Scottish Government

CHAPTER TWO: SET-UP AND IMPLEMENTATION

Table 2.1: Summary of Key Points

Introduction

2.1 In this section we describe the strategies employed to address the aims of the pilot and outline how each pilot area has approached set up and implementation in terms of:

• the model of delivery
• understanding the pilot aims
• co-operation with local stakeholders
• staffing and workload
• monitoring information
• marketing and referral
• progress to date.

Conceptualising the Pilots: Model Adopted in Each Area

2.2 Aberdeenshire and Fife have responded to the pilot in different ways.

2.3 In developing the approach to respond to the pilot, both areas undertook preliminary work (although varying in scope) to assess:

• gaps in childcare
• local labour market opportunities
• prevalence of lone parents in receipt of benefits.

2.4 As a result of this, each area developed an approach that was tailored to local need.

Fife

2.5 The pilot in Fife was set up later than was the case in Aberdeenshire. In addition to its existing childcare, Fife focused on developing new childcare in areas where there is a high concentration of lone parents.

2.6 Breakfast and After School Clubs were already running. However, it was recognised there was an absence of evening and weekend childcare provision within Fife to suit shift work (retail and call centre) vacancies in the area. As such, Fife focused on developing;

• Extended Hours childcare - from six in the evening until nine at night
• full-day weekend provision.

2.7 In addition, it was recognised there were gaps in provision for the pre-fives and therefore, the development of additional provision was needed.

2.8 All the childcare developed in Fife to support the pilot was registered and, as such, all provision was regulated by the Care Commission.

2.9 Due to the fact that the childcare is registered, lone parents who enter work can access support to fund childcare using the childcare element of the Working Tax Credit. Fife Childcare Partnership also offers a subsidy for the school care provided by the Authority on top of the Childcare Tax Credit.

Aberdeenshire

2.10 Aberdeenshire focused attention on lone parents with children aged over 12, of which there are 229 ⁷ in Aberdeenshire. Childcare was then developed in five areas with the highest concentrations of lone parents in this target group. The remaining funding was used to develop childcare in two further geographical areas, selected because of their rural location, and to strengthen the availability of flexible provision throughout Aberdeenshire.

2.11 In addition to existing provision, the childcare developed, or enhanced, to support pilot activity included:

• breakfast and After School Clubs
• Sitter Services that provide care for children in their own homes
• after-school activities for older children
• holiday activity schemes for older children
• childcare tasters.

2.12 Expanding the range of its registered Sitter Services was a key focus in Aberdeenshire. The Sitter Service was developed to address transport issues associated with such a vast rural area and to provide flexible childcare provision that covers holiday periods and shift work.

2.13 Aberdeenshire also concentrated on developing provision that would be attractive to children aged 12 and over. In order to meet the timescale of the pilot and address issues of cost, the over twelve's provision in Aberdeenshire was not registered.

2.14 As the post 12 provision was not registered, parents were not eligible for the childcare element of the Working Tax Credit. Thus, the provision was subsidised using pilot monies.

2.15 At the time that the Strand One fieldwork was undertaken - January 2006 - some fourteen months into the pilot:

• all provision in Aberdeenshire was up and running
• newly established provision in Fife was still in the embryonic stages. Evening and weekend provision in Fife had just been launched and additional provision for pre-five children was still in the process of being secured.

Understanding of the Pilot Aim

Assisting Lone Parents into Work by Removing the Barrier of Childcare

2.16 Lead staff from the Local Authority and Jobcentre Plus staff understood that the core aim of the pilot was to address barriers related to childcare and help lone parents into work.

2.17 The relative focus given to the childcare element and 'back to work' aspect for lone parents differed across stakeholders at ground level.

2.18 For some stakeholders, the main emphasis was on developing extended or flexible childcare:

"The pilot attempts to provide childcare which is accessible and available out of school hours." Local Authority

"It's about providing childcare to cover gaps in provision for shift workers and to provide odd hours of childcare before school and in the evening." Provider

"It is about encouraging lone parents to take-up the childcare that already exists." Jobcentre Plus Advisor

2.19 For others, the main focus was on encouraging lone parents to enter work:

"The pilot is about testing the assumption that childcare is the main barrier [to employment for lone parents]." Jobcentre Plus

"The pilot's aim is to see lone parents in a 13-week cycle where the youngest child is aged 12 or over, introduce them to childcare provision and suggest they contact the Children's Information Service." Jobcentre Plus Advisor

2.20 It is important that all those involved in the pilot understand its aims, objectives and rationale. This helps to ensure a common sense of purpose regarding what is to be achieved and enables the appropriate 'connections' to be made between different services to facilitate the pilot's operation.

Co-operation with Local Stakeholders

Links with Jobcentre Plus

2.21 In line with the intention that the pilots work in close co-operation with local stakeholders, both areas have developed positive links with Jobcentre Plus, both in conceiving how the pilot should be implemented and throughout ongoing delivery.

2.22 There is some evidence of limited communication between and across the two agencies at the ground level:

• some Jobcentre Plus advisors were not clear whether and where new provision was up and running and thereby had concerns about how far they could discuss new provision developed as part of the pilot to lone parents
• Jobcentre Plus advisors were not consistently requesting that the lone parents they advise complete the postcards ⁸ used to transfer information from Jobcentre Plus to the Executive. This made contact with lone parents, for the purpose of the evaluation, difficult
• some Jobcentre Plus advisors had concerns that the information on childcare available through the Children's Information Service was not up to date
• Local Authority staff had some concerns that Jobcentre Plus staff were not selling the pilot effectively to the lone parents they advised. Jobcentre Plus advisors felt that LA stakeholders underestimated the time needed to build up a relationship with lone parents and breakdown/address their barriers to work
• forms were developed to exchange information across the two agencies but not all staff interviewed were aware of these processes. This could be due to the lack of take-up (childcare or work) or to limitations in (intra-agency) communication.

2.23 Joint working on the ground has not been aided by the fact that there has been a high turnover of staff acting as Childcare Partnership managers in both areas and that Jobcentre Plus has been through an unsettled period due to restructuring and job losses.

Links with Other Sources of Referral

2.24 There is evidence to suggest that pilot areas were developing some links with other agencies as potential wider sources of referral. For example, one area had developed links with Social Services and the other area was intending to use family workers in the future to promote the benefits of formal childcare and encourage take-up. This is by virtue of the fact that family workers have regular contact with families in the target group.

2.25 There is scope to enhance/improve the links with other partners, for example, through outreach work or by liaising with community groups, colleges, family workers, schools or childcare providers to promote wider referral. Local capacity to do this is dependent upon the resource and timescale available.

Links with Childcare Providers

2.26 Each area has developed links with providers in line with their model of implementation.

2.27 Fife developed links with After School Clubs (Local Authority and voluntary/community run provision) to extend after school childcare from the hours of 3pm - 6pm to the hours of 5pm - 9pm. Weekend provision has been established in a community school in one area.

2.28 Provision for pre-fives is also being developed. It was initially envisaged that day care provision for pre-fives would be established in local primary schools. However, as schools did not have the available space to accommodate day care, the Childcare Partnership sought to set up childcare in Local Authority buildings. This proved difficult due to issues of availability (the same room being available consecutively over five days) and health and safety (to meet the standards required by the Childcare Commission).

2.29 However, Fife managed to secure a small community hall to provide some day care for babies and pre-school children. As part of the wider work of the partnership, it is intended that additional provision for pre-school children be developed in the future. The long-term aim is to build new provision for pre-fives within a local primary school.

2.30 Aberdeenshire extended the scope of its Sitter Service and developed links with youth workers to provide after school and holiday activities for children aged 12 and over. The latter includes activities such as 'sports testers' (for example, fencing and abseiling) as well as longer running activities such as a video media project where young people script, write, film and edit a video project.

Staffing and Workload

2.31 Both areas have employed additional staff to support the pilot:

• Fife Childcare Partnership has employed two additional members of staff to co-ordinate pilot activity and establish Extended Hours/weekend provision and provision for children under the age of three. At the time interviews were undertaken, Fife was also in the process of recruiting a 'marketing consultant' to promote childcare to parents
• Aberdeenshire did not appoint a designated co-ordinator for the pilot but shared the co-ordination role across existing members of staff. This was because of internal constraints that meant there was no space to house an additional member of staff. However, Aberdeenshire used pilot monies to create the post of 'Vacancy Information Manager' to implement a vacancy management system to update and monitor the childcare vacancies in the area.

2.32 Clearly, the ability of Local Authority staff to undertake additional work in support of the pilot (to market the pilot and develop innovative approaches to encourage take-up) is limited by the amount of resources available and extent/range of other duties.

2.33 However, contrary to the findings on initial implementation in England ⁹, there is little evidence to suggest that the pilot has had negative implications in terms of additional burdens and workload for Jobcentre Plus staff.

Monitoring Information

2.34 Both areas are collecting the monitoring information required as part of the pilot. However, three key issues emerged in this area:

• accuracy of childcare information - concern was raised regarding the difficulties of reporting childcare information according to the monitoring template. This is because take-up of childcare can differ on a week by week basis depending on the shifting requirements of parents. This makes it difficult to report and thereby assess the number of childcare places created and the extent to which these have been taken up by (target) parents
• recording data on lone parents - limitations in the way information is collected, collated and recorded on the monitoring template means that the data on lone parents taking up/accessing the childcare may not be accurate. Moreover, it is not possible to assess whether the lone parents have moved into employment as a result of taking up childcare provision. This has significant implications in impeding understanding of whether accessing childcare supports the move to employment
• design of MI - the centralised MI did not adequately reflect the delivery of the pilots in Scotland for example, in recording numbers relating to innovative forms of childcare developed.

Marketing and Referral

2.35 Both areas employed a range of strategies to market the pilot and promote referral. This has included:

• school bag drops - by distributing letters/fliers in children's school bags
• fliers/posters - displayed in the jobcentre, schools, supermarkets, doctor's surgeries, shops and call centres
• local press advertising - the Extended Hours and weekend provision in Fife has been advertised in the local press
• media campaign - advertising on local radio and television
• open day/evening - as part of the above, parents in Fife were invited to attend an open day/evening to visit the Extended Hours and weekend provision created
• Childcare Tasters - staff (Local Authority and/or Jobcentre Plus) talk to parents about childcare and encourage them to visit a provider to see what the provision is like
• introduction through Jobcentre Plus advisor - advisors are talking to lone parents about childcare and introducing them to the Children's Information Service as a source of information and advice
• promotion through Children's Information Service - CIS staff are raising awareness of the new childcare places created through the pilot when parents contact the service for information
• promotion through other agencies - such as schools, social work and community services
• word of mouth - from one parent to another
• internal communications - in order to raise awareness of the pilot to those acting as a point of referral i.e. Jobcentre Plus, staff held workshops and presentations for Jobcentre Plus advisors to cascade information on the pilot and raise awareness of where new provision was being developed.

2.36 Several issues emerged with regards to marketing. These include the timing of marketing activity and the extent to which it is targeted at lone parents and partners in receipt of benefits.

Timeliness

2.37 There is evidence that the timing of marketing activity has implications for the extent of its effectiveness. For example:

• in some cases marketing was felt to have been undertaken too early before childcare provision was up and running. For instance, some Jobcentre Plus advisors had been made aware of the pilot in the early stages and as a result, understood that new provision was being developed to meet identified gaps in provision. However, as the pilot progressed they were not aware when new provision was up and running and thereby, whether and when they could 'sell it' to parents
• there was some concern that continuing to market the pilot as it reached its end point (in March 2006) sent the wrong messages to parents. This is because Local Authority staff were unclear whether they would be able to sustain the newly created provision once pilot funding came to an end. It was therefore felt that there was a risk that parents would take-up provision that could not be relied upon to be available once the pilot ended.

Targeting

2.38 In line with the intended remit of the pilot, childcare created is available to all parents and not just lone parents and partners in receipt of benefits. As such, marketing activity was generically focused rather than targeted. However, both areas focused generic distribution of publicity material in areas where there is an identified high concentration of lone parents. As well as potentially over-stimulating demand, the pilot could have attracted parents with children from non-target groups who might ordinarily have secured different types of childcare - a potential deadweight problem.

2.39 Nevertheless, there emerged a tension between developing provision that is available and marketed to all, and targeting the key client groups that the pilots have been designed for. It is not clear whether, and to what extent, the pilot has been marketed to other target groups such as partners of benefit claimants and parents in receipt of Working Tax Credit.

2.40 There is scope to undertake additional/wider marketing activity to promote the availability and affordability of childcare to lone parents and other target groups. One opportunity to do this is via the local Children's Information Service. However, CIS staff interviewed stated that they were not permitted to directly question parents on issues such as employment/parental status. This limited the extent to which the CIS could be used as a route to direct parents to the pilot. If replicated in other areas, this could also have implications in terms of the extent to which the CIS can be used to refer parents to linked initiatives and programmes - such as back to work programmes.

Summary

2.41 Both areas worked hard to identify and address gaps in childcare and have responded to these in different ways in line with local circumstances. Both areas developed innovative responses to provide childcare that was not available before the pilot and that was therefore additional to the childcare offer in place pre-pilot. In this way the pilots were pioneering new approaches to childcare needs.

2.42 It took considerable time and effort to establish new provision and get this up and running. This highlights the need for adequate lead-in time and realistic timescales for set up and implementation.

2.43 It is important that respective organisations involved in the pilot understand its aims and not just the element that relates to their organisational role ( i.e. childcare or work).