It is often the case that if a profession is having difficulty meeting the needs of consumers, the regulators will step in. This is what has happened to our sector and why we are to have the Investors in Children initiative in England - a star rating scheme to indicate quality of provision.
While we know more and more about children's entitlements, we also know more and more about parental expectations - which we are not always meeting. The reason for this is that they are both dynamic, they never stand still.
A Conservative minister once said to me, 'We cannot let the excellence drive out the good.' Why not? Today's excellence is only tomorrow's standard because excellence, or high quality, is a moving target, like meeting the consumer's need - and this is the target providers neglect at their peril.
'Good' is what legislation ensures; it is the minimum entry point for provision, the national standards for daycare and childminding for children under eight.
But achieving a higher level goes beyond this. Many quality assurance schemes only help providers to comply with the 'good'. But Investors in Childcare is an attempt to be a 'higher' quality assurance scheme, a means of measuring beyond 'good'.
The measure should be expanded to incorporate what a setting's stakeholders expect and want, and how this develops and changes over time. It should also incorporate an assessment of whether the programme is continuously moving forward and has systems within it to ensure this is so.
Thus, it has identified a process for defining and measuring higher-quality provision - and that is not a bad place to start. It is not divisive, and could allow providers to relate the level of their service to the circumstances under which it is provided.
One children's dictionary defines 'quality' as the goodness or lack of goodness in something. 'High' quality, therefore, is relative to 'good'.
