Consultation Hub

Parents for their views and experiences to help shape the operation and delivery of the extended free childcare. West Sussex County Council will introduce the 30 hours of extended free childcare for working parents of eligible 3 and 4 year olds from September 2017.

• 88% said they ‘definitely would’, ‘very likely’ or ‘fairly likely’ use the additional hours.

• 45% would split their funding over more than one provider if their current provider can only deliver 15 hours.

• 46% would switch provider in order to use the full 30 hours.

• For parents who do not use any childcare – 25% would consider using formal childcare such as a nursery, pre-school or a childminder for their child if they could use 30 free hours of childcare.

• For parents currently in work, 56% would increase their work hours or look for another job if able to use the additional 15 free hours of childcare.

• 20% who are currently not working would look for work to become eligible for the additional 15 hours.

• For parents with another child 39% would start using formal childcare or increase the childcare used for other children.

We shared the findings of this parent survey with West Sussex Early Years childcare providers who will be planning to deliver the extended free childcare. The implications from this survey are being considered against current sufficiency of childcare mapping and capital requirement assessments.

You can access the full summary report in the results section above.

We asked whether you supported specific elements of our Draft Walking and Cycling Strategy 2016-2026. 388 responses were received, including 27 from organisations such as walking groups, cycling groups, and parish councils. 

92.5% supported the strategy objectives
81.2% supported our approach to infrastructure design and safety
82.2% supported our behavioural change activities (e.g. cycle training, promotion of sustainable travel)
74.5% supported our approach to identifying potential infrastructure improvements
74.2% supported our proposed action plan
42.3% told us they thought something was missing from the strategy

Several respondents provided helpful comments or expressed concerns. These covered a wide range of topics and are summarised in the consultation report above.

The draft strategy has been updated in response to your comments. Amendments include:
• Clearly stating that any new infrastructure installed will be designed to cater for all non-motorised users, including wheelchair users, the elderly, people with mobility impairments, mobility scooter users, trike users, and cycles with trailers.
• Clarifying that all objectives have equal status (numbering does not reflect their importance).
• Making Objective 4 clearer, to illustrate how walking and cycling support economic development
• Linking with public transport
• Stating that we are also developing an asset management strategy that will ensure that roads, pavements and cycleways are safe and available for use and repaired at the most economically advantageous time
• Removed some of the superfluous technical information in Chapter 5
• Removed duplicate schemes from the list in the appendix. We have also changed the term ‘Rate No.’ to ‘Scheme ID’ as a number of respondents thought the ‘Rate No.’ reflected the scheme’s priority ranking.
• Providing examples of recent behavioural change initiatives and their results as an additional appendix to the strategy
• Providing information about segmentation tools that will help to inform funding bids as an additional appendix to the strategy

The next steps: The draft strategy was presented to the Environmental and Community Services Select Committee on Friday 8th July. Members agreed their support for the strategy and to recommend it for adoption by the Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport. Cabinet Member decision will follow in due course.

We asked for views on the current and future provision of Adult & Community Learning in West Sussex, in order to help inform what type of Adult Education service we will provide in the future. We asked for information around the reasons why people undertook Adult Learning, what courses they would be interested in studying, and what they hoped to get out of it. We also asked for personal information around age, gender, religion etc.

576 responses were received.

The main reasons respondents stated for taking part in Adult Education are to learn something new, meet new people, and improve health & wellbeing.

Types of course that the majority of users would like to see include Arts & Crafts, Languages, and Computers.

The most significant barriers to attending Adult Education courses are courses not available nearby, courses not suiting needs, job commitments, and cost of courses.

45% of respondents are prepared to travel upto 5 miles to attend a course, with a further 38% prepared to travel up to 10 miles. Only 5% of respondents are prepared to travel 16 miles or further.

The information provided as part of this survey will help inform the future provision of Adult Education.  It will be passed on to Aspire, as the current provider of Adult Education, in order to inform their future curriculum and course planning