Nursery World - Councils 'must act as partners' (1)

Government funding should be withheld from local authorities that don't work in partnership with the voluntary sector, the Pre-School Learning Alliance told Nursery World last week.

Speaking after a conference to launch the next phase of its campaign, 'Changing lives, changing life', Judith Thompson, chair of the Trustees at the Alliance, said, 'Unless the Government takes control and shows that it means business about involving the voluntary sector and other stakeholders, the wonderful vision of childcare is not going to happen'.

She added that a 'tough stance' is needed to ensure that the vision of universal childcare is not jeopardised by the way it is implemented at local level. She suggested putting 'criteria around what good partnership working means into the comprehensive performance assessment for local authorities and only releasing money for services for young children where those partnership arrangements are sufficiently robust'.

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