Councillors back action plan to tackle childcare decline

Alec Doyle, Local Democracy Reporter

Childcare options for working parents in a north Wales county are falling as a result of underfunding and an increased training burden, according the council’s Children’s Services Team.

The latest Childcare Sufficiency Assessment report and action plan presented to Wrexham County Borough Council’s Safeguarding, Communities and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee shows a 13% reduction in childcare settings registered with the Care Inspectorate Wales.

There are currently 140 childcare settings available to parents across the county borough.

That covers everything from full daycare settings – which have actually increased – to out of school care, childminders. sessional daycare and open access play.

But the council is facing recruitment challenges linked to a lack of funding and increased training burden.

A survey by Children’s Services only secured responses from 15 settings, but recruiting qualified staff was the most common challenge expressed.

One setting has been advertising a vacancy for over a year without finding a suitable candidate while others barely had enough staff to cover their carer-child ratio – meaning if a member of staff was off sick children’s places that day had to be cancelled.

Over the last 12 months 15% of childcare staff in the county borough have left the profession with 36% of those vacancies still unfilled.

If the overall drop in capacity for childcare provision continues, it could have an impact on the wider local economy according to officers from the Children’s Services team.

It could also threaten Wrexham’s statutory ability to meet the population’s childcare needs.

Becky Roberts, Childcare Team Assistant Manager said: “The childcare sector are our unsung heroes. They really are our foundation.

“If we didn’t have a suitable, high quality childcare market there’s a significant number of individuals that would not be able to work because their children would not be cared for.”

Uncertainty 

Rhian Thomas, Senior Head of Children’s Services at Wrexham Council, supported her colleagues assessment.

“We’re really proud of the work of the council and the childcare team to try and stabilise at a time of real uncertainty,” she said.

“Since Covid in 2020 the market has become more destabilised – that’s presented some real challenges that the action plan clearly identifies.

“In addition we’ve seen a number of initiatives from Welsh Government in a bid to professionalise childcare – to increase the level of training and requirements – which has actually had a detrimental impact on recruitment and retention in that area.

“As well as the pay, because it doesn’t pay significantly well – childcare generally brought in more individuals who weren’t academically inclined. It was a really good way to get into a profession and develop and train on-site.

“It really worked well in that professional arena to provide an alternative job route for many.

“The team advocate extremely well with Welsh Government to try and protect the profession as much as possible – unfortunately as we’ve seen more and more training requirements become professionalised that’s deterred individuals.

“Childcare providers are also working at a significant loss based on their Welsh Government funding, which is another reason we lobby for additional funding streams to meet the sector’s requirements.

“The pressures we are seeing over recent years haven’t changed significantly, and we are stabilising the market as best we can.”

Flexible and accessible 

The action plan presented by the Children’s Services team focuses on making childcare more flexible and accessible, particularly where parents report reduced availability, deploying the expansion to Welsh Government’s Flying Start programme to support parents on low incomes, ensure welsh medium childcare provision is proportionate to demand and improve welsh-language recruitment alongside increasing recruitment overall and monitoring the sector to ensure it is  sustainable.

It includes a continuation of officers’ efforts to lobby Welsh Government for better funding to help stem the decline in childcare provision.

Childcare costs in Wrexham are lower than the Welsh average – the average cost for 50 hours of nursery care a week in Wrexham is £248.41 compared to the Welsh average of £279.14.

If Welsh Government resists an improved funding framework however those costs could potentially rise, putting pressure on working families.

“We need to continue to advocate for childcare workers,” said Ms Roberts. “They’re providing first steps into education, they are often the early identifiers if there is additional learning needs or additional support that children require.

“They provide respite care for some of our most vulnerable children. They provide a full holistic package of support but they are not funded to provide a wage that would equal the likes of someone working in a retail environment for example.

“That’s not to dismiss those working in retail, I’m just using it as a benchmark.

“The workload is the same as our teachers in school settings. They provide early education, they provide those Flying Start-funded childcare places so in terms of the workload, the training, the documentation they have to provide it’s at that level but the funding doesn’t equate.”

The committee supported the action plan and requested a further update on progress in 12 months.