The process of integrating children's services in Bradford is gathering pace, with the recent appointment of a children's services director and a rapid expansion of both the extended schools and children's centres programmes.
Head of early years and childcare Robin Naylor believes that the authority is on track towards locality-based delivery of services to children and families with a children's trust, pooled budgets and joint commissioning at the heart of this process.
Kal Nawaz, who heads up the city's ambitious children's centre programme, insists it can be a vital testing ground for the next phase of integrated, joined-up working that joint commissioning implies. She says that there is a determination, particularly among health partners, for the services they provide to children's centres to be included in their mainstream budgets.
She says, 'If we don't want the children's centres to be seen as glorified nurseries, if we really want them to be places that provide a whole raft of services that meet the holistic needs of children and families, then we have got to make sure that we make the best use of these facilities and support our health partners so these services become embedded.'
Social profile
Bradford is the fourth largest metropolitan area in the country, covering both urban and a significant rural area. Nine of its 30 electoral wards rank within the most deprived across the country, 19 are within the 20 per cent most disadvantaged. The district's population includes 20.2 per cent from ethnic minorities, mostly Pakistani but also with smaller Bangladeshi, Sikh and Afro-Caribbean communities.
Progress report
Extended schools
* Of Bradford's 207 schools, 100 are fully engaged with the extended services programme. A further 100 are signed up to the programme, with a handful yet to be engaged.
* Funding: the city has received 686,000 a year for three years, but this ends in April 2008. Schools have development funds and money for personalised learning which can be used for the programme.
* There are 15 clusters, including one shared with North Yorkshire County Council. They cover densely populated urban areas and rural parts, including one comprising 12 schools in the Haworth area.
* 79 parental involvement workers have been appointed to encourage the community to become involved.
* Services include school-age childcare, a range of sporting and arts activities as well as health services. School nurses have developed health plans and pupil surveys to pinpoint possible health issues, such as obesity. One cluster has developed a mentoring programme where primary school children are given ICT training by sixth formers.
* The extended schools programme has also had input into the plans for new school buildings under the Building Schools for the Future programme.
Children's centres
Bradford has 33 children's centres:
* 18 were created in the first phase - 10 of them have been designated and the remaining eight will be soon. The capital allocation was 4.3 million and there was 3.1 million revenue money. All this was on top of Sure Start funding, which could be used because 14 of the centres have evolved out of Sure Start local programmes. (see box for case study).
* Fifteen centres are being launched in the second phase, with capital funding worth 3.9 million and a further 1.6 million from the extended schools budget, where centres are co-located with extended service provision on primary school sites, and a further 10.6 million for revenue for both phases.
* Some of the centres were new build, others involved extensions to existing buildings. Building costs ranged from 80,000 to 1.8 million, with most entailing average costs of 500,000 to 600,000.
* Like the extended schools, the children's centres are clustered, usually with three in a cluster, ensuring that there are no gaps in the 30 per cent most disadvantaged areas they must cover. The programme has a target of reaching 30,600 children.
* Six centres are designated as Children's Centres Plus. They will receive enhanced resources for children with disabilities and complex needs, including additional specialist teachers. There is also a Childminding Network Plus, which ensures that there are sufficient childminders to cater for children with physical access needs.
* At the Barkerend children's centre, a private chain, the Children's Place, runs the nursery. It is involved in an 'advisory panel' which also has representatives from Sure Start Barkerend, the local primary school, the early years service and the local extended school. This body acts as a development group for the 10-year childcare strategy in the area.
Implementing the 10-year childcare strategy
Bradford carried out a childcare census earlier this year, asking all group registered providers, including childminders, to provide information about the children they cared for to determine the characteristics of users and patterns of use. Information about 11,589 children was recorded.
* Between 2004 and 2006 Bradford developed 1,933 new Ofsted-registered childcare places. This brings the total to 10,641 registered places, with 849 registered settings, provided by 103 day nurseries, 57 pre-schools, 41 creches, 75 out-of-school settings and 573 childminders.
* The census found that, on average, 1.13 children used each registered place in a nursery, 1.54 each pre-school place, 1.67 each creche place, 0.83 each out-of-school place for five- to seven-year-olds and 0.93 each childminder place for nought to seven-year-olds.
* The census report concluded: 'These figures are indicative of the part-time nature of childcare use, whereby two or more children can use the same place by attending at different times, and the extent to which childcare businesses have to manage attendance patterns. They also suggest low overall occupancy levels.'
* Average occupancy for nurseries is 62 per cent, for pre-schools 76 per cent, for creches 56 per cent, for out-of-school settings 50 per cent and for childminders 70 per cent. Following the census, out-of-school childcare manager Teresa Littlewood says the authority has shifted towards 'brokering' arrangements between existing childcare providers and schools rather than place creation.
* A separate consultation, based on 15 in-depth interviews and 960 on-street interviews, showed that 37 per cent of parents used some form of childcare, some paid and some unpaid. Those not already using it regarded it as expensive and only four in ten parents knew about the childcare element of the working tax credit
Pilot for two-year-olds
Bradford is one of 15 local authorities to pilot free education for two-year-olds. There are 360 children involved in the pilot in 12 settings, ranging from maintained, private and voluntary providers to children's centres and childminders. Under the scheme each child receives 7.5 hours a week spread over three days for 38 weeks.
Case study: Owlet Children's Centre in Shipley
The centre grew out of a partnership between a local Sure Start programme and a local authority social services family centre. Bringing two well-established teams together proved the biggest challenge, according to Sure Start programme manager Nigel Taylor, who leads the work of the centre.
'Both the Sure Start local programme and the family centre provided family support. But, during team-building sessions, we realised that the two teams complemented, rather than threatened, one another,' he says.
Now the family centre team do the initial family support work, but the Sure Start team ensure continuity of support, so there is 'no sudden stop-off point', Mr Taylor says.
A 36-place nursery, run by the centre's existing staff, opens this month, joining an impressive menu of services including a toy library, physical play sessions run by the early years team and a baby cafe designed for breastfeeding mums. There is also a raft of outreach services, including special efforts to engage with fathers.
With Bradford Primary Care Trust as the centre's accountable body and employing nearly all its staff, there is inevitably an important health aspect to the centre's work. A dietician provides support to mothers weaning their babies and runs cook-and-eat sessions and gives advice on how to eat on a budget. A speech and language therapist does baby signing and drop-in sessions for parents waiting to be seen by mainstream therapists.
With an eye to sustainability and a desire to make full use of existing facilities, the children's centre capital funding was deployed to upgrade facilities at local community centres.
Nigel Taylor says the Sure Start Shipley title has been retained by popular demand and he regrets that, in the transition to a children's centre, his teams are unable to carry out the level of outreach work that they did before, which included running several community creches.
Unlike Sure Start there is no time limit on children's centres, he adds, 'So we know the work can continue and our catchment area has increased. We reach just under 1,400 nought to fives.'
