Analysis: Out of school clubs tread carefully in a fragile market

If you are running an out-of-school club, the recent Childcare and Early Years Providers Survey produced by the DCSF and Ofsted's latest review of the early years sector may have made gloomy reading. While the survey showed that the number of places in after-school clubs remained stable, the proportion of providers making a loss had risen to 24 per cent in 2007, from 17 per cent in 2006.

Ofsted revealed that only 47 per cent of out-of-school settings were recorded as either good or satisfactory. The inspectors' report stated, 'Concerns about out-of-school schemes include inadequate checking of staff suitability, lack of well-qualified and experienced leaders, and insufficient staff levels to meet the needs of young children when older ones are present.'

Jackie Nunns, director of Kids City, which runs a string of out-of-school clubs in south London, challenges the inspectors' ratings. 'The debate we have been having in the sector is, why isn't satisfactory good enough, why are we devaluing it? If you fall below good in one category you get judged to be satisfactory,' she says.

She insists that providers are hindered from achieving higher gradings because 'for many of us it's almost impossible as we are working in Victorian buildings which we don't own and have no control over, and we work in difficult communities'.

She argues that out-of-school provision broadly does 'fantastically well on the things we think are important', while inconsistent approaches by Ofsted inspectors towards record-keeping frequently mean a setting is downgraded. Summing up the exasperation felt by many in the sector, she declares: 'We are toying with doing our own Ofsted on Ofsted and giving them an unsatisfactory!'

Geethika Jayatilaka, deputy chief executive at 4Children, says the charity believes there is 'much in the Ofsted report to be positive about'. But she emphasises that the criticisms of staffing in out-of-school provision should prompt the Government to invest in the workforce caring for older children, as it has done for early years staff.

In Leeds Sure Start, partnership manager Anne Kearsley says the local authority has had 'a big worry about quality' and has designated a childcare support team member to work with the out-of-school sector in the city to improve Ofsted results and get settings to undertake the council's quality assurance scheme.

She says it's the first time such an appointment has been made, as the childcare team has always worked on a generic geographical basis. She accepts that quality may have been compromised by the speed with which clubs were set up in the early stages of the drive to expand the out-of-school sector.

Sustainable market

Whenever out-of-school provision comes under the microscope, the S word - sustainability - inevitably features. Jackie Nunns makes no bones about the fact that Kids City, which suddenly lost four of its branches and saw numbers 'plummeting through extended services in schools', is among those organisations making a loss.

She explains, 'We have definitely made a loss because of sudden and unfair competition, and we have drawn on our reserves two years in a row. Fortunately, though, we have diversified as a company.'

For Geethika Jayatilaka the development of extended services in and around schools should be an 'opportunity to develop a more sustainable market around out-of-school provision'. Where that is not happening, government - both national and local - have a responsibility to raise awareness of those opportunities and offer more business support.

But Jackie Nunns feels the way the extended schools agenda has been rolled out has actually put up a barrier to engagement with the private and voluntary sector. 'Many schools out there are not sure how they should proceed, and there are organisations like ours to help them. But there is no formal mechanism for us to get together. Before extended services we would have happily met and got on with it, but now there is this extra layer of bureaucracy to engage with, which has the effect in practice of keeping us apart.'

Ellen Jones, a commissioning and partnership manager and extended schools remodelling adviser in Brighton and Hove Council, says that while nearly all the schools in the city delivering breakfast clubs do it themselves, that is not the case with after-school provision, where only three schools are providers.

A private company, Class of Their Own, and a range of voluntary providers form the backbone of Brighton's after-school provision. She says that while it can be a fragile market, providers work closely with parents and the local authority to ensure there are subsidised places for poorer families.

She says the council conducts ongoing surveys of families to make sure that any provision is based on need. 'Recently we found at two schools that there were only eight parents wanting after-school care, so we knew immediately that this was not enough to sustain a service. But we will look at the needs of those families and help meet them, which may be at another after-school club or through childminders.'

Business model

The Moulescombe Neighbourhood Trust, a voluntary sector organisation in a deprived part of Brighton, used to just provide respite care for needy families at very low cost. But manager Janine Enefer says that it was forced to adopt a 'more business-like model' and cast its net wider to more schools and more working parents able to pay for after-school sessions.

Despite a contribution of £7,000 from the council, she says, 'it's always a battle - we are always having to fundraise'. She adds, 'But we shouldn't have to be struggling for money, because that takes up an inordinate amount of our time filling out forms and following the progress of funding applications. If the Government wants out-of-school care to be compulsory, then they should pay for it.'

The trust received New Deal for Communities funding, but that has now run out. Ms Enefer says, 'What we find is that our cash flow is very difficult to predict because of the fluctuating numbers. From September to March it is quite difficult, and we are ending up with a deficit at the end of the year because of the drop-off during that period.'

The DCSF survey showed that 44 per cent of after-school places are delivered by the private sector, 24 per cent by the voluntary sector and 33 per cent through the maintained sector.

Anne Kearsley says that in Leeds there are no local authority-run out-of-school clubs. She says candidly, 'We know we were not good at it and that we are far better at under-fives and that the PVI sector, particularly the voluntary sector, is much better.'

Ms Kearsley has a blunt blueprint for achieving sustainability in the sector. 'You need effective business planning right from the beginning. Never mind the sufficiency duty, only open places where there is a proven demand for them. Never open when there are 16 children or less.'

In Leeds, the Sure Start out-of-school panel, which decides on funding applications, has often given providers 'more money than they were asking for, because we assess their business plan according to what we know to be the reality of the situation', she adds.

Many out-of-school providers wish the Government would similarly make a realistic assessment of their business pressures and offer them more financial support to meet the sustainability and staff training challenges of the future.

Case study: Sawley Before- and After-School club in Derby

When Derby parent David Rattray could not find after school-care for his children, he turned to former pre-school workers Surinder Bhogal and Lisa Francis and urged them to set up a club.

The two friends, who had recently returned from travelling the world together, took up the challenge a year ago, and the Sawley Before- and After-school Club opened its doors.

Surinder says, 'It's been hard, but it's paying off now. We are full in September and we have recently received £10,000 of Awards for All lottery funding.'

The club runs a range of activities, including arts and crafts, sports, drama and cooking, as well as staging a session devoted to culture, games and the community.

Other clubs have also been housed in the local community centre and failed. Surinder says, 'Parents may have been thinking when we opened, "oh, here we go again" and may have been a bit apprehensive. But we have shown that we are here to stay.'