Bid to save Poole nurseries from closure (From Bournemouth Echo)

Bid to save Poole nurseries from closure

8:00am Tuesday 9th February 2010 in

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NURSERIES and pre-schools in Poole threatened by closure are taking their fight to Westminster.

A controversial funding shake-up could see some providers lose thousands of pounds in vital contributions.

More than three-quarters of the town’s pre-schools and nurseries signed a petition expressing dismay at the new funding formula.

It has been picked up by MP Annette Brooke, who said she was “extremely concerned” for the future of pre-school provision in Poole. She has sent the petition to Dawn Primarolo, minister for children, schools and families, urging her to intervene.

Mrs Brooke, who sits on the Commons select committee for children, schools and families, said: “I am picking up real concerns from Poole’s providers.

“The message I am getting is there is a high risk of losing childcare in the borough and that would be a retrograde step,” she said.

Mrs Brooke, MP for Mid-Dorset and North Poole, said “alarm bells” had been ringing at Poole’s approach.

A fall in the base rate of funding from £3.44 per hour per child to £2.74 threatens to push many providers to the brink.

Poole’s “deprivation supplement” also seemed “way out of line” with other councils, said Mrs Brooke.

Despite the apparent resistance, the Poole Schools Forum has backed the new formula and the council is now awaiting approval from the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF).

If it is approved, it will be implemented from April.

There was a choice to defer implementation until next year, the option Poole’s providers had been pushing for.

They said it would allow more time for proper consultation and testing of the formula.

Vicky Wales, the council’s head of children’s services, said the aim of the formula was to raise the quality of early years provision and account for providers’ differing needs.