A survey of the 16,000 pre-schools affiliated to the Alliance found that more than eight in ten (82.5 per cent) do not own their own premises and almost three-quarters (72.6 per cent) are not the sole user of their pre-school rooms and have to share facilities. Although a quarter of pre-schools have expanded their provision over the past 12 months, 84.7 per cent currently have a waiting list for places.
The Alliance said many pre-schools were keen to expand but their premises and financial restraints prevented it. Alliance chief executive Margaret Lochrie said, 'If pre-schools are going to increase the length of their working day or widen access to more children, then they need to move into schools where they would have permanent buildings and security of tenure.
'The premises issue needs to be addressed and there also needs to be a capital assistance scheme to free up pre-schools from a reliance on church halls.'
A second survey showed that parents believed that getting more involved with their local pre-schools and playgroups was a key to creating stronger local communities and reducing antisocial behaviour.
In the BMRB survey of 1,325 parents, grandparents and carers carried out for the Alliance, 95 per cent said they thought stronger communities could be created by greater parental involvement in their children's childcare, while 86 per cent believed this would help prevent anti-social behaviour such as drug-taking and crime in later years.
Mrs Lochrie said, 'If you can get parents involved as stakeholders of their children's daycare, it will help them to learn how to manage their behaviour and how to be parents. Our charter we launched six months ago argues that parental involvement should be across all provision. The BMRB poll shows this is what parents want.
'Pre-schools help to empower parents living in disadvantaged communities and enable them to discover their skills, especially if their own experience of education and school was a bad one.'
She said parental involvement should be a vital element in the Government's early years policy and there were also implications for the Welfare to Work programme and the New Deal for lone parents. 'By providing for pre-schools and ensuring their continuing success we are not merely suggesting a short-term fix for individual families or communities, but offering a long-term solution to the current national crisis in education and crime.'
