Provider Support Framework

Nottingham City Council has a duty to secure quality funded places in good and outstanding settings for eligible, disadvantaged 2-year-olds and fund places for children eligible for the universal or working parent entitlements, 9 months to 23 months, 2,3 and 4 year olds, at any provider judged ‘requires improvement’ or better by Ofsted. 

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: