A single qualifications framework for the children’s workforce to enable people to move around positions in children’s services, was proposed by the government last week.
The plans, contained in the Children’s Workforce Strategy published by the Department for Education and Skills, also aim to make it easier for people to move up into professional and senior roles.
The qualifications in the framework will be built on transferable units of core and specialist skills and knowledge. There will also be common approaches to the accreditation of previous experience and learning to make it easier for people to use generic experience gained from different jobs to support their career in children’s services.
The consultation goes on to state that councils and their strategic partners should work with trade unions and professional bodies locally to create integrated workforce strategies that respond to local need. Directors of children’s services and lead members will be required to lead on this.
The strategies will include programmes to support career progression using work-based routes and regular analyses of training needs to identify skills gaps.
While childcare charity the Daycare Trust welcomed the idea of a single qualifications framework it said that the workforce strategy did not move this on from the agenda that was proposed in the ten year childcare strategy last December.
The charity added that the workforce strategy, as it stands, is not ambitious enough in terms of cihldcare workers. “Whilst acknowledging that quality in the childcare workforce needs to be raised, it misses the opportunity to present a bold vision for the future of the workforce, and provide the means to achieve it,” said a spokesperson.
The charity went on to criticise the strategy’s target to have one member of staff trained at graduate level in all 3, 500 planned children’s centres by 2010 and in every daycare setting by 2015 as too low.
The Children’s Workforce Strategy consultation closes 22 July. Go to: www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/key-documents/
