Childcare Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2015-07-01
Topic: Education
Francis Hare (Crossbench, Unknown): My Lords, this amendment would require the Secretary of State, within six months of this section of the Act coming into effect, to lay a report before both Houses of Parliament setting out the Government’s strategy for developing the early years workforce. It seeks to secure a commitment from the Minister that the Government will publish a strategy to increase the quality and capacity of that workforce. I shall try to be quick I am grateful to the National Children’s Bureau for helping to prepare the amendment. I should like to seek clarity from the Government regarding their plans to ensure that all children receiving 30 hours of free childcare can access high-quality early years education and childcare that promotes both their learning and their development and is delivered by well-trained and qualified practitioners. I would like the expansion of free childcare to be supported by an early years workforce improvement strategy, setting out how the Government intend to recruit and train new practitioners and retain existing practitioners through qualifications and career development support Evidence shows that a well-qualified, confident and experienced workforce is central to the delivery of early years services that improve young children’s outcomes. The Nuffield Foundation has recently reported on a strong relationship between the level of staff qualifications, the quality of provision as judged by Ofsted and outcomes for young children. Despite recognition that employing a graduate leader improves the quality of provision, since the graduate leader fund ended in 2011 there has been no dedicated national funding available for local authorities to support the training and qualifications of early years practitioners. In addition, reductions in local government budgets have meant that many local authorities can no longer subsidise training for new and existing practitioners. At present, only 14% of private, voluntary and independent settings employ a graduate, with few opportunities for these providers to fund graduate training Measures are also needed to improve the qualifications of non-managerial staff. A significant minority of practitioners are working in the sector despite not holding a level 3 qualification, an A-level qualification, the minimum recommended by the Nutbrown review of early education and childcare qualifications in order to deliver high-quality services to young children and their families. One-third of childminders do not hold a level 3 qualification and 14% are unqualified. In group settings, 13% to 16% of staff do not hold a level 3 qualification and 4% are unqualified A lack of investment in the early years workforce, coupled with an increase in staff vacancies and a reduction in childminder numbers, is limiting the capacity of the early years sector to provide high-quality free entitlement places for three and four year-olds, with the greatest impact being felt by providers in poorer areas—areas that are required to deliver a greater proportion of free places for disadvantaged two year-olds Between 2011 and 2013, there was a 42% increase in staff vacancies in full-day care settings and a 59% increase in staff vacancies in sessional care settings. During the same period, the number of active childminders fell by 6%, from 48,800 to 46,100. I would argue that a review of the workforce delivering the free entitlement for three and four year-olds should be undertaken in order to ascertain existing and projected gaps in workforce capacity prior to the extension of free childcare to 30 hours. This review would help to ensure that accurate targets for increasing the number of graduates, graduate leaders and level 3 practitioners are set out in the workforce strategy The Department of Health’s health visitor implementation plan set measureable targets for increasing the health visiting workforce and is expected to miss its 2015 recruitment target of 4,200 new health visitors by only 3%. That is a tremendous achievement on the Government’s part If I may say so, the Childcare Bill provides an opportunity to increase both the quality and the capacity of the early years workforce through a workforce improvement strategy. Failure to do so would hinder the expansion of free childcare to 30 hours. I therefore have three questions for the Minister. Will he provide assurances that the Government will develop a strategy for expanding and improving the quality of the early years workforce? Can he confirm whether the Government will review the composition of the workforce delivering the current free entitlement in order to ascertain existing and predicted gaps in capacity? Finally, will the Minister confirm whether the Government intend to put in place measures to increase the number of graduate leaders? I apologise for not giving him notice of those questions and quite understand if he would prefer to write to me on them I have a couple of other amendments in this group, one of which is on hours of training for staff, particularly emphasising the need to allow staff to have training away from the children so that they can reflect on their relationships with them. Coram, a well-recognised, high-quality provider, provides such time away from the children for staff development. It can be seen as a costly input but it is vital. In teaching we have Baker days and recognise that teachers need time away from their pupils to develop themselves. The same should apply to early years provision. The other amendment is to do with increasing the number of nursery schools, and I was grateful to the Minister for his reply on that particular topic earlier today. I beg to move.