School age childcare services - regulation review: feasibility study – final options appraisal

9. Model C – New oversight process for organised children’s activities

9.1 Proposal

Model C proposes that a new official oversight process should be developed for certain types of organised children’s activities, whereby they would have to register with an official body and be independently verified. This model would affect services where “care” is not already part of the stated primary purpose, and which are therefore not eligible to register with the Care Inspectorate.

The model would involve introducing oversight at either national or local level. Ways to achieve this could include: local licensing administered by local authorities, mandatory registration with a new oversight body, creation of a new oversight body, new powers for existing organisation(s).

9.2 Key Elements

This model could enable:

• Independent oversight and assurance of some organised children’s activities
• More parity between SACC and some organised children’s activities
• Parents to use UK government childcare tax relief or benefits support for some organised children’s activities

This model would not address:

• Review of qualification requirements for the SACC workforce
• Review of job roles in SACC services
• Promotion of specific SACC sector identity
• Clarity about purpose of SACC

9.3 Discussion

Currently there is no independent oversight of organised children’s activities in Scotland. These services are not eligible to register with the Care Inspectorate as childcare services because they do not have “care” as a primary purpose. This means that the quality standards, qualification requirements and adult-child ratios which are in place for SACC services do not apply to organised children’s activities, and there is no consistent sector-wide mechanism to monitor the quality of these services or even to quantify how many services are operating. It should be noted that this does not include activities and after-school clubs run by schools, which are regulated separately and have their own procedures to follow.

Adopting this model would not bring organised children’s activities within the remit of the Care Inspectorate but would allow consistent minimum standards to be put in place to support the safety and wellbeing of children attending organised activities. It would also enable services which are not operating safely to be identified.

A secondary benefit of introducing a system of independent oversight for children’s activities would be that this could bring these services into the scope of “approved childcare” as defined in UK legislation and make them eligible for tax relief and Universal Credit Childcare support. In Scotland, currently only childcare services registered with the Care Inspectorate are counted as “approved childcare” but HMRC have indicated that there is flexibility in this. For example in England organised children’s activities services can choose to register with Ofsted on a voluntary register and this makes them eligible for tax free childcare support. So it may be possible to set up a system in Scotland to register other types of services which parents and carers use as childcare.

9.4 Conclusion

A new oversight process for organised children’s activities services has the potential to provide greater assurances about the safety and quality of these services, while offering greater choice for families looking to use their benefits entitlement. However, careful design and implementation would be essential to avoid negative impacts on providers, especially smaller services. Striking a balance between safeguarding and accessibility will be key to its success. This model could go some way to supporting families through increasing the types of provision eligible for childcare funding, widening access to activities for children and young people. This supports Scottish Government policy drivers and could provide children and young people with greater choice of activities that take account of their interests, as outlined in the Children’s Charter.

The most challenging aspect of this model will be to agree what the oversight process could look like, which organisation(s) could administer it, how it could operate in practice and what the likely costs would be. This would not fit within Care Inspectorate’s remit, as the services in question have a primary focus of delivering activities for children and young people rather than care. Although we cannot currently quantify the costs, it is clear that setting up an entirely new oversight scheme from scratch is likely to have significant upfront and ongoing costs.

9.5 Next Steps required to develop this model

• Develop the parameters for the types of service to be covered by this model.
• Engage with SGLD to determine what options there would be to set up a new oversight scheme and what legislative changes would be required.
• Engage with SG policy leads to establish what can be learned from previous schemes
• Explore potential costs and benefits of setting up, operating and accessing each type of scheme
• Consult with stakeholders to see who would/could oversee and implement any new oversight process.
• Engage with COSLA and local authorities to gauge appetite for managing this sort of scheme at a local level
• Engage with HMRC and DWP to determine how chosen system, licensing or mandatory register, would enable access for UC/TFC
• Extensive consultation with stakeholders, including a specific focus on rural and island communities