Being awarded Beacon council status for our early years service has been a mixed blessing. It is good to be recognised for the progress made in Newham over the past few years in creating the infrastructure for delivery. But it has also led to some people expecting answers to more difficult questions that swirl around early years policy. The principal question is finance.
How can we deliver this entire agenda when funding streams still have great holes in them in two years' time? How we can we employ people to implement Government legislation when we don't know what money will be available in the future?
But the talk of continuous change is a consequence of democracy.
Governments always want to be seen to do things. This doing will be particularly convenient if the change can take place within a four-year election cycle. Action and change are more popular refrains at the ballot box than stability and bedding down.
In my experience, finance has always been uncertain from year to year.
Councils wait with bated breath for the vagaries of the local government settlement to churn out its figures as to what monies are available and therefore what services can be provided.
There were obvious efforts to get a stability of funding with the Sure Start programmes and the three-year spending reviews. But still there are projected shortfalls in our early years budget for the medium term.
The answer could be to throw up our hands, or wait for a new government to give us what we want. I believe that would be a mistake - the future is always uncertain.
The present funding by government has been substantial, which means we have resources to start to make a real change in children's lives in our local areas. To have faith and to risk change is what is needed. But perhaps I am now straying into theology rather than early years policy!
