Issue - meetings

As detailed in the recommendation.

Councillor Jones introduced the 3-4 Year Old Funded Child Care Offer report which provided an update on the free Childcare offer and sought approval to extend the offer to other areas in Flintshire.

The first children took up the offer on 4^th September 2017 with 215 applications having been received.  Flintshire had been successful in automating the application process enabling parents to register on line and self-select registered childcare providers from the registered 134 providers.  The original figure of 441 children would increase to 748 children if approved by Cabinet.

The Chief Officer (Social Services) explained that the first year of the Offer was a pilot and would seek to test and learn from:

·         How accessible and easy it was for parents to access the Offer;

·         How accessible and easy it was for providers to provider the Offer; and

·         How the Offer fitted alongside Flying Start and the Early Years Foundation Phase (Early Entitlement)

Testing the Offer more widely would allow Welsh Government (WG) to learn what worked and what did not in the delivery of the Offer, in readiness for the rollout across the whole of Wales.

The Offer was designed to be inclusive so children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) / Additional Learning Needs (ALN) would be supported to access their place.  Workshops would be held to update providers on the development of the Offer.

RESOLVED:

That the progress made with the implementation of the Childcare offer be noted and that proposed extension of the pilot to all areas within Flintshire be approved.