Editor's view

Two weeks after the election it is still early days to see what Labour intends to do about the early years in its second term of office. Its first four years saw a record number of early years initiatives and consultations, from the creation of Early Years Development and Childcare Partnerships in England and the Sure Start initiative to assist families with young children in poor parts of the UK, as well as - and perhaps most controversially - the first-ever NationalStandards for Under-Eights Daycare and Childminding in England. Scotland has just published for consultation its national standards and Wales is to follow suit in the next few weeks. What is certain is that there needs to be a period of consolidation to allow everyone to catch their breath and enable the initiatives to bed down. It will be interesting to see how the sector fares now the Department for Education and Employment has been split into the Department for Education and Skills (DES) and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Initial noises suggest Labour seems more interested in tackling secondary education than the early years this time round. Let us hope this does not mean the Government feels it has finished with the sector. If so, that would be a shame for, to paraphrase Labour's own election slogan, 'The work in the early years must still go on.'