School Having A Nursery

[Rea]

I've just had an email (I suspect by mistake) from the chair of my old playgroup. She has just been told that the local school are having a nursery in Sept 2007, it is'nt going to be an LEA one, but run by an outside agency with the LEA overseeing. Any light to shone on thisset up. The playgroup is the only provision in the immeadiate area so i would have thought they would/should have been approached as providers to the school first.

[Running Bunny]

Rea,

Part of my role in the LA is to support schools with the extended schools initiative. We have to carry out detailed market research to ascertain demand for the type of proposed provision before we even think about who could provide that service. LA's have a duty not to duplicate existing provision and should work to ensure sustainability of existing providers.

Supposing demand has been indicated, there should have been an expression /of interest/tender/procurement process (depending on LA procedures) where any local providers are approached to see if they wish to 'bid' for the service. THere would then be a short list and interview process to decide on the best application, with detailed business and marketing plans along with sustainaiblity being taken into account.

I can only guess that one of three things has happened:

• the preschool was not contacted about the opoortunity of providing the service
  
• the preschool were approached and have opted out
  
• the school had already chosen who they wanted to work with and in this case the LA cannot force them to go through a tender process
  

Not sure if this clears things up, but may go some way to explaining some possibilities of what has happened.

RB x

[Rea]

Thanks for that, I've printed it off for the committee and myself ready for the meeting woth the head next week