Ms Kelly made her first public address to the early years workforce at a Daycare Trust conference in London. But delegate Melian Mansfield, chair of the London Borough of Haringey EYDCP, said, 'You said in your speech that parents and children should be central to developing new children's centres. But the reality is that the core offer and the requirements of the implementation of children's centres and the general discussions that are going around in most local authorities are not about involving parents ...
but about meeting the core offer, implementing services, timescales and funding problems.'
Ms Mansfield blamed the 'restraints or requirements' that the Department for Education and Skills was putting on local authorities. She added, 'Until we change the focus to involving parents and learn how to meet their needs, we are not going to achieve anything that's beneficial for parents.'
The conference focused on two themes - delivering quality integrated services and engaging parents in children's centres. It discussed the challenges and opportunities involved in the delivery of 3,500 children's centres by 2010.
Carol Pitman, programme manager at Sure Start Weymouth and Portland, raised concerns about the speed at which expansion was taking place. She said, 'It's all moving too fast. I understand the Government is trying to get agencies to work in different ways. But in Dorset and the surrounding areas, the agencies are only just beginning to recognise the importance of children's centres in the Government's ten-year strategy. It feels as if we are being catapulted into this next stage too quickly.'
She also said she felt 'desperate' because she had just heard about the revenue funding for the second wave of children's centres in Dorset - 2m for 2006-2008 to develop 22 children's centres - and did not know how this would affect Sure Start local programme funding.
She said, 'My Sure Start is in its first year of full funding. With the changes, we don't know if we will receive the full funding of 768,000 for the fourth year.'
Ms Kelly said that she was very surprised at the scale of the potential funding gap and that she would look into it.
Mrs Pitman told Nursery World she had received a phone call the next day from Naomi Eisenstadt, director of the Sure Start Unit, informing her that she should get the full funding in the fourth year, but it could not be guaranteed because Dorset is one of 21 pilot local authorities that have Local Area Agreements. This means that none of the money from central Government is ring-fenced and local service providers have to make a strong case to receive their share of it.
At the conference Ms Kelly reaffirmed the Government's commitment to developing children's centres and acknowledged people's concerns in the transitional period. She said, 'It is essential that in moving towards a universal system, local authorities, voluntary organisations and other providers ensure that parents and the wider community remain involved as partners in delivery.'
She said that if Labour wins next week's general election it will be consulting on a new service called Parents Direct, which will build on the existing Childcare Information Service and the advice given in Sure Start Children's Centres to create a one-stop shop offering unified information and advice for parents at local level.
