northlincs.gov.uk

1 (1) CHILDCARE SUFFICIENCY AUDIT – The Director of People submitted a report presenting the Childcare Sufficiency Audit report and seeking approval to publish the report on the council’s website in line with the sufficiency duty.

The Childcare Sufficiency Audit provided the local position on how the council was meeting its duty to secure sufficient childcare under the requirements of the Childcare Act 2006.

Section 6 required councils to secure sufficient childcare, so far as was reasonably practical, for working parents or parents in education or training for employment, for children aged 0-14 years (or to 18 years for disabled children).

Section 7 placed a duty on councils to secure the availability, in each 12 month period, of at least 570 hours of free early education provision over at least 38 weeks for each eligible child aged two, three and four years from the date at which entitlement started until the child reached compulsory school age.

Section 11 of the Childcare Act 2006 originally required councils to prepare a full assessment of the sufficiency of local childcare provision at least every three years; however this was repealed by the Children and Families Act 2014. The last full assessment was therefore completed in August 2014.

The Early Education and Childcare Statutory Guidance implemented from September 2014 required that councils should continue to report annually to elected members on how the duty to secure sufficient childcare was being met locally.  The report should then be made available and accessible to parents. The information in the report therefore referred to the period September 2014 to September 2015.

Resolved – That the Childcare Sufficiency Audit report be approved for publication on the council’s website.

2 (2) OFSTED INSPECTION OUTCOMES FOR SCHOOLS IN NORTH LINCOLNSHIRE – The Director of People submitted a report updating the Cabinet Member on the new Ofsted inspection framework for schools and academies, which came into force on 1 September 2015, and informing the Cabinet Member of the outcomes of the full (Section 5) inspections of Bottesford Junior School.

A new Ofsted framework for schools came into force on 1 September 2015.  The main change from the previous framework was the introduction of short (Section 8) inspections, once every three years, for schools whose overall effectiveness was judged to be good at their last Section 5 inspection.

Resolved – That the Cabinet Member writes to the Head Teacher or Chair of Governors of the schools regarding the outcome of their inspection.