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Information and resources for EYC providers to support with an understanding of business sustainability and health, marketing, and getting it right legally.

PESTLE, SWOT, Customer and Competitor Research

Which of these are our biggest opportunities?

Which of these are our biggest threats?

What steps should we take to deal with them?

PESTLE is a review of what’s happening in the world around you, external factors that you are not able to change but that may affect your business.

Political

  • Government policies
  • Government change
  • Local Authority budgets
  • Laws
  • Brexit

Economic

  • Interest rates
  • Child Benefit
  • Unemployment Benefit
  • House Prices
  • General tax
  • Petrol prices
  • National Living Wage Increases
  • World Health

Societal

  • Lifestyle trends
  • Childcare costs
  • Immigration
  • Lone parents
  • Language barriers
  • Birth rates
  • Retirement age
  • World Health

Technological

  • Broadband access
  • Availability of ICT resources
  • Competency of ICT use
  • Social networking
  • Affordability of ICT resources

Legal

  • Statutory Framework
  • Ofsted
  • Local Authority processes
  • SEN funding
  • EYF funding

Environmental

  • Carbon footprint
  • Waste disposal
  • Consumer buying patterns
  • Planning laws
  • Transport links

A SWOT analysis is a technique for assessing four aspects of your business. It builds on an organisations strengths, reverses its weaknesses, maximises its response to opportunities and is the source of information for short, medium, and long-term planning helps to overcome threats to business and identifies the core competencies of the organisation.

Strengths

  • What do you do well?
  • What do others see as your strengths?

Weaknesses

  • What could you improve?
  • What are others likely to see as your weaknesses?

Opportunities

  • What opportunities are open to you?
  • What trends could you take advantage of?

Threats

  • What threats could harm you?
  • What is your competition doing?

SWOT can be used to analyse all aspects of your childcare business

For example:

  • Finances
  • Business sustainability
  • Staff team performance
  • Staff well being
  • Governance and Leadership
  • Staff recruitment
  • Marketing and branding

Customer Research

  • How many hours of childcare do they want per day?
  • How much do they expect to pay for childcare?
  • Are they aware of the Early Years Funding?
  • How many families in the local area require childcare?
  • What do they think of the service you currently offer?
  • What do they think of services that other childcare providers offer?
  • Identify key features such as income, lifestyle, working patterns
  • Do parents need out-of-school and holiday care?
  • Identify future trends, i.e. birth rate, new housing schemes, and local business development.
  • Are parents aware of Tax Credits?
  • Would parents need any support with finances or other issues in order to be able to access childcare?

Competitor Research

  • How many childcare providers in the local area (within one to three miles )
  • What services, facilities and hours do they offer?
  • What are the fees and pricing strategies?
  • Where do they advertise?
  • How do they market their provision?
  • What is their reputation?
  • What makes them different from you?
  • Are there any new settings opening in the near future?
  • Are there any settings closing in the near future?
  • Would there be an opportunity to combine services?

Business Health Check

RED not met / AMBER partially met / GREEN fully met

Name of Setting:

Date Completed:

Governance

Question

Met/Part met/fully met/NA

Evidence/Actions

RAG

What is your legal structure?

What is your governing document?

When was your last AGM? Are you quorate?

Charity/Companies house nos.

Do Management Committee/Governors/Directors demonstrate their understanding of their roles and responsibilities with regards to the EYFS Statutory Framework (Section 3 Safeguarding & Welfare Requirements)?

Has everyone who makes up the registered provider completed the DBS / EY2 process?

Who is the Nominated Individual (NI)?

Charity Commission/Companies House updated with regards to trustee/director information?

Is your setting compliant with GDPR?

Date of the last audit?

Are you registered with the ICO?

Premises

Question

Met/Part met/not met/NA

Evidence/Actions

RAG

Who owns the premises/land?

* unincorporated charity only

If you own the premises, do you have custodian trustees?

Is a lease/licence/rental agreement in place?

Do you share the premises?

If so do you have a user agreement?

Is the building in good condition?

Who is responsible for the

Maintenance of the building?

If applicable do you have a building maintenance fund? Is this adequate?

Are you able to expand if required?

H&S and Appliance certificates check where applicable.

Gas, PAT tests, Fire risk assessments, and emergency evacuation procedures, Fire extinguishers/alarms tests/smoke detectors/blankets, 1974 Health and safety poster

 

Finance

Question

Met/Part met/fully met/NA

Evidence/Actions

RAG

Does income meet expenditure?

Do you have a reserves/contingency fund?

If so, how much? Is this adequate to cover closure costs?

How many children on role?

Is there a waiting list?

What is your proportion of total staff costs to income (%)? Staff costs ÷ income x 100 should include all staff costs including NI/pension

Fees hourly rate - when were they last increased?

What is your Marketing Strategy?

Do you have robust financial policies and procedures in place, if so, what are they?

Do you have unpaid fees?

Do you have a financial forecast or set annual budgets?

Are accounts independently examined?

Does the treasurer submit a financial report at each committee meeting?

Do you submit your Annual Return to the Charities Commission/Companies House?

Employment

Question

Met/Part met/fully met/NA

Evidence / Actions

RAG

How many staff do you employ?

Do your staff have up-to-date contracts and job descriptions?

   

Explain your safe recruitment practice?

Explain your staff induction procedure?

What is the supervision process in your setting?

How often are individual supervision meetings?

      

Do staff have access to employment policies and procedures?

Do staff have opportunities to undertake regular CPD?

Do you have a record of staff training?

      

Summary of Actions

Summary of Actions

List of actions

By when?

By who?

Date completed

Governance

       

Premises

Finance

Employment

Completed by

Agreed by

Early Years Expansion Checklist

Early years expansion checklist145KB–pdf
Size: 145KBFile format: pdf

Getting it Right

Getting-it-right-from-the-start-toolkit1.22MB–pdf
Size: 1.22MBFile format: pdf
Getting it Right Legally152KB–pdf
Size: 152KBFile format: pdf

CIC Structure Example

Social Enterprise

A business with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally re-invested for that purpose either into the business or the community rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit for shareholders.

Limited by guarantee

Assets locked

Memorandum and Articles

Register with Companies House

No charity registration.

 

Community Interest Company

A simple legal format for a social enterprise which carries out the activities of the group.

 

 

A minimum of one director

Directors take governance role and would make major board decisions.

Plus Members

Support and assist directors.

 

Fundraising committee made up of parents. Can register as a charity or just fundraise on behalf of the CIC.

Day to Day manager (employee).

 

A director can be an employee and receive a salary and is entitled to reasonable director remunerations. Once the CIC has been set up the members and directors can then decide on the best way to run the company. It may be that if a director is an employee then another director takes on the role of HR.

 

 

Staff (employees).

 

Sustainability Tool

Our fully reworked sustainability tool will enable you to:

  • Organise your financial information
  • Test different staffing and occupancy assumptions
  • Predict your income for this year and future years
  • Put the whole financial picture together

The tool has updated minimum wage and holiday pay calculations and will calculate funding automatically based on financial year.

Sustainability-Tool-Apr-2024-25175KB–excel
Size: 175KBFile format: excel

Break-even Calculator

This simple-to-use tool will assist your business in identifying the level of occupancy required to break even.

EYCC Breakeven calculator tool 24-2533KB–excel
Size: 33KBFile format: excel