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Baroness Cathy Ashton, minister for Sure Start, early years and child care, has called for local authorities to become more involved with shaping child care services locally.

Ashton told the Daycare Trust's annual conference last week that councils must play a bigger part in developing local partnerships around child care, Sure Start and early years development initiatives.

She said: "We need to look at how we make sure local government plays its role - local service partnerships can't do that without child care and Sure Start being included."


Her statement follows last week's publication of the government's cross-departmental review of child care services, which outlines plans for councils to take ownership of the flagship Sure Start programme, with council chief executives assuming strategic responsibility (news, page 10, 14 November).

Matthew Taylor, director of think-tank the Institute of Public Policy Research, supported the call for more council involvement in child care. He said: "We need local authorities to provide a strategic oversight - not to run our own things, but to have that strategic capacity for all forms of child care."

Stephen Burke, director of the Daycare Trust, reiterated concerns that if the government did not improve child care workers' pay and training a possible recruitment crisis could result and scupper plans to establish new children's centres.


Some child care workers are paid only £9,000 a year.

"Many staff are paid barely above the minimum wage and that is not going to attract or retain staff. We need long-term government investment in terms of subsidising places," Burke said.

But Ashton said she had no magic wand to make that happen. "We need to look at bringing in people from outside that haven't worked in the field before," she said.