Provider Support Framework
The Provider Support Framework (PSF) identifies services available to early years and childcare settings in Nottingham from the Local Authority's (LA) Early Years Team.
Where settings are in receipt of Nursery Education Funding for 2, 3 & 4 year olds, the LA has a duty to secure quality funded places in good and outstanding settings (2 year olds) and requires improvement, good and outstanding (3 & 4 year olds).
If a setting falls below this quality standard, the LA has a responsibility to intervene and either take steps to remove funding (if there is a safeguarding risk to children in the setting) or closely monitor the settings progress back to the required standard. Similarly, if a setting falls into financial crisis (risk of closure) the LA would intervene as part of the childcare sufficiency duty by providing business support and advice.
The Early Years Team:
- Provide advice, challenge and intervention to 'lower' quality settings in order to support the development of their Early Years provision.
- Offer support processes for 'higher' quality settings, newly registered and/or those in the process of registering with Ofsted to ensure advice, challenge and targeted intervention is available where needed to assist all settings to gain, retain or improve their Ofsted grade.
- Offer a variety of approaches, for example, on-site support visit, Microsoft Teams meeting or telephone contact.
The processes below identify the support available to providers in each PSF category and illustrate clearly where this support is free or at cost to the provider:
- Overarching structure chart
- Process for Pathways
- Process for Newly Registered
- Process for Good/Outstanding
- Process for Requires Improvement/Inadequate
- Process for Suspension
- Process for Notice Of Intention/Notice Of Decision
- Process for Emergency Cancellation Order
- Process for Closure of Childcare Setting
