News

The only trouble with the government's national child care strategy, when it was published last month, was the confusion that followed over its target audience.(1)

The emphasis of the 10-year strategy appears to be on choice, availability and flexibility for parents, who, by being able to access good quality child care, will become better placed to work or study. The intention seems to be that, almost by default, this provision will translate into a happier, more productive time for children.

But parents and children are not the only ones who will benefit from the government's plans. The Department for Education and Skills has high hopes of developing a workforce that delivers world-class child care.

"We want to see more of the workforce trained to professional level, we want to have a single qualifications framework and we want to create opportunities for existing workers to improve their skills," says a spokesperson for the DfES workforce unit.

At present, the people who care for children are among the lowest paid in the workforce. Earlier this year the charity Daycare Trust published a report which found that average gross annual pay for child care workers is £7,831.(2) Day care and playgroup workers earn between £4.80 and £5.30 an hour, their supervisors between £5.50 and £6, and childminders an average £2.10 a child an hour.

Yet the strategy states that child care workers should have the same status in society as teachers, with equivalent pay and career structures. However, at the moment, financially, the roles are poles apart - primary school teachers earn on average £13.76 an hour, with an average annual gross salary of £22,662.

Stephen Burke, director of the Daycare Trust, says talking about the child care workforce as a profession is in itself important progress. But he points out that, as the need for more training and qualifications comes into play, pay will have to increase.

"The Treasury et al recognise that improving the workforce is the single biggest factor that determines the quality. They need to invest in training and qualifications," he says.

From 2006, £125m is to be allocated to a fund to support implementing the recommendations from a joint Department for Education and Skills and Treasury task force on how to raise the quality and sustainability of affordable child care.

Burke says: "One of the issues is: how do you make the transition from the current workforce to a new workforce? That will take time. We have set a 15-year timeline, and we recognise that it's not going to happen overnight if you need to bring the current workforce with you. Nursing provides a good example, where it has moved towards a degree-led provision and we are seeing an increase in resources paid to it."

Currently, nursery workers are not required to hold any qualifications to start work in a nursery, although the employer must ensure that half of the staff hold a qualification at NVQ Level 2 or 3. By contrast, teaching is a graduate profession and primary and nursery teachers must hold at least a Level 3 or equivalent qualification.

Changing the child care workforce, so that more staff are educated to degree level and all full day care settings are led by graduate-qualified early years professionals, will take time and resources. It is a move that has been welcomed by the Association of Directors of Social Services' human resources committee. Co-chair Simon Hart says: "We welcome the wider commitment to raise qualification levels for child care staff, and particularly expectations for the lead officer to have a degree."

But he is concerned where the staff will be found to fill the posts opening up in child care provision. "Social care staff have already shown great adaptability in responding to change. However, there remain issues in attracting more people to the care services and professions," he says.


Bill McKitterick, Hart's counterpart on the Association of Directors of Social Services human resources committee, echoes these concerns.

He says: "It's vital that this new strategy doesn't inadvertently disrupt the constructive work being done on recruiting to existing children's services, notably the residential child care and child care field social work. Where do we get the people from? How do we make sure they're skilled enough, and how do we make sure there are sufficient resources to underpin this very ambitious strategy?"
But gaining qualifications need not be a lengthy process. "A lot is possible using the current NVQ framework and building on the skills that have been developed already in places such as Sure Start and children's centres," says McKitterick.

Part of the aim of the new framework is to let the workforce move between the different areas of child care. This will help to develop a common core of skills, and allow workers to gain a greater understanding of each other's roles and expertise.

Increasing the diversity of those employed in child care is another important issue highlighted by the strategy. Child care workers are mostly female (86-98 per cent) and nearly all come from a white background (96-98 per cent). Most are young - about one-third of those working in day nurseries are aged under 24 compared with 5 per cent of primary and nursery teachers. The strategy calls for promotion of diversity in the workforce, with a particular need to increase the proportion who are men and who are from ethnic minorities.

Child care workers will be given more clarity over their position once the forthcoming children's services pay and workforce strategy has been published.

For the time being, at least, the government seems committed to improving the status of the workforce. Fingers crossed that this initial enthusiasm is enough to keep the need for quality child care high on the agenda.

(1) Various government departments, Choice for Parents, the Best Start for Children: a 10-Year Strategy for Childcare, HM Treasury, DfES, DTI, DWP, 2004
(2) C Cameron, Building an Integrated Workforce for a Long-Term vision of Universal Early Education and Care, Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London, 2004

Main Points of the Strategy 

CHOICE: 

• Goal of 12 months' paid maternity leave by the end of the next parliament. 
• Legislation to give mothers the right to transfer some of this paid leave to the child's father. 
• Access to integrated services through children's centres - 3,500 to be in place by 2010. 

AVAILABILITY:

• New duty on local authorities to ensure enough child care places. 
• Goal of 20 hours a week of free child care for 38 weeks for three and four year olds. 
• Out-of-school child care places for all children aged three to 14 between 8am and 6pm by 2010. 

QUALITY:

• Radical reform of the workforce - day care settings to be professionally led.
• Reform of the regulation and inspection regime. 

AFFORDABILITY: 

• Increase in the limits of  the child care element of  the working tax credit from April 2005.
• Increase in the maximum proportion of costs that  can be claimed from 70 per cent to 80 per cent from April 2006.