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NAME: Belinda Woolford
SETTING NAME: Little Meadows @ The Willows LTD
BIO: I am the director of Little Meadows Day Nurseries, creche provision and Early Learning Recruitment an agency specialising in early years practitioners.
“Little Meadows is a private nursery based in Milton Keynes and in 2004, became part of the NNI (Neighbourhood Nursery Initiative), a government scheme to offer good quality provision within a disadvantaged area.
“Little Meadows were one of the first NNI nurseries in Milton Keynes and one of the more successful in the country, as many were due to close after the initial funding had run out, leaving them self-sufficient.
“We were initially given a five year lease to provide a service from a purpose built nursery and led to believe that this was a normal duration/term.
“Since the end of our current lease however we have been informed that a new lease was not available and that we had to retender for our nursery. However, we have now been informed that we were unsuccessful and that a new provider has been chosen. Our parents are distraught and angry that they have not been consulted at any point.
“Has anyone else had to re-tender in such a way and if so what was the outcome?”
Can you offer Belinda any advice? Join the discussion and share your experiences by leaving your comments below!
I would say that, if you are successful with a tender, the LA should grant at least a 5 year (prefereably 10) lease in order that the provider has time to recoup their investment. I doubt that the large childcare companies would accept less!
I do not believe that the re-tendering proccess should take place within that timescale unless there are serious problems (such as loss of registration or financial irregularities) during the contract period
Whilst parent opinion of the quality of care provided is important, and could be considered, I don’t think that this should be a major issue in the tendering proccess as, presumably, the parents and their children will transfer to the new owners fairly smoothly. The fact that the previous ‘owners’ have lost out is very unfortunate but that’s life in the business world and, as such, tendering for a business opportunity should not be seen as a ‘personal issue’ by either the setting owners or the families, as it is a business after all, and the LA have a legal duty to accept what they determine is the best offer which they feel is in the best interests of both themselves and the families?
On a personal note, about 5 years ago our LA gave me ‘permission’ to build (at my own cost) and run a pre-school facility in the grounds of a local I/J school after the building that we occupied in the school grounds was condemmed. We had several, very positive, meetings at our Town Hall, during which the school and the LA (including representatives from Early years and thei LA legal advisor) approved my business plan, building plans etc – and the school, who wanted me to remain there, identified a piece of unused land that we would build on.
At the 11th hour, the LA, who had previously allowed other private groups to do this without tendering, decided that it would have to go out to tender to give other groups / individuals the chance to apply.
The School decided that if I, who had been very successfully running their ‘very affordable preschool’ for over 20 years, albeit privately, could not be guaranteed the right to fund and run a superb new facility which would have included after school, holiday and breakfast care, then they would allow no-one else to and the idea was scrapped.
As a result there has been a shortage of preschool places in the immediate area since then, and any plans that the school have submitted since for a Nursery dept have been rejected due to ‘lack of funding’ by the LA
My point in mentioning this is that I had no choice but to accept the decision and the fact that I, and the school, had been ‘completely screwed’ by the LA – as I said before, that’s life in business, there was nothing that I, the headteacher or the school governors could do about it, legally, even though we had previous documentation from the LA which appeared to give us their permission as they had been very careful not to sign anything until the deal was completed!
I am so sorry to hear you were unsuccessful with your tender for your childcare provision. I have had to go through the tender process twice in the last year or so for two different early years provisions that we run. Whilst we were successful on both counts, I will be doing this again practically every year as we only have 3 year contracts. The pressure and stress on staff is indescribable and in my opinion, the LA does not give any consideration to the impact this system has on the children and families using the service. I believe that if you are in a Children’s Centre and have a lease, you should be able to retain the lease until which time you break the conditions of the lease, for example we have to have an Ofsted outcome of ‘Good or Outstanding’.
I wish your staff well and hope that the transition between providers goes as smooth as possible to minimise the impact on the children, their families and your staff team.