A Strategic Assessment of the Children's Services Industry

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STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT OF THE CHILDREN’S SERVICES INDUSTRYUnited KingdomThe United Kingdom has made far-reaching changes to its child care and early years system since theelection of the Labour government in 1997. These have been achieved through the implementation of anumber of high-profile strategies and significant new expenditure. Under Labour, child care came to beseen as a key aspect of the broader social and economic agenda, including maternal labour forceparticipation and child poverty. Some key policy measures are outlined below, focusing on the UKapproach to education and care.Meeting the Child care Challenge (1998) – a national strategy to improve quality, affordability andaccessibility (HM Department for Education and Employment, 1998). The green paper argued that a lackof government involvement in child care planning had led to variable levels of quality, high costs forparents and insufficient places.Sure Start (1998) brought a range of children’s services together, including education, child care, healthand family support. Later Children’s Centres brought several early years programmes into Sure Start. TheUK government has committed to placing a Children’s Centre in every neighbourhood, starting with themost disadvantaged.Choice for Parents, the Best Start for Children: A Ten Year Strategy for Child care (2004) – free earlyeducation for all 3 and 4 year olds, starting with 15 hours per week for 38 weeks and aiming for 20 hoursper week by 2010 (HM Treasury, 2004: 1). Elements of the Strategy were implemented in the Child careAct 2006, the first Act of Parliament to specifically focus on child care (Hill, 2008; Sure Start: Child careAct 2006).Staff development- A new professional qualification, the Early Years Professional, has been developed.These workers lead an organisation’s developmental work with children in a range of ECEC settings. AllChildren’s Centres are to be led by an Early Years Professional by 2010; by 2015 each daycare centre is tobe led by a graduate, with two graduates per setting in disadvantaged areas (Children’s WorkforceDevelopment Council, nd; ippr 2008,4). The Graduate Leader Fund is paid to full daycare services whichcan be used to contribute to the wages of a newly employed Early Years Professional, support an existingstaff member to undertake Early Years training, and to contribute to the further professional developmentof graduates.(see http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/deliveringservices/workforcereform/earlyyearsworkforce/).Examples of integration in UK ECECService delivery – Children’s Centres in the most disadvantaged areas include support for families andchildren with special needs, health facilities and advice for parents on employment and training (NationalAudit Office, 2006: 14). The Children Act 2004 brought children’s education and care services togetherwith health and welfare, under a director of children’s services in each local authority (Hill, 2008).Policy responsibility – As part of the Every Child Matters agenda, the UK Government brought educationand care services for children together, locating responsibility for both under the auspices of theDepartment for Education and Skills (HM Department for Education and Skills, 2004: 1). However, whileco-located, education and care remained divided, occupying different divisions in the department (Cohen etal., 2004:182). In June 2007, the Department for Education and Skills was renamed the Department forChildren, Schools and Families, further cementing the co-location of responsibility for care and educationservices for children (HM Department for Children, Schools and Families, 2007: About Us). Early yearsservices have nonetheless become closely connected with broader policy agendas including child welfare,child health, child poverty and labour market policy.Workforce – Merging the education and child care workforces has not been a strong feature in the Englishintegration agenda (Cohen et al., 2004: 184). However, an interesting development in early years trainingis a new course, the National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre Leadership. This is a newspecialist qualification for leaders in multi-agency and multi-disciplinary early years settings. Enrolmentpriority is given to the leaders of new Children’s Centres. In this qualification, integration is not onlybetween education and care services, but a range of services in the local community. For more informationsee http://www.ncsl.org.uk/programmesprogrammess/npqicl/index.cfm19
STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT OF THE CHILDREN’S SERVICES INDUSTRYbeen consolidated by policy interventions designed to create a coherent and seamlessapproach to children’s early care and education. For example, New Zealand's strategic planfor early childhood education, Pathways to the future: Nga Huarahi Arataki had, as a guidingprinciple, to ‘identify and take into account relationships between government policy in earlychildhood education and other government policy goals, particularly those in education,labour market, health, welfare …’ (Ministry of Education, 2000). One of the ‘on the ground’objectives related to this principle was to ‘improve the development and educationalachievement of children between birth and age eight through forming strong links betweenECE services, parent support and development, schools, health and social services’ (Pathwaysto the Future 2003, np).In 1998, England and Scotland integrated responsibility for all early childhood services withineducation departments (Kamerman, 2005; Moss 2006). Since that time, the UK has invested aconsiderable amount of money into early childhood education and integrated Children’sCentres have been developed. England’s 5-Year Strategy for Children and Learners has setout to consolidate a range of services into Children’s Centres so that early education and childcare, family support, health services, employment advice and specialist support are availableon a single site, as well as working toward the establishment of a Children’s Centre in everycommunity (Glass 2006). A further aim is to integrate child care and what is referred to as‘nursery education’ (DfES 2004). All services for children below school age, as well asschools and care services for school aged children are now the responsibility of one localdepartment, Children’s Services, and one central department, the Department for Children,Schools and Families – an approach first heralded in a Government Green Paper, Every ChildMatters, in 2003 (HM Treasury, 2003).Canada and Australia have released National Agendas for children but these have not directlytackled the systemic divisions in the same way. In 1998 Canada announced a NationalChildren’s Agenda which in 2000 resulted in an extension of parental leave provisions and anEarly Childhood Development Initiatives Agreement (ECDI) with states and provinces. TheECDI agreements provided funding for improvements in the key areas of: a) healthypregnancy, birth and infancy, b) parenting and family support; c) early childhooddevelopment, learning and care, and d) community supports (Colley, 2006).In late 2007, Australia released a National Agenda for Early Childhood (Family andCommunity Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaCSIA), 2007) 2 . Australia’s Agenda isdescribed as ‘a framework for action to promote the positive development of all childrenliving in Australia for birth to age eight’. In a similar fashion to Canada’s ECDI agreements, itidentified four action areas: healthy families; early learning and care; supporting families; andchild friendly communities. Unlike the Canadian Agenda, the Australian Agenda was notconsidered to be a plan of action, rather it was described as a reference document for peopleworking with young children and no funding was attached to the achievement of its outcomes.Nor did it seek to reconfigure the various responsibilities of different levels of governmentand related sectors, although it did advocate joint planning processes. An Indigenous Childcare Plan was released in 2007 (FACSIA 2007a). In line with the National Child care Strategythe Plan recommends ‘an integrated approach to the delivery of child care, health and broaderfamily support services’ (FACSIA 2007a).2The status of the National Agenda is unclear following the change of government.20
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A Strategic Assessment of the Children's Services Industry

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