a complete shock. I am going to change nurseries."

Another mother, who did not want to be named, said: "My son's been going there since last September. I'd never imagined anything like that in anywhere like that."

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Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, used his office expenses to pay for a degree studied by a member of his staff.

The claim was one of several seen by the Telegraph in which senior ministers billed taxpayers to provide their office workers with education and services.

Documents filed with the Commons fees office suggested that Mr Straw claimed £600 a year in tuition fees for the part-time BA Hons in social sciences for a staff member. The woman studied the course at Blackburn College, in Mr Straw’s constituency.

In February 2006, Mr Straw, then foreign secretary, sent the fees office the college prospectus and a note setting out the reasons for the claim.

“As you will see, it is in fact directly relevant to the skills she needs to develop in her job, which involves a very wide range of activities relating to my work as an MP,” he wrote.

“Because of my ministerial responsibilities,” Mr Straw added, “she and the other staff have to use their initiative and judgement more than similar staff of backbench MPs.”

Other claims on his office expenses account included £165 for interpreters and £157 on tea, coffee and biscuits at a meeting.

Mr Straw said: “I regard having a well trained and motivated staff as essential to meeting my responsibilities to my constituents. The refreshments will have been consumed by members of the public.”

John Hutton, the Defence Secretary, claimed thousands from his office expenses to put a staff member through an Open University course in “Crime, order and social controls”. He also claimed about £500 a year in tuition fees for his male office worker’s part-time course, and £105 for a pair of spectacles for him.

He said: “The course is relevant to the work of my office manager and is undertaken in his own time. The glasses are prescription glasses.”

Paul Murphy, the Wales Secretary, claimed £600 in expenses for childcare costs incurred by a member of his office staff. Mr Murphy made the claim in February last year. He split the cost of three months’ worth of childcare for the staff member.

A spokesman for Mr Murphy said that he agreed to pay the childcare costs of one of his employees because he worked long hours on his behalf.

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By two heathfield nurseries join forces
ONE of Heathfield's longest established nursery schools is expanding to welcome the children from nearby Jack and Jill in Old Heathfield.
Huffle Nursery School owner Jeni Woodhouse set up Jack and Jill in 2004 because she couldn't meet the demand for places at her main site in Beechwood Lane.

Jack and Jill now has 68 children on roll.

Now Jeni, who started her childcare business 28 years ago, plans to create more space at Huffle so she can integrate the two nurseries.

This means that from August 2009, Jack and Jill children will benefit from better facilities, more space, more staff and more activities.

The expansion coincides with a range of improvements that are being made at Huffle which include an 'outside' classroom and new playground equipment.

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Government arrangements to help nurseries offer free childcare will lead to "heavy casualties" among providers, according to a market report.

Market intelligence providers Laing and Buisson, in the Children's Nurseries Market Report 2009, state that 62 per cent of nurseries feel funding for delivering free childcare to three- and four-year-olds does not cover costs. This figure is almost unchanged from 2008, (61.5 per cent) despite authorities completing a cost analysis of the free entitlement in the past year.

Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, said: "We are disappointed that the cost analysis process does not seem to have increased funding to a more sustainable level, and believe this is partly because local authorities still struggle in ensuring enough funding is reaching nurseries."

According to Laing and Buisson, the average level of hourly funding for the free entitlement has gone from £3.30 to £3.41 since 2008, an increase of 11 pence. However, this is only in line with inflation and makes no difference to the loss-making position of nurseries.

Reforms to government funding are ongoing, including better representation from private, voluntary and independent providers; more accurate occupancy measures; and a single funding formula to ensure fair access across maintained and private, voluntary and independent (PVI) settings.

But Philip Blackburn, senior economist at Laing and Buisson and the report's author, wrote that even with the single funding formula, due to be implemented in every authority by April 2010, the nursery sector will require an extra cash injection from the government to stay sustainable.

"When the majority of nurseries responding to our survey continue to tell us the early years entitlement doesn't cover their costs, it is clear that this current funding arrangement cannot be sustained going forward without some heavy casualties," he said.

Blackburn added that the current economic climate has exacerbated the problem, as 38.5 per cent of nurseries reported a drop in business and 53.5 per cent said they expect things to get worse.

 

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The boom years gave us wealth and the freedom to dream - about downsizing, moving to the country, going to live abroad and other lifestyle changes. But, as the crisis bites, workers are giving up these plans. Political Editor Gaby Hinsliff reports on the death of the 'work to live' dream as the crunch prompts a significant cultural shift

    * Gaby Hinsliff, political editor
    * The Observer, Sunday 8 February 2009
    * Article history

Anna Phillips, a maternity nurse, who works at St Mary's Hospital.

Anna Phillips, a maternity nurse, who works at St Mary's Hospital. Photograph: Antonio Olmos

With their organic toddler menus, listed buildings, and Montessori play sessions designed to appeal to the middle-class parent, it is perhaps unsurprising that Peter Churchley's chain of nurseries is still booming.

But his is a bittersweet success story amid the economic gloom. For the previous two years the demand for places here for children under one had been shrinking, as their mothers took up new rights to a year's maternity leave.

In the current climate, says Churchley, mothers simply dare not stay away from their desks too long. A third of nurseries contacted last month by the National Day Nurseries Association reported occupancy increasing, with a similar trend of mothers returning earlier and parents increasing care time to cover extra time spent in the office. It seems a whiff of fear is now stalking the playground.

"Since September it's been quite noticeable - we've had half a dozen babies under three months," says Churchley, whose eight sites are spread across the Surrey commuter belt.

"A lot of people are very sensitive to the fact that if they take a year out at this stage it's less likely that the job will be there if they want to go back to it." The word among parents is, he says, that women returners are now being singled out as early candidates for redundancy: he has seen families cancel places saying that the mother had been "offered a package" to go quietly when she tried to return to her job.

Official figures published this Tuesday are expected to confirm, with what is now becoming a grim regularity, another sharp rise in unemployment, while the Bank of England's quarterly inflation report this week is expected to issue a dismal forecast for jobs, house prices and economic output. But the casualties of this recession will be counted not just in job losses or bank foreclosures, but in something less tangible.

Life plans made in the good times - to spend more time with the children; get married; start a family; downshift from the city to the country; take early retirement - are now on hold: the recession is pressing the pause button on ordinary dreams.

For the last decade and more, a property boom and relatively full employment generated not just wealth but personal freedoms and choices. It was the era of working to live rather than living to work, as parents exercised new rights to reduce their hours; of adult "gap years" spent travelling the world on sabbaticals; of pensioners cashing in on the soaring value of the family home to fund an adventurous retirement.

But with negative equity threatening up to two million households by 2010, and nervous employees increasingly feeling grateful just to have a job, is the pendulum swinging back?

Graeme Leach of the Institute of Directors says that, while some employers will be actively seeking staff prepared to go part-time as a kinder alternative to redundancies, the mood among parents may be changing. "There will be many, many people where maybe the employers are talking about flexible working and they're thinking, 'No, no, I want to be seen to be there every day - I want to be seen to be working my butt off'. The time-serving instinct will be very strong."

The most recent official figures for take-up of maternity leave and flexible working date back to 2007, too long ago to capture the effects of the downturn, but the equalities minister, Harriet Harman, has already launched a new review of how family life is being affected in the downturn. Women ministers and MPs will meet tomorrow for a summit to compare early findings about the path of the recession.

The Citizens Advice Bureau has already logged a 5% rise in calls to its helpline relating to alleged unfair dismissal: Katherine Rake, director of the thinktank the Fawcett Society, predicts a rise in claims of pregnancy-related discrimination and a fall in parents requesting flexible working or taking up full maternity leave rights.

"In times like this, you are very unlikely to put your head above the parapet," she says.

So is Britain now in for a period of social stagnation, hunkered down in outgrown homes and unsatisfactory jobs until the storm passes? And if this recession is now starting to trigger such cultural changes, how long might their effects last?

Chris Pateman never expected to find his adult son still living at home, while his son's pregnant girlfriend moved in with her family, because they could not afford to set up home together.

Pateman at least has more insight into the troubled housing market than the average long-suffering parent - he is the managing director of the Builders Merchants Federation, which will launch a major campaign this week to save the British construction industry.

It will argue that there is more to houses than just bricks and mortar: that Britons must be able to borrow and build today if tomorrow's young couples are to be able to move in together, if the ambitious are to relocate for better jobs, or if families want to adapt homes so that the old and frail can be kept out of institutional care. The Home Builders Federation recently warned MPs that the government's target of three million new homes by 2020, now threatened by the recession, still needs to be met in order to accommodate social changes from divorce rates to middle-class flight from cities: demand may have been killed by the mortgage drought, but need has not.

"Building is too easily categorised as things like constructing the Olympics sites or roads or even houses. Well, it isn't: it's lots and lots of little improvements which change people's lives," says Pateman.

"For example, many people have got aged parents they need to look after and a nursing home isn't always the solution. You need to be able to adapt - put another room on your house, convert the loft, whatever. But if you want to secure a loan for home improvement at the moment you are being asked essentially a punitive rate of interest to borrow money."

That lending crisis has had other unexpected consequences, too. Late last summer, as cheap mortgage deals vanished from the market, the voluntary organisation VSO - which organises placements in the developing world for professionals taking a sabbatical - suffered a sudden wave of dropouts. VSO volunteers often rent out their homes while they are abroad, and as mortgage costs rose in the credit crunch suddenly the rents they could get no longer covered mortgage payments. By the autumn a quarter of the professionals on its books had pulled out.

A late surge of applications from the business sector, following the crisis in the City, has kept them afloat, but almost half of VSO's posts are for teachers and it is still struggling to fill these places. Health and education workers occupying some of the few remaining secure jobs are reluctant to budge right now, says a VSO spokeswoman. "At the end of the day public sector jobs are not being lost and these are still real areas of need for us."

But for every family stuck in a holding pattern during the recession, unable to make the changes to their lives they had wanted, there is a family who has had change forced upon them: and these, too, can have long-lasting consequences that are only now beginning to emerge.

When Helen Burchell got pregnant with her second child five months ago, the recession still seemed a relatively distant threat. Her partner Will Holden's successful business, specialising in fashionable garden decking, was still going strong, and she was working four days a week as a graphic designer. Then, last November, Will's work suddenly dried up. Without two incomes, the south London couple could no longer afford to send their 18-month-old daughter Martha to nursery: now he has unexpectedly become a househusband, and she is the main breadwinner.

She says her partner is enjoying being at home and doing a "fantastic job" with their daughter. But it is not the life either of them expected. "It's a real role reversal, and something I didn't plan for really," says Burchell. "But you have got to be sensible in scenarios like this. I have friends who are still having nice holidays and all the rest of it, and I worry about them because it hit us so quickly - almost out of nowhere."

Their long-term plans are not yet clear, although Will is looking at retraining in a new career, on the assumption that it could be another three years before construction emerges from the doldrums. "If you've got a young family, you can't afford to put things on hold for that long," says Burchell.

Had she known how the recession would hit them before she got pregnant, she admits that, "I don't know if we would have - I think we would have probably delayed it."

For couples contemplating starting a family now whose job prospects are uncertain, the temptation may well be to hold off. There is a worrying historical precedent: during and immediately after the great depression of the 1930s the birth rate worldwide fell by a tenth compared to the carefree 1920s.

The birth rate in the US also dipped in the early 1990s following a far less severe 16-month recession: in Britain it fell in the 1970s during tough economic times, although that period also coincided with greater availability of contraception and more women taking up careers.

Alongside the 1930s drop in birth rates came falling marriage rates, as men became unwilling to propose to women they could not support financially. So far, Britain has seen the opposite effect: registrars last month reported an unexpected surge of applications to get married, as couples huddled together in the face of adversity, while Valentine's Day traditionally brings another rush of proposals.

But as the recession deepens, longer engagements may become the norm for brides like Natasha, a 33-year-old marketing executive who got engaged last autumn - just before her fiancé lost his job at a bank. The church has not been booked: "We're putting it all on hold until he can find something. Hopefully it won't take that long, but I just can't think about getting married right now."

Analysis published by thinktank Civitas yesterday suggests the recession is likely to lead to a dip in marriage rates, citing research from the 1980s showing high male unemployment both reduces marriage rates and increases the likelihood of divorce. In the US the average cost of a ceremony has already fallen for the first time in a decade, while wedding planners offer anxious brides tips on how to cut the bill without guests noticing.

"As the recession bites it's going to be harder for partners to make that commitment - without financial stability and jobs they won't have the confidence to say, 'I do'," says Civitas's Anastasia de Waal. "So as well as financial strains breaking up existing marriages, we are also likely to see fewer marriages as a result of increased unemployment."

It is too soon to tell whether the birth rate will be affected this time - today's maternity wards are full of babies conceived last spring - but if it is there is a potential aggravating factor now which was missing in the 1930s.

Many British women were already pushing at the limits of their fertility even before the credit crunch, thanks to a trend to marry and conceive later. And that worries men such as IVF specialist Professor Brian Lieberman. His clinic, Manchester Fertility Services, has not yet noticed any drop in demand for fertility treatment - unlike in the US, where some IVF clinics are now so desperate for business that they are offering a "money-back guarantee" if patients do not conceive after three cycles - although more patients are now putting the bill on credit cards.

But he warns that would-be mothers already in their 30s who are now forced to further delay starting a family for financial reasons may run the risk of needing his services the other side of the recession.

"Age is the single most important determinant of the outcome of fertility treatment there is," said Lieberman. "There is a cost in delaying, and that cost is higher for some women than others."

During the last recession, he says, patients disappeared from clinics' books, and those who did seek fertility treatment opted for cheaper procedures than IVF - which were correspondingly less likely to result in pregnancy.

If Lieberman is right, the cost of this recession could be counted in more than rising welfare bills and repossession orders. And we could be counting it for many years to come.
Broken dreams

Early retirement
Pension funds lost 35% of their value in the last year as the stock market crashed. Anyone relying on bricks and mortar to fund their retirement may also be in trouble, with house prices falling by more than 15% in some areas. Research by Life Trust, the financial services provider, shows 12% of adults currently working now expect to delay retirement by up to five years to help compensate for shrinking nest eggs.

Starting a family
During the 1930s depression, the birth rate fell by 10% compared with the 1920s and did not pick up again until the early 1940s - unleashing a baby boom after the war, once peace and prosperity had returned. The consequences of that population shift are still being felt today as the "baby boomers" of the postwar generation reach retirement age and Britain copes with the demands of an increasingly elderly population.

Getting married
Research from the University of Ulster found men were significantly less likely to get married if they were unemployed. The average wedding in Britain now costs nearly £19,000 including the honeymoon.

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The government today launched Contactpoint, the children's database.

Two officials from every local authority in England are to start basic training to use the £224m system, while staff in 17 authorities will embark on more advanced preparation.

Practitioners in early adopter authorities will start using the system in the spring and the remaining councils will use the database from the summer.

Children's charities Barnardo's and Kids are also piloting the information-sharing database and will start using it at the same time as the early adopter authorities.

The controversial database has been dogged by criticism since its inception, but the government today promised that ContactPoint records will not hold case details and will be impossible to download.

The database will also prevent users from trawling for records.

Vulnerable children, including victims of domestic violence and children in witness protection programmes, will have their records shielded, meaning that officials will have to apply for a special warrant to view their contact details.

However, children of celebrities and politicians will not usually be provided with shielding, Children's Minister Delyth Morgan said today.

Children's Secretary Ed Balls said: "We have seen from recent serious case reviews that the lack of proper and timely information sharing can have tragic consequences. No system can ever guarantee that all children will be safe but we know ContactPoint will make a real difference."

Kevin Williams, chief executive of Kids, said: "We see ContactPoint as being very beneficial for disabled children who typically have a range of professionals working with them.."

But Terri Dowty, director of Action on Rights for Children, said she is extremely concerned that ContactPoint will put vulnerable children at risk.

She said: "This database should not be happening considering the amount of security breaches caused by central and local government."

ContactPoint is an online directory of basic contact information for all children. It will contain the name, address, date of birth, GP and school of every child in the country and the name and contact details of any professional working with that child.

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Parents want more men to work in nurseries with children under the age of five so that youngsters can have access to male role models from an early age, according to a new report.

Research by the Children's Workforce Development Council found that lone parents were particularly keen to see men involved in early years childcare.

A survey of more than 1,000 parents of young children in England found that 55% wanted a male childcare worker for their nursery aged child, rising to two-thirds among single parents.

Many of those questioned said they believed boys behaved better for a male teacher, adding it was important for boys to have a role model to look up to.

Three out of five of those surveyed said no men were employed at the nursery or other provider of early years childcare that their child attends.

Thom Crabbe, the council's development manager, urged more men to consider working in early years childcare, adding: "Parents are right to want to see more men working in early years. It is important that during the crucial first five years of a child's life they have quality contact with both male and female role models.

"Working with under fives is definitely a job for the boys. It's one that requires someone who is patient, creative and bright and one which gives back major rewards.

"Male workers will get to work in a challenging, stimulating environment with like-minded professionals dedicated to the development of children with positive benefits to babies, toddlers and young children to families and communities."

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Doncaster Council is to carry out an internal and independent review into its own safeguarding services for children, following the announcement of a separate review by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF).
Mayor of Doncaster Martin Winter said the review, which will begin on Wednesday 14 January, will probe "why we have experienced such difficulties in our delivery of child safety, and crucially, how and what lessons can be learned".

Councillors in the town will hold an extraordinary public meeting on Tuesday to express their concerns about safeguarding issues.

The DCSF will send a "diagnostic team" to Doncaster to address the "root causes" of underperformance in Doncaster's children's services department after serious case reviews were ordered into the deaths of seven children in the borough since 2004, five of them since December 2007.

Doncaster was classified as inadequate by Ofsted in its annual performance assessment, published in December. It expressed particular concern that one in four child protection cases were not allocated to a social worker, and said the local safeguarding children board had not ensured the effective management of child protection allegations.

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This article was written by Lee Elliot Major in the Telegraph.  Lee Elliot Major is Research Director of the Sutton Trust and a member of the Academic Reference Group for the White Paper on social mobility.

Starting early, opening up the elite schools and rewarding the best teachers are just some of the ways to improve social mobility.

1. More money for early years
Few would now question the benefits of support during the pre-school years, particularly for disadvantaged children. A child's early environment is as important as their genes in determining life prospects. But the UK spends less on early years than many other Western countries. Perhaps we need to consider the balance of education spending as well. For every pound of taxpayers' money spent on a secondary school pupil, just over 80 pence is spent on a child in early years or primary school. Is that right? I know where I would put my money - on the under-fives.

2. Better qualified nursery staff
Only one in 14 staff in nurseries and children's centres is qualified to university level. Contrast this with the highly educated workforce in Scandinavia. Nursery staff should be the equals of teachers, requiring Qualified Status to work; and first priority for qualified staff should be centres serving disadvantaged areas.

3. More parenting support
The reality is that parents -not schools, not teachers - have the biggest impact on the academic results of children. We need to turn to proven parenting programmes to improve the home learning environment. This is not nanny-statism. Researchers are clear about what constitutes good basic parenting - reading with children for example. And there are schemes proven to work.

4. Use what works
The pendulum of policy reform is constantly introducing new initiatives into the classroom. But how many are based on passing fads? We must embrace evidence based education. The problem is not that we do not know which types of teaching works, but that schools are not systematically using proven methods. As a start, all schools should adopt catch-up schemes, such as Reading Recovery, which we know works. Perhaps then, no child will be left behind.

5. Reward good teachers
Some teachers balk at the words 'performance related pay'. But it is time for a full and frank debate about the use of money to lure teachers into struggling schools in poorer areas. Yes, brilliant teachers do not do it for the pay. But money helps. Equally, schools should be able to penalise those not up to the mark.

6. Ballots for school entry
We are told that no child's prospects should be decided by the roll of a dice. But the current school system is a lottery – by postcode. Where you live determines the type of school your children will attend. If more children meet a school's admissions criteria than the places available, then ballots are the fairest way to allocate places. The results can not be rigged so the 'right' children get in.

7. Open up leading schools
A few exclusive schools dominate top university admissions, and monopolise the production line of future leaders in professional life. Yet they remain the preserve of the social elite. Let's democratise their intakes: for grammars, devise tests that identify academic potential (not prior support and achievement); for faith schools, use simple transparent 'yes or no' criteria to judge religious commitment; and for private schools, introduce means-tested fees for all places so entry is affordable to everyone.

8. Raise university aspirations
From an early age children with graduate parents are expected to go to university; for others such aspirations come much later, if at all. We need to sow the seeds of higher education possibilities for all pupils at the end of primary school, including visits to the local university.

9. Improve advice
Half of careers and education advice in state schools is inadequate. Often teachers misinform pupils. Not being 'in the know' can lead to the wrong choices with disastrous consequences for opportunities later on. Every school should have a lead teacher responsible for guidance at every key stage; and schools should be inspected on the quality of their advice.

10. University scholarships for poor bright pupils
Elite universities must seek academic potential where-ever it is. Each year, thousands of top GCSE pupils do not go onto higher education; while thousands of A-level students do not enter leading universities even with the grades to do so. A national scholarship scheme, offering entry to bright pupils from disadvantaged schools, would help convince the 'it's not for me' crowd that it is, actually, very much for them.

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The UK government has complained about a study saying early years childcare and education in England is falling behind that of other developed nations.

A United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) report found England met only five out of 10 benchmarks it considers vital for children's first years.

Unicef examined 25 rich countries and put England middle of the table.

Ministers said it was an unusually poor report containing inaccuracies about several issues, including spending.

Children's Minister Beverley Hughes, who met Unicef UK representatives on Tuesday, has taken the unusual step of writing to them to complain.

Sweden top

In her letter, she says the compilers of the report repeatedly ignored requests from officials in the Department for Children, Schools and Families to meet to discuss their work.

"Overall, we have to conclude that the report is poor, with factual inaccuracies which misrepresent the UK position on childcare and early learning in a number of ways and may well do the same for some of the other countries covered," she says.

She praises Unicef's work but says the report falls short of its usual high standards.

The Unicef study says England met the benchmark of having a national early years plan with priority for the disadvantaged.

And it offers subsidised and regulated childcare services for 25% of children under three, as well as subsidised and accredited early education services for 80% of four-year-olds.

England also met a fourth benchmark of ensuring 80% of all childcare staff were trained and a fifth that 50% of staff in accredited early-education services had a higher education qualification.

But England was failing to meet the study's other minimum requirements:

    * availability of parental leave of one year at 50% of salary
    * minimum staff-to-children ratio for four to five-year-olds
    * 1% of GDP spent on early childhood services (for UK as a whole)
    * child poverty rate less than 10%
    * near-universal outreach of essential child health services

The data in the Unicef report relates only to England except for the UK-wide percentage of GDP spent on early years services, as education and care are the responsibility of the devolved governments in the UK.

Unicef found Sweden to be meeting all 10 benchmarks, while Iceland met nine and Denmark, Finland, France and Norway all met eight.

Bottom of the league table of early years services were Australia, which met two benchmarks, and Canada and Ireland which met just one.

'Best interests'

The Department for Children, Schools and Families said that by its calculations - including expenditure through local authorities and other funding streams - the UK did meet the benchmark of 1% of GDP being spent on early years services.

The department said the compulsory early years foundation stage, which came into force in September, set out staff-to-child ratios which came well within the one adult to 15 children benchmark for four and five-year-olds, and the staff ratio for three and four-year-olds was one adult to eight children.

The UK has universal outreach of essential child health services provided by the NHS, including a health visitor who visited every new mother, the department added, but Unicef had not used measures which showed this directly.

David Bull, executive director of Unicef UK, said: "Despite the government's undoubted commitment, the UK still has three million children living in poverty and higher rates of infant death and low birth weight than many comparable countries.

"High quality childcare is not yet available to all, and parental leave provisions remain inadequate.

"The report is also clear that rich nations have often been guilty of making policies based on economic considerations, not the best interests of the child.

"If the government was really serious about making all policies about children in the best interest of the child, it would bring the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into our national law."

Shadow families minister Maria Miller said: "At the moment, too many children in the most deprived areas are not accessing high quality childcare which is essential for closing the attainment gap between them and other children.

"Urgent action is needed to ensure the poorest families access high quality pre-school services so the cycle of intergenerational poverty can finally be broken."

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Virtually everyone on state benefits will have to take steps to prepare themselves for work under a new crackdown to be announced by the Government today.

Only the severely disabled and single mothers with children under the age of one will be exempt. Others of working age will have to prepare themselves to join the labour market or suffer benefit cuts as Labour seeks to end the "something for nothing" culture.

Writing in The Independent today, the Work and Pensions Secretary, James Purnell, rejects calls from Labour MPs and pressure groups to slow the "tough love" reforms to the benefits system because fewer jobs will be available in the recession.

Pledging to go "further and faster", Mr Purnell reveals: "The next wave of reform is to make sure that virtually everyone has a clear obligation to look for work, or prepare for work." He writes: "Some people say we should be slowing down because of the economic downturn. I passionately believe we should be doing the opposite."

A Welfare Reform Bill bringing in a tougher new regime will be included in the Queen's Speech tomorrow. But the measure could provoke a rebellion by Labour MPs.

Labour has already announced plans for lone parents to prepare themselves for work when their youngest child reaches the age of seven in order to receive income support. In future, the cut-off could be reduced to when the child is just a year old.

Ministers say that a single mother with a child between the ages of one and seven would not be forced to apply for a job but might have to take steps such as finding out about childcare. "Our goal is a system more like the Scandinavian one with more universal childcare but also higher obligations to work," said a government source.

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Children in Sure Start areas are doing better than their peers elsewhere, according to the latest evaluation.
The report, published today by Birkbeck University, compared 6,000 three-year-olds and their families from 93 disadvantaged Sure Start areas with 2,000 of their peers from 72 similarly deprived areas.

Its first evaluation in 2005 revealed Sure Start was not succeeding in supporting children and families in the most disadvantaged areas of England. But the latest research showed that in five out of 14 outcomes, such as language development, positive and negative social behaviours, and independence, children in Sure Start areas were doing better.

Professor Jay Belsky, director of the Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues at Birkbeck University, said: "These results provide cautious optimism that the Sure Start local programmes and especially the transition to children's centres is positively affecting some of the most economically disadvantaged and socially excluded children and families in England."

The National Evaluation of Sure Start will report to the government again in mid- to late 2009.

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This article relates to the collapse of ABC nurseries in Australia and the impact this has had on the childcare sector.

Privately owned child care centres have reported a surge in business, with parents scrambling to find a place for their children after the collapse of ABC Learning centres last week.

Three childcare providers in Melbourne's south-east told The Age that a number of parents with children in ABC Learning centres had contacted them about switching childcare providers amid fears the company's situationwould worsen.

"Staff were constantly on the phone on Friday to desperate parents," Tracy from Little Folks Child Care Centre said.

"We had a number of inquiries from ABC parents, many of whom had registered their kids for February and moved their kids immediately."

The Body Shop Children's Centre received a similar flood of requests from parents looking for alternative child care providers. "A significant number of parents seem to have had a knee-jerk reaction", Anne Gordon from the company said.

Early Beginners in Springvale received 11 calls on Friday and the centre expects more.

"Parents are scared that the (ABC) centres are going to close and even if they don't close, they are scared that fees will go up very high and they won't have enough staff."

Many parents were placed on waiting lists, with space at the centres tight.

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The number of failing nurseries in the poorest areas of England has nearly doubled in the past year, while there has been a marked improvement in the wealthiest districts, figures show.

The likelihood of a child in the most deprived postcodes attending a nursery judged inadequate by inspectors is more than twice that of children in the most privileged neighbourhoods, according to figures obtained by the Conservatives.

The figures show that in the academic year 2006-07, Ofsted found 6.6% of daycare nurseries in the most deprived areas were inadequate. A year later, this had jumped to 10%. However, over the same period, daycare in the most affluent areas saw a marked improvement, with just 4.7% of settings labelled failing in the academic year 2007-08, down from nearly 6%.

In the poorest 5% of areas the number of failing nurseries went up from 21 to 38, with 380 inspections last year.

Ofsted has criticised inadequate nurseries for being dangerously understaffed, for not properly vetting staff and for failing to have adequate safety procedures. Maria Miller, the shadow minister for families and children, who obtained the figures in a parliamentary answer, said: "These new figures show that Sure Start is failing to reach out to those families living in the most deprived areas of the country, which are most in need of support."

She said that the government had spent £17bn on early years and childcare services since 1997, targeting the most deprived areas through Sure Start children's centres which appeared to be declining in standards in the past year.

The government has introduced a guarantee that all three- to four-year-olds should have access to 12.5 hours of free nursery care for 38 weeks a year. In 2010 that will rise to 15 hours, with plans to extend it to two-year-olds.

Claire Schofield, of the National Day Nurseries Association, said the government had prioritised poorer areas in its childcare and early learning plans. However, the system seemed to penalise nurseries in disadvantaged areas, where parents are less likely to supplement the 12.5 hours for their child and take a full-time place at the nursery, meaning they were not generating as much income.

Chris Pascal, director of the Centre for Research in Early Childhood, said that in delivering the government promise on free nursery care, "the butter got spread more thinly trying to reach more children".

Ted Melhuish, of Birkbeck College, part of the University of London, who has led evaluations of the government's early years programmes, said the numbers reported by the Conservatives were small, and showed that in most areas between 90% and 95% of nurseries were satisfactory.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: "We know good-quality early years provision can narrow the gap in educational achievement between children from deprived backgrounds and those who are better off to provide a path out of poverty for generations to come.

"That's why our reforms are designed to level the playing field for all children and we are investing over £4bn in early years over the next three years."

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 A village’s show of people power has given a nursery the chance to re-open its doors after lying derelict for three years.

Glaisdale School in South Cheam was closed in 2005 and the land was bought by developers.

Plans to demolish the building and create a new housing complex on the site were scuppered after a huge revolt by the people of the village.

After much deliberating and several refused planning applications, residents opposition to the plans has reunited the community.

A bitter battle between the developer and the South Cheam Residents’ Association ended in the housing plans being scrapped.

After the developers walked away, Chiltern Nurseries stepped in after having their initial interest ignored three years previous.

"As soon as we heard it was back on the market, we jumped at the chance to turn it back into the nursery," said director Emma Ward.

"The building was in terrible disrepair and we began the renovation to create a warm, homely and welcoming building ideal for children. The neighbours have expressed how pleased they are that it is staying as a school, and we would like to thank them for their patience over the past three months while the building works have taken place. I am happy to say that we have created a beautiful setting for children, which is both spacious and homely."

The show of community spirit has already given the nursery a huge boost ahead of the open day this Saturday.

The owners, who also run Chiltern Day Nursery in Sutton, are delighted with the outcome. Emma said: "It has taken a lot of hard work, but it will be worth it. Having both nurseries gives parents more flexibility. There is so much demand for Chiltern that we needed another location, especially for after school clubs."

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FAMILIES must arrange alternative out-of-hours care by Monday for thousands of children after the collapse of a long-standing charity.

Funding problems forced Newcastle and North Staffordshire Play Council (NNSPC) into administration yesterday.

The shock move leaves the future of dozens of out-of-school clubs, junior clubs, creches and play schemes in doubt.

Dozens of part-time NNSPC employees heard the news yesterday and some face losing their jobs.

Schools across North Staffordshire were also informed their out-of-school clubs would no longer be provided from Monday.
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The NNSPC ran 10 breakfast and out-of-school clubs at schools across Newcastle and the Staffordshire Moorlands, and 16 junior youth clubs on evenings and weekends.

During school holidays, the charity, based in Marsh Parade, Newcastle, also organised play schemes, days out and other activities for youngsters aged four to 16 across the region.

Linda Owen has been involved with the NNSPC for 18 years but faces losing her job.

Mrs Owen, who was yesterday running the breakfast and out-of-school club at Hempstalls County Primary School, in Cross Heath, said: "I'm gutted. If parents cannot arrange for someone to look after their children, they might have to give up their jobs."

Staffordshire County Council is working with the schools to try to find a solution.

But one headteacher described the after-school provision as a godsend to many parents.

Gareth Davies, headteacher at St Chad's County Primary School, in Chesterton, said: "I'm disgusted we've only found out on a Friday afternoon with no contingency plan.

"These things take a long time to set up. I am very disappointed with how the situation has been handled. The out-of-school club is well attended, and one of the reasons why parents choose our school."

Reginald Mitchell Primary School, in Butt Lane, will take over the running of its club.

Headteacher Alan Stancliffe said: "We're going to employ the same people and it will be funded from the school budget."

The NNSPC supported 225 groups and cared for more than 6,000 children.

Officials at the NNSPC declined to comment yesterday.

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 International childcare operator ABC Learning Centres Ltd. appointed voluntary administrators Thursday to help clear a mountain of debt but assured parents that the receivership would not affect operations at its childcare centers around the world.

The directors of ABC, the largest childcare center operator in Australia and second-largest in the United States, appointed Ferrier Hodgson Group as voluntary administrators. The company’s banking syndicate appointed advisory firm McGrathNicol as receivers.

ABC chairman David Ryan said the ABC board and management were “disappointed” to be in this position but said quality childcare would continue. The company has almost 1,200 childcare centers in Australia and New Zealand and more than 1,000 in the United States, as well as more than two dozen nurseries in Britain.

ABC Learning’s total debt at June 30, 2007, was 2.2 billion Australian dollars ($1.5 billion), compared with A$111 million at the end of fiscal 2004.

The company, which gets a large proportion of its revenue from Australian government childcare subsidies, has delayed filing annual results for its latest financial year.

“I would like to assure you that our appointment allows your local childcare center to continue to operate on a ‘business as usual’ basis,” said a letter to parents from Murray Smith, one of the McGrathNicol receivers. “The interests of children and families are central to our considerations as we work constructively with the Group’s management, its financiers, the Australian Government and other stakeholders to determine the way forward.”

The federal government is in discussions with creditors about the future of ABC Learning and has set up a task force to work through contingency plans to protect the families that use the childcare service.

But Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner has ruled out a government takeover of the business.

“I wouldn’t imagine we would be directly running them,” Tanner told Fairfax Radio Network.

Trading in ABC’s shares has been suspended since Aug. 21 as the company worked to resolve its debts. The shares last traded at 54 cents.

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At least 40 children under five are suspended from school every week amid claims of a breakdown in classroom discipline.

Official figures show 1,540 nursery pupils in England were handed fixed term exclusions over a 12-month period - a 50 per cent increase in two years.

Almost 1,000 were suspending for attacking teachers and fellow pupils, while hundreds more were barred for verbal abuse and disruptive behaviour.

A small number of children aged three and four were also kicked out for racism, sexual misconduct, theft and damage.

Twenty children aged just two were suspended for physical or verbal assaults.

The figures - obtained by the Conservatives in a Parliamentary question - follow concerns over a deteriorating standards of behaviour in state schools.

Michael Gove, the shadow children's secretary, said teachers' powers to deal with violent children was being eroded.

The Tories claim official guidance - urging staff to use caution when physically restraining pupils - was fuelling a rise in suspensions as teachers were reluctant to touch children for fear of being sued.

"The number of young children being suspended from school is shocking," Mr Gove said. "Teachers need the powers to maintain order in the classroom and clamp down on bad behaviour before it escalates into violence.

"Ministers have eroded teachers' ability to keep order by restricting their powers to deal with disruptive and violent children. We want to restore the authority of teachers to ensure a safe and secure environment for children of all ages to learn in."

Between September 2006 and July 2007 some 45,730 primary school pupils were suspended from school. This compared to 43,720 in 04/05, including 960 children aged four and under. In 03/04 some 41,300 primary pupils were suspended.

At the same time, the number of under-11s permanently expelled dropped - from 1,270 in 03/04 to 980 in 06/07.

Ministers claim this is down to increased use of "short, sharp, shock" tactics as schools bar disruptive pupils from school as a warning without resorting to permanent exclusion.

According to figures, pupils aged five and six were suspended 3,370 times for attacking fellow pupils or staff.

Forty infants were also removed from school due to "sexual misconduct" and more than 20 were suspended for racism.

Under existing guidance, teachers can physically restrain children but it must be "proportionate" - and only if a pupil "persistently refuses" to leave the classroom or "seriously disrupts a lesson".

The Tories, who would scrap the guidance, claim it confuses staff and leaves them almost powerless.

But the Department for Children, Schools and Families denied the claims.

"It is very difficult to see what argument is actually being presented here," said a spokesman. "Of course heads have the power to permanently exclude pupils where necessary but we are also helping schools to turn around poor behaviour before it reaches this stage

"Violence in the classroom, at any age, is not acceptable and teachers have the power to take appropriate action against young children involved in such acts – and these figures show that they are doing that."

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Changes to child benefit which kick in today could increase child poverty according to charity One Parent Families/Gingerbread.


From today single parents on benefit have to decide whether to continue receiving benefit from the Child Support Agency, make private arrangements with the child's father or do without child maintenance.

One Parent Families/ Gingerbread, which provides support for single parent families, said research from the National Centre for Social Research showed that up to one in four single parents on benefits might stop using the Child Support Agency after the reforms are introduced. The reforms are designed to simplify the benefits system. The charity said it supported the move towards voluntary arrangements for those parents who can come to a fair and sustainable agreement, but feared "the Government may be too keen to reduce the numbers of poor families using the Child Support Agency, without considering whether the children involved will get the child maintenance they need."

Fiona Weir, chief executive of One Parent Families/ Gingerbread, said: "We fear that many poor single parents on benefit will struggle to agree private child support arrangements and their children may end up doing without. This would be disastrous for the children involved and for the Government's child poverty targets."

From November 1 the Child Support Agency's functions will transfer to the new Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission.

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This article is taken from th 'Schoold Gate' section of www.timesonline.co.uk
Just when you thought it was safe and healthy to allow your child to eat school dinners again (thanks to the efforts of Jamie Oliver and others), disturbing news arrives from the Soil Association .

Thousands of toddlers and other children at nurseries in England and Wales are being given “junk food” that is banned or limited in primary and secondary schools, according to a study by the Association and the food manufacturer Organix.

Youngsters attending some state, private and voluntary-run nurseries are being fed crisps, chocolate bars and biscuits, lollies, sweets, cakes and cheap burgers - these are all items banned or restricted for children aged 5 to 18 at schools.

The study, gleaned from an online survey of almost 500 nursery workers and 1,773 parents with children at nursery school, also found that chips still appear on the kindergarten menu - while in primary and secondary schools only two portions of deep-fried foods can be served to pupils each week.

Similarly older school children can only be given unsweetened fruit juice, whereas there are no rules on the type of fruit juice offered at nurseries.

The survey is small and the sample was self-selecting, but the results showed wide variation in type of food on offer to pre-school children.

When asked to choose the option which best described the food served at their nursery almost one in ten staff said “lots of processed food such as biscuits, burgers, and sugary drinks like orange squash.”

Nurseries were even flouting standards on drinking water. Access to drinking water should be available throughout the school day for all under eights , but according to the survey only 27 per cent of staff said children were regularly served water.

Ed Balls, Schools Secretary, is now being urged to introduce tough new standards on nursery food to help pre-school children eat healthier diets and to help combat the country’s obesity crisis.

Peter Melchett, policy director at the Soil Association, which champions organic food and farming, said: “Until now, everyone has overloooked the quality of food given to children in nurseries. Sadly in many cases we have been overlooking a scandal. Children under five are at their most vulnerable. It is then they really need healthy food.”

Over 600,000 children go to nursery for up to 10 hours a day with parents paying an average £159 a week or just over £31 a day for a child under two. However only 3 to 6 per cent of nursery charges are spent on food, and 3 per cent spent as little as 25p a day feeding a child. No wonder they serve crisps.

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 A British government analysis of 556,000 5-year-olds found 14 percent of the children could not even write their own names.

The analysis of children finishing their Early Years Foundation Stage before moving on their first year of regular school found nearly 80,000 had difficulty holding a pen properly or writing basic words, including "mum," "dad," "cat" and their own first names, The Telegraph reported Thursday.

However, 49 percent of the children were found to be proficient in all six areas of testing: personal skills, communication and language, basic numbers, physical development and creativity. The number marked a 4 percent rise over last year's numbers but matched the statistics collected in 2005.

"This year's results show continued improvements, and the progress of the lowest achieving children is particularly encouraging," Children's Minister Beverley Hughes said.

"But there is more to do to ensure that all children achieve their potential, especially the most disadvantaged. That's why our Early Years Foundation Stage will give all children in this country the right to the same high standards of early learning and care that the best childminders and nurseries already provide," she said.

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This article is related to a nursery facility in Northumberland.

A private nursery has been given a temporary home by Northumberland County Council after it was damaged in last week's floods.
Goosehill Day Nursery in Morpeth, which looks after 35 children, was badly affected by the floods and its premises may be out of action for months.

The county council offered to help out the nursery, and local parents, by allowing it to run from Choppington Children's Centre.

Nursery owner Amanda Willis said: "Without this help there was a real risk that I would lose children and staff and the business would fail to survive. I just can't thank them enough."

Jeff Reid, leader of Northumberland County Council, said: "It's crucial that we are providing as much support as we possibly can, both to residents and businesses.

"In providing a temporary home for Goosehill nursery, we are saving a valuable resource for families."

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This article is related to a new childcare strategy being implemented in Glasgow.

Some of the poorest families in Glasgow could soon be able to use council-run nurseries for 15p per hour.

The charge, which will depend on income and entitlement, is part of a new five-year childhood services strategy passed by the authority on Friday.

Other measures included a commitment to providing childcare within buggy-walking distance.

Some schools will also have year-round extended opening with services such as sports, music and play.

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This article is a discussion of the Liberal Democrats ideas for the shake-up of childcare provision in the UK.
The Liberal Democrats are considering radical plans to extend parental leave to 18 months and provide up to 25 hours of free universal childcare a week for children between 18 months and five years old, it emerged today.

Susan Kramer, the Lib Dem's spokesperson on families, outlined her plans in a move that goes further than proposals laid out by Labour and the Conservatives.

Plans under consideration would allow parents to take a total of 18 months' parental leave between them. The maximum either parent could take would be one year to allay industry concerns about the impact on business.

That means single parents could lose out, although a party aide said Kramer was considering extending the extra leave to someone close to the parent in such cases.

Kramer told delegates she was considering a plan to provide "at least 20 or 25" hours of free weekly childcare for every child from the age of 18 months until they start school to boost early years development.

In a radical move, the benefit would be targeted at both working and non-working parents.

Admitting it was a "challenging target", Kramer told delegates that
instead of treating childcare as "just watch over baby", the free provision would help children in workless households. They are seen as the most likely to lose out on education because of a lack of stimulation and opportunities to develop at home.

She told delegates 96% of children aged three already used the early years education provision on offer.

"The 20-hour childcare provision would bring to a much younger group the commitment to early years education," she said.

"In effect we would be extending the early years development focus, which today starts at the age of three, to all children from 18 months."

Kramer said the free childcare "took seriously" the desire of parents of young children to work part-time.

"Mums who are in work full-time would often leap at the chance to cut back to part-time if only it was an accepted career strategy, treated as a normal work pattern by employers," said Kramer, who was appointed by Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg to take a cross-departmental role looking at the needs of families.

She told delegates the Lib Dems had suffered from a "strange
inhibition" about its family policies because of a strongly held belief
that the power of government to interfere with the personal lives of
individuals should be strictly limited.

While Liberal Democrats did not believe the role of government was to select one family structure as the "ideal choice", said Kramer, the party did believe it should provide support and opportunity for "real families as they exist in all their variations and complexity" – traditional or cohabiting, gay or straight.

She contrasted her proposals with the "slow and stilted" progress under Labour, and attacked the Conservatives' talk of families she said was always prefixed with the term "traditional".

Kramer said Labour had achieved "little" for fathers, despite the fact that the absence of fathers was seen as a major cause of social breakdown in Britain.

"Labour has made progress but it has been slow and stilted and has failed to do anything beyond tinker at the edges of a system that is failing families every day," she said.

Under government plans, maternity leave is due to be extended to 52 weeks by 2010. After the first 26 weeks, parents can choose whether the mother or the father stays at home.

Citing Tory leader David Cameron's focus on tax breaks for marriages, Kramer said: "They are stuck in a mid-20th century time warp."

The Conservative party announced flexible parental leave plans in March that would see parents free to divide up the maternity leave allocation as they want after the first 14 weeks.

Couples could either split the remaining 38 weeks between them or both could stay at home together for as long as 26 weeks.

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A POPULAR day nursery in Christchurch has closed suddenly, leaving many parents without childcare and staff jobless.

Unpaid fees and mounting debts have been blamed for the shock closure.

More than 25 parents turned up at Amethyst Day Nursery on Tuesday morning to drop off their children but were shocked to discover the team of staff standing outside and the doors to the centre locked up.

A notice posted on the door of the lottery-funded SureStart nursery said: "The Nursery has gone bust, due in the major part to the outstanding fees, in excess of £24,000.

"Under legislation once a company has become insolvent it must cease trading with immediate effect.

"Every avenue has been explored but unfortunately no help was available."

Dad Robert Thomas, whose five-year-old daughter, Luca-Rose, has been attending the nursery for three years, said: "I felt really bad for the staff who were oblivious to the situation and have not been paid for all their efforts. All of them are great with the kids.

"But they obviously hadn't been told anything about what had happened and were just left to cope with the fallout. The thing is we've paid our fees up front. I can't see us getting anything back though."

And Karen Robinson, mum of two-year-old twins said: "There was no indication there were any problems with the nursery. We haven't been told anything, only the little information the staff knew.

"I'm a teacher so was a little panic-stricken about what we would do next week but luckily we've managed to get them into the Little Explorers nursery across the road. Others might not be so lucky though."

A Dorset County Council spokesman said the council had received an email from the nursery confirming it had closed.

The spokesman said: "We would advise that if any parents are having difficulty finding nursery places for their children they should contact the Dorset Family Information Service and we can help them find a place. Nobody should find themselves without a place."

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Parents lost their fight to stop six being turned into three at a stormy meeting of Falkirk Council's education committee.

It voted by eight to four to close Glenfair Nursery in Camelon, Woodburn Day Nursery in Falkirk and Grangemouth Day Nursery