During the ‘Ensuring sustainability in London' session at the 2008 Daycare Trust Annual Conference the following key points were made by speakers:

Denise Burke, Head of Childcare, LDA

• Rent increases - for LA owned premised
• Announcement of CAP09 shortly
• There are fewer business support officers in LA early years teams, resulting in too many providers not realising they are in financial difficulty until too late; providers need to rethink business practice to employ staff more flexibly to meet customer parent demand.
• Working with Capacity on social enterprise
• It is a long journey from worklessness to employment - childcare advisers are expensive, but there is a good payback in terms of benefits saved

Cllr Shireen Ritchie, London Councils

• The rent and rates issue is significant
• Lots of PVI providers are struggling
• Families are confused about what is available - better links to FISs needed
• Need to simplify Tax Credits
• Involve Lead Members in discussions - London Councils can help with this

Richard Barnes, Deputy Mayor of London

• The Mayor's office has total commitment to the programme (CAP)
• Important for alleviating poverty
• Need to get more strategic and bring key people together
• Does the available childcare meet families' needs? - what about shift patterns
• Families need to have confidence that the provision is sustainable
• Is the childcare element of Working Tax Credit accessible? Is it a real ladder out of poverty?
• CAP has helped 8,500 families and helped us to understand more about the barriers to employment.
• Congratulated Ealing on being the first LB to join the Living Wage pledge

Graham Archer, Deputy Director on Childcare, DCSF

• National programmes need to be fully exploited e.g. free entitlement, working tax credit, free places for two year olds, single funding formula
• London includes some of the best and worst practice re take-up
• We need to explain the benefits of childcare to parents better and support available to them.

Some of these points were made in response to the following comments from the floor:

• We don't hear enough about childcare for primary school children and the outcomes for them
• We support childcare settings on sustainability/business planning, but what levers do we have on quality
• LAs do things differently; we don't even have a common language across different agencies