Published in 2004, the Ten-Year Childcare Strategy set out the Government's policy programme for childcare and early education. Now, despite the economic downturn, these policy areas remain top priorities, and the Government has set out the next phase of reform in Next Steps for Early Learning and Childcare - Building on the Ten-Year Strategy. Here are the main intentions:
FAMILY SUPPORT
To provide greater support for parents, as well as friends and relatives who care, Government will:
- ensure Families Information Services take account of needs of family and friends who care, as well as parents
- ensure Children's Centres and Extended Schools illustrate how their services can support family and friends
- extend the right to request flexible working to mothers and fathers of all children aged 16 and under in April 2009
- assess policies on parental leave, once the European Commission assessment of maternity and paternity leave is complete
- establish Children's Centres on firm legal footing in current Parliamentary session to reinforce their status as a universal service
- establish best current practice in working with families at greatest risk of social exclusion, use these models to draw up training materials and support the training of some 5,000 outreach workers
- provide local authorities with funding to set up a Family Intervention Project
- undertake research to establish the most effective approaches in helping parents enrich their home learning environment.
0-14 CHILDCARE
To improve access to childcare for all who want it, Government will:
- expect all local authorities to publish a sufficiency action plan at the same time as their second sufficiency assessment
- extend the current pilots offering free nursery education to two-year-olds to create a free national offer reaching 15 per cent of the most disadvantaged two-year-olds in every local authority. Reaching some 23,000 children per year and costing around £57m, the scheme will provide ten hours of free care per week in the best-quality settings for 38 weeks per year, but this can be stretched over more weeks if parents wish
- ensure that all parents have the option to stretch the free offer over more than 38 weeks of the year. The entitlement will be converted into an offer of 570 hours (38 weeks x 15 hours) and providers will be advised that parents can access up to this maximum per year
- enable parents to choose whether to take up the free hours on offer when their child is two, or transfer part of them to have more free hours at age three and four (to happen once the free offer to all two-year-olds is in place)
- ask local authorities to include a particular focus on five- to 14-year-olds in their sufficiency action plans so that all families can access regular, reliable and affordable childcare for their school-aged children
- work with a small group of local authorities to devise models of strategic planning
- expect all primary schools to be ensuring that their community has access to childcare by 2010
- run a pilot in 2009-11 to support secondary schools and partners to join up extended services
- encourage more providers of out-of-school activities to register with Ofsted
- explore how schools and partners can help parents access Working Tax Credit support.
QUALITY
Government is considering making it a requirement for:
- all full daycare settings to have a graduate by 2015
- all early years staff to have a full and relevant qualification of at least Level 3 by 2015.
Government will also:
- explore how to attract top graduates into the early years sector, drawing on the lessons learned from the Teach First programme in schools
- work with partners to develop a more joined-up approach to attracting undergraduates during their gap and/or sandwich year
- continue to work with partners to develop the Early Childhood Studies degree courses
- consider whether a representative body for early years workers would add real value to the sector and, if so, how we might encourage the creation of such a body
- aim to create a more consistent continuous professional development framework, which would set out what non-graduate practitioners could expect in terms of accredited training at each stage in their career
- intensify the Every Child a Talker programme by increasing the number of settings with a trained lead practitioner from 20 to 30 per local authority from 2009
- explore creating a role for an 'Advanced Skills' graduate professional in providing specialist support and spreading best practice
- explore how to build on the talents of experienced graduates with advanced skills and support progression for graduates through the existing Graduate Leader Fund
- explore how to formally recognise EYPs' training and experience to help them progress into other roles
- explore how to further encourage settings to continuously improve quality of provision - for example, how providers can tell parents about improvements being made in response to inspection reports. It will help parents demand quality and make informed choices (see below).
INFORMATION
Reliable information is vital to help parents choose childcare and drive the quality of provision. Government will, therefore:
- expect providers to supply their local authority with information on staff qualifications, price, vacancies and opening hours
- start to roll out a single national price comparison website by early 2010
- pilot a 'brokerage package' in five London boroughs through the Childcare Affordability Pilots, to help parents to secure and pay for childcare and to enter and remain in the labour market
- make financial support simpler by producing a Ready Reckoner for parents.
FINANCIAL SUPPORT
To ensure they are not prevented from accessing high-quality childcare, Government will:
- run a pilot in the South East to provide some of the most vulnerable parents with financial support when their childcare costs are incurred, rather than paying them average amounts based on total annual costs (covering up to the existing Working Tax Credit limits). The aim is to test whether this approach makes budgeting easier for parents.
- pilot ways of offering parents intensive forms of guidance to navigate their way through the benefit system. The pilot, involving 500 families in five London boroughs, aims to increase the take-up of childcare and help parents into training and employment.
- test more generous levels of funding support for parents accessing childcare in London. In the first, Government will pay around 500 families in five London boroughs 100 per cent of their childcare costs up to a higher limit through the childcare element of tax credits (£215 per week for one child; £350 per week for two or more children). In the second, families with a disabled child across London will continue to receive 80 per cent of their costs through the tax credits childcare element, but the maximum limits for all eligible low-income families in London with a disabled child will be raised to £215 per week, and for families with a severely disabled child even further to £300 per week.
- look at options for achieving greater coherence, transparency and co-ordination of funding for early years and childcare as part of current review of school funding. A consultation to be published in early 2010 could lead to changes from 2011/12.
- use comparable price and quality information to help local authorities manage their local childcare market
- pilot a model that allows for funding to be conditional on results in a number of London boroughs. Local authorities will receive some funding upfront and the rest after achieving a target, relating to parents taking up subsidised childcare places and returning to work.
- consider ways to clarify and strengthen the sufficiency duty on local authorities to ensure they manage the market to deliver accessible, affordable and high-quality provision, sustainability for providers and efficient use of resources
- explore ways of linking funding for the free entitlement more closely to the contributions that providers make to children's development outcomes
- develop new networking models for childminders to improve professional development and quality of provision
- undertake qualitative analysis of childcare in Children's Centres and PVI settings to get a better understanding of sustainability.
Further information
Next Steps for Early Learning and Childcare - Building on the Ten-Year Strategy is at: www.everychildmatters.gov.uk
