Full speed ahead

Early years professionals leading all children's centres by 2010 and all full daycare settings by 2015, a single qualifications framework and an undertaking to enhance the skills and status of non-graduate staff. Few would claim that the Government's blueprint for a 'world class' children's workforce is not ambitious.

The Children's Workforce Strategy: Building a world-class workforce for children, young people and families is the lynchpin of the process of integrating services for children and families. But no sooner had it been published than initial enthusiasm was tempered by concern that the resources the Government is prepared to commit are inadequate - equivalent to barely 500 a year per employee for two years.

The document is the long-awaited response to last year's consultation on plans to transform the workforce in line with the demands of the Every Child Matters agenda by creating a new role of Early Years Professional (EYP) and a 'simplified, streamlined and more transparent' integrated qualifications framework.

According to the strategy, the driver for reform is a need to deliver 'increasingly personalised support' by developing 'a mix of skills, different combinations of and blends of expertise, with professionals, paraprofessionals and support staff working together in new teams and in different ways'.

Career opportunities

Central to the proposals is the integrated qualifications framework, which is to be in place by 2010. The strategy states: 'A key design principle for the framework will be that qualifications for the workforce must support work-based routes into higher level jobs, including graduate level roles.

We want all future qualifications to simplify the recruitment process for employers and open up genuine career opportunities for people to move up, across and between service areas and across sectors - statutory, private, voluntary, from the early years to the youth services, across education, social care and health.'

In outlining its plans, the Government stressed that it had listened to many of the concerns voiced in the consultation. As a result, for example, children's trusts' worries over workforce planning and commissioning arrangements are to be addressed in a Joint Planning and Commissioning Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity Services, which is to be published soon.

Professional boundaries

The Children's Workforce Development Council (CWDC), described as 'a strategic partner, a delivery arm and a critical friend of the Government', will provide local authorities with practical assistance in developing local workforce strategies, working closely with directors of children's services.

The strategy promises 'a range of practical tools to support local areas in joining up services to children and young people across agency and professional boundaries'. Next month will see the publication of 'an integrated working implementation roadmap setting out how the national tools fit together and offering guidance on coherent implementation, drawing on successful local experience'.

From April, local authorities will get extra money through the children's services grant to enable children's trusts to fund multi-agency training in areas such as information sharing and common assessment.

High staff turnover is 'expensive and demoralising', and often the result of poor management and supervision. The CWDC and Skills for Care, the sector skills council, are to test 'a shared unit on supervision which can be used in a range of settings'.

The Government has 'a clear commitment to develop graduate leadership for all full daycare settings' and notes that 400 people are currently doing the post-graduate National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre leadership (NPQICL). But it does not spell out the relationship between the NPQICL and the new EYP role, which will lead children's centres and full daycare settings.

However, Jane Haywood, chief executive of the CWDC, suggests that while EYPs will take a lead role in providing education and care within settings, those who have achieved the NPQICL may have a broader strategic role in areas such as multi-agency working, although she acknowledged there would be some overlap.

Transformation Fund

Consultation on EYPs will begin in March, but the strategy states that those most likely to take up this role include existing early years staff with childhood development and play-related qualifications as well as those trained as teachers, community nurses or social workers. Anyone seeking EYP status will be able to achieve it through work and study-based routes.

At the heart of the strategy will be the Transformation Fund - 250m over two years - which is to be used to improve the qualifications of those leading settings and the early years workforce as a whole. The fund will support training routes for graduates to attain EYP status, increase the proportion of the non-graduate workforce qualified to level 3 and broaden training in working with children with disabilities or special educational needs.

Early years consultant Nathan Archer welcomes the Government's decision not to pass on the cost of this training to parents. 'That is refreshing and fundamental, as for so long nurseries that have invested in training their staff have had to pass on the cost,' he says.

However, both the Daycare Trust and the National Day Nurseries Association have said that the Transformation Fund equates to just 500 per employee in the sector.

4Children chief executive Anne Longfield warns that concerns are already being expressed about the sustainability of the strategy when the Transformation Fund is used up. She says, 'All this will take a lot of investment over a long time. It won't be a two-year thing. That's why we need to look at supply-side funding, because people can't charge more.'

Graduate leaders

A large chunk of the fund - 52m - will be used by the CWDC to develop EYP training, including set-up costs, fees, bursaries and supply cover. Private and voluntary sector nurseries can obtain a 3,000 recruitment incentive to employ graduate professional leaders on condition that the leader of professional work in the setting has attained EYP status by September 2008.

Settings with an existing level 5 or level 6 professional will qualify for an incentive premium of up to 5,000 to help develop and train non-graduate staff. But there is a sting in the tail - days after launching the strategy, the DfES revealed that it had placed a cap of 175 on what nurseries can charge for a place if they want to qualify for the 8,000 worth of assistance.

Nathan Archer is sceptical about the amount of money earmarked. 'They are talking about a significant improvement in qualification rates within the next two years, and to get the infrastructure right to deliver that is a huge undertaking,' he warns.

Eric Hardy, chair of the awarding body CACHE, insists that funds must be made available through the Learning and Skills Council to ensure that 'crucial' training at level 3 takes place.

The Government has asked the CWDC to prepare a report by September, with the help of trades unions and employers' organisations, comparing 'the impact on recruitment and retention of the total reward packages offered in different services, not just pay'. In particular it is asking the CWDC to consider the possible impact of integrated qualifications.

While the strategy presupposes a major upskilling of the workforce, Anne Longfield is adamant that the Government cannot duck the implications.

'Once you get workers to a higher level in terms of qualifications there will, of course, be a price to pay for that, and rightly so, as childcare workers have been among the worst paid in the country,' she says.

But the Government's commitment not to pass on the costs of training to parents is likely to be sorely tested. Most in the sector believe that ongoing financial support, rather than the two-year Transformation Fund, will be needed to bring to fruition the strategy's ambitious plans.

Further information

* Children's Workforce Strategy: Building a world-class workforce for children, young people and families can be viewed at www.everychildmatters.gov.uk

* Children's Workforce Development Council: www.cwdcouncil.org.uk

Strategy milestones

The Children's Workforce Development Council is to publish this summer/autumn:

* a report on the impact of reward packages on recruitment and retention

* advice on the strategy to increase the number of staff with level 3 qualifications

* with the Teacher Development Agency, an early years prospectus so that higher education institutions and other training providers can deliver training solutions to equip new and existing staff with additional skills and knowledge to become early years professionals.

Early years professionals will be:

* in all 3,500 children's centres offering childcare by 2010, when the integrated qualifications framework will be in place. n in every full daycare setting by 2015 The Government is also planning:

* to create a national parenting academy to deliver training in modern evidence-based programmes on working well with parents and carers

* parent support advisers in more than 600 primary and secondary schools in the most deprived areas

* an expansion of the budget-holding lead professional to ensure children and families get the public services they need and to reduce overlap with other practitioners.