The letters page of Nursery World has resonated in recent months with the concerns of hard-pressed providers anxious about their inability to recruit and retain qualified staff. One correspondent, echoing the views of many in the early years sector, wrote, 'Very soon, parents will be unable to gain places for their children due to the lack of staff. With the introduction of wraparound care, where does the Government think everyone will get staff from?' (Nursery World, 7 April.) These concerns were underlined recently by the Commons Education and Skills committee when it warned that the integration of children's services envisaged in Every Child Matters, the ten-year childcare strategy and the development of the workforce needed to implement it, would not be achieved 'without significant and sustained additional investment'.
The Government has set out to address these issues in its long-awaited consultation document, the Children's Workforce Strategy (see box). It says it is committed to creating 'a world-class children's workforce', which is 'competent and confident', is trusted and respected by parents, carers, children and young people, and allows staff to develop their skills and 'build satisfying and rewarding careers'.
The key strategic challenges are to:
* recruit more people into the children's workforce
* improve their skills by building on a common core of skills and knowledge
* strengthen multi-agency working
* remodel the workforce
* promote stronger leadership, management and supervision.
Paul Ennals, interim chair of the Children's Workforce Development Council (CWDC), welcomes the Government's proposals, which have been put out for consultation until 22 July. He says, 'Workforce reform is the missing piece in the jigsaw. Until we get that sorted, all the rest of the changes set out in Every Child Matters will count for little.'
The CWDC, as a part of the UK Sector Skills Council to be known as Skills for Care and Development, will play a pivotal role in the process of remodelling and integrating the children's workforce, together with other related sector skills councils through the Children's Workforce Network.
The CWDC, which will co-operate closely with the Teacher Training Agency, will get 15m in 2006/07 and 30m in 2007/08 to carry out this work. The DfES is also producing a web-based multi-agency working toolkit to assist the development of integrated working.
Career progression
The Government, in keeping with its decision to place strategic planning in the hands of local authorities, is expecting councils to develop their own local workforce strategies. They will oversee the introduction of a lead professional role and implement the Common Assessment Framework and multi-agency approaches that link statutory, private and voluntary provision and ensure value for money.
In the chapter devoted to the early years, the consultation document endorses the conclusions of the EPPE research that 'the better the quality of childcare and early education, the better it is for the child's development'. However, it points out that nearly 40 per cent of the early years workforce are not qualified to level 2 and just 12 per cent have qualified to level 4 or above.
Arguing for a new single qualifications framework linking skills development with career progression, the document says 'too often jobs have been perceived as dead-end and not for those with ambition'.
The CWDC and the Children's Workforce Network are working with the DfES to develop the framework to facilitate career pathways up and across children's services, break down barriers between professions and ensure 'excellent and stimulating continuous professional development'.
Childminders will receive business support and have better links with group-based settings, such as children's centres, so that they can access training and progress to level 3 and beyond.
The consultation notes that replicating maintained sector practice by introducing professionals with qualified teacher status in private, voluntary and independent sector settings would be 'an expensive option'.
It examines the experience in other European countries of either using a social pedagogue or a 'new teacher', employing an holistic pedagogical approach. The strategy also suggests that falling school rolls may offer an opportunity for teachers to retrain to fill demand in the early years sector.
Organisations in the Children's Workforce Network will review all their national occupational standards for work with children, young people and families and ensure that the common core of skills and knowledge - a key component of Every Child Matters - is built into revised standards.
Transformation fund
The consultation paper warns that 'continuing high turnover rates' and 'current recruitment difficulties' may mean that the quality and supply of labour is inadequate to meet future demand, and this will worsen with an extension and integration of services.
'The strategy recognises that a better qualified workforce will mean rising levels of pay, which is likely to raise the overall cost of provision,' the document states, adding that the 125m-a-year Transformation Fund will support investment by local authorities in high-quality sustainable provision.
It suggests that the fund could help to establish the presence of graduate managers in early years settings 'without impacting on affordability'.
However, a degree of uncertainty still surrounds the precise purpose of the fund. Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, says that while the fund represents 'a positive proposal', it only equates to an extra 500 per childcare worker per year. 'It would therefore need to be greatly increased for any real benefit to be felt,' she adds.
Paul Ennals says, 'The level of ambition for upgrading qualifications in the early years workforce and wider is going to be very expensive to deliver. The Transformation Fund doesn't go far enough and we have to hope the Government will continue to commit further resources.'
Early years workers' pay lags substantially behind the earnings of occupations with similar levels of qualifications, such as school secretaries and nursing auxiliaries, the strategy states. And their pay also compares badly with rates for other occupations within the children's workforce, such as those in social services.
The document suggests that a better qualified workforce created through a new qualifications framework would play 'a key part in reducing turnover and encouraging workers to think of a career in childcare'. However, elsewhere it reveals that previously there have been low 'rates of return'
from upgrading qualifications to higher levels.
It says the 2002-03 Early Years and Childcare workforce survey shows that differentials between supervisors and nursery workers have narrowed in recent years 'due to higher increases in the pay of less qualified workers, most probably to meet minimum wage requirements'.
Similarly, the DfES document points out that those who have achieved senior practitioner status through the Early Years Sector Endorsed Foundation Degree reaching level 4 (level 5 under the new qualifications framework) find no improvement in pay, because providers are not required to employ anyone qualified above level 3 but below qualified teacher status at level 5 (now level 6).
It suggests incentives for providers who 'employ a better qualified workforce', but is short on specifics about raising pay levels, merely adding, 'We need to ensure that providers across the sector have incentives to employ professional level staff, including the means to pay the higher salaries that such workers command.'
Purnima Tanuku says that 'until parents receive more support towards the cost of childcare, practitioners will continue to subsidise fees by accepting low wages, and the development of the workforce will be constrained'.
Anne Longfield, chief executive of 4Children, is also disappointed that the Government did not tackle low levels of pay in the sector by outlining national recommended rates. 'It would have been useful if they had set down some kind of benchmark to indicate good practice,' she says. She thinks the Government could have opted for a more interventionist approach by 'setting a clearer timescale for a much more integrated identity for the workforce'.
She explains, 'We need to see a clearer stance on how they are going to move all the workforce into a position where they see themselves as children's workers, rather than nursery workers, early years workers or playworkers.'
The DfES says it intends to organise a series of seminars to stimulate discussion on its proposals. It will then consult with the Treasury on a work programme to implement the agreed outcomes from the consultation, and anticipates that it will be 'a long-term development project involving development costs and piloting'.
More information
* The Children's Workforce Strategy can be accessed online at www.dfes.
gov.uk/consultations/ You can respond by email to cws.consultation@dfes.gsi.gov.uk or you can download the questionnaire and return it by post to Department for Education and Skills, Consultation Unit, Area 1A, Castle View House, East Lane, Runcorn, Cheshire, WA7 2GJ.
Responses must be received by 22 July. Copies of the strategy can also be obtained from DfES Publications, tel: 0845 60 222 60, e-mail dfes@ prolog.uk.com, quote ref:DfES/1117/2005
