Children's Services - Advice for Childcare Businesses

The Childcare Strategy Team (CST), part of Children's Services, is based at:

2nd Floor, Laycock Wing
222 Upper Street
London N1 1XR

The team offers the following services:

Business Support

Under Business Support the following services are offered:

• financial, occupancy and position analysis
• bespoke business advice on a range of issues. This can range from where to access up to date information and advice, to signposting to professional advice on specific issues.
• business Plan development – financial / staffing structure / marketing
• grant funding for after school and holiday providers (funding department)
• transition to employment schemes (funding department)
• can provide a business planning toolkit
• specialised advice on childcare and Government funding streams
• signposting to other relevant agencies
• offer general advice and guidance on borough issues, such as existing provision and local forums for information and networking
  

Marketing Support

Zoe Best is our part-time Marketing Officer. Zoe works with groups who want to look at ways of promoting, publicising and developing their existing service. She can advise on the creation of marketing materials and advises on when and where to advertise.

Zoe also produces a fundraising guidance specifically for childcare providers and will signpost where appropriate. The service will look over applications, but does not write bids on behalf of clients.

Any existing or potential provider is able to contact the team and talk through their ideas.

Contact

Ronan Fox, Business Support Manager
Email ronan.fox@islington.gov.uk
Tel 020 7527 8612
Mobile 07826 904 460

Zoe Best (Tues, Thursday and Friday AM), Business Support Marketing Officer
Email zoe.best@islington.gov.uk
Tel 020 7527 4029
Mobile 07826 904 461

As well as the above the Childcare Strategy Team provides the following services to help you develop your project through to Ofsted registration:

Helen Raine, Childcare Development Officer
Amanda Joy, Early Years Monitoring Officer

Both officers are your main point of contact about all aspects of developing a new day-care service. They offer the following services:

• give advice about whether registration with Ofsted is needed, the process of registering with Ofsted, discussion of specific Ofsted standards and assess whether premises are likely to be suitable.
• advise about other officers who can give more specific advice (for example, health and safety, fire safety, and food safety legislation)
• tell you about other organisations and publications that could be helpful
• advise on whether you are ready to make your application to Ofsted
• help you assess whether your project is ready for the Ofsted registration visit

For more information you can also visit one of the sites under Useful Websites, on the right hand side of this page.