This is a crucial time for the development of the early years workforce. The Government's National Childcare Strategy seeks a massive expansion in childcare places, but if quality is to improve as well as quantity, the sector needs more qualified staff. Yet at this critical point, the organisation responsible for overseeing the development of the workforce across the United Kingdom, the Early Years National Training Organisation (EYNTO), has been summarily disbanded and it is far from clear what, if anything, is to take its place.
The Department for Education and Skills abolished all 73 NTOs at the end of March and will replace them with a smaller number of larger, more effective, better-funded Sector Skills Councils (SSCs). The Council for Awards in Childcare and Education (CACHE), which was a parent body to the EYNTO, put in a bid for SSC trailblazer status. But this was rejected in December 2001 -unsurprisingly, perhaps, given that SSCs are meant to be employer-led and CACHE is an awarding body.
CACHE chief executive Richard Dorrance told a meeting organised by the National Day Nurseries Assocation last week in London to discuss the way forward that CACHE had submitted a bid on behalf of the sector 'partly to test the water'. He also expressed the view that since CACHE was involved on the supply side, rather than the demand side as an employer-led bid would be, the DfES had been right to reject it.
After the DfES closed down the NTOs, it awarded the early years sector some funding to commission a study looking at its options. The result, Towards a Sector Skills Council - A Feasibility Study for the Early Years Sector, by Elaine Sauv, was made available at the meeting last week.
The Early Years NTO had its detractors, but the report acknowledges its achievements, commenting, 'It is clear that in its short lifetime the EYNTO has achieved a great deal to identify learning and development needs for workers in early years settings and to enhance access to learning and qualifications and career progression in the sector.'
It goes on to explore the sector's options, though it does not and was not intended to make any specific recommendations. If the early years sector is to continue to have a strategic voice within the new SSC framework, it must either submit a bid to become an SSC in its own right, or form a partnership with another organisation.
Teaming up
The report suggests three possible SSC partners, each of which was represented at the meeting in London: SPRITO, the former NTO for sports, recreation and allied occupations, including playwork, is to submit a bid to become the SSC for active leisure and learning; PAULO, previously the NTO for community education and youth work, will seek to become the SSC for lifelong learning; TOPSS, the NTO for personal and social care.
Each of the three is keen to have the early years on board, since this would significantly strengthen its hand. However, it was clear at last week's meeting that there are differences of opinion within the sector on what is desirable, or even possible - and there is also concern that partnership with another organisation could affect the hard-won integration of early years care and education, with repercussions for years to come.
Any potential partner will need to show how it can protect and respect the unique nature of early years, guarding against dominating the sector with its own interests and ensuring that it does not become fragmented.
There is no mechanism in place for the early years to decide collectively on a way forward - as NDNA chief executive Rosemary Murphy pointed out at the meeting, the best mechanism would have been the EYNTO, and that no longer exists.
During the meeting it was suggested that sector representatives needed to form a steering group and hold another meeting specifically for the early years, without potential partners present, to mull over the options presented in the report.
The report explains that the early years sector will have to address three key issues if it is to bid successfully for its own SSC:
* Is its workforce large enough?
* Is the case for the strategic importance of the sector strong enough?
* Can it generate funding to support the running of the new organisation, in the region of 500,000 to 1m?
The DfES has said that the workforce covered by an SSC should be around one million people, but its early years workforce survey, published in April, puts the size of the early years workforce at 275,000. However, the EYNTO workforce figures, which include nannies and workers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, suggest a workforce of around 750,000 - and this figure does not include classroom assistants, which would make the total significantly higher.
Interestingly, however, Colin Reeve, a business advisor formerly employed by the DfES and now working for the Sector Skills Development Agency, suggested at the London meeting that size might not be the critical factor after all, and drew attention to the other criteria on which bids for SSC status are assessed.
The seven key criteria are:
* An employment base that is of economic or strategic significance
* The direct backing of key employers and employment interests, including small firms in the sector
* Influential employer leadership through board level representation from across the sector and throughout the UK
* Significant financial contributions from the sector to secure its priorities
* Professional staff and expertise to command the respect and wider involvement of employers
* Credibility and capability to influence and co-ordinate action to meet sector skills priorities
* Capacity to operate effectively throughout the UK, taking account of the responsibilities of the devolved administrations, Regional Development Agencies in England and other publicly funded bodies in their sector.
Going it alone
Could the early years make a convincing case for going it alone? Or could the sector gain from a partnership that might make it easier for the workforce to move between different areas of work?
Elaine Sauv 's report clarifies the questions, but as yet there are no answers, only a sense that time is running out. There is also the open question of the direction that Scotland will take, since it has not yet disbanded the national council of NTOs in Scotland.
The DfES has awarded some funding to enable the NTO's key functions to continue from the CACHE offices, such as administering the orientation programme, Making Choices, and running a phone helpline. Yet this will run out in September. What then? Even if the early years NTO entered into a partnership, the bid would then have to be developed and might be turned down after another six months. In theory, an organisation called the Sector Skills Development Agency is responsible for plugging any gaps - but it can't help the early years sector decide what it wants.
There is much to play for. A representative of the DfES early years and childcare unit told the meeting in London that the unit wanted to see all early years and childcare workers covered together, with an independent voice if within a larger SSC, and with formal links to other SSCs. He admitted that even the DfES 'got lost' within the myriad national occupational standards for people working with children in different fields, and would like a common set of standards to give flesh to its qualifications climbing frame and to help develop a career structure. If this cannot be achieved, then both the Government and the sector stand to lose out. NW A limited number of copies of the report are available from the NDNAon 0870 7744 244.
