Skills council will start in autumn
Catherine Gaunt
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
The new Sector Skills Council for all those working in early years and children's social care will start to take on some of the duties previously undertaken by the Early Years NTO from as early as this autumn. Speaking at the tenth annual general meeting last week of the Council for Awards in Children's Care and Education (CACHE), chief executive Richard Dorrance confirmed that the Early Years NTO will be wound up as of 31 March 2005 and replaced by the Sector Skills Council for Social Care, Children and Young People.
Speaking at the tenth annual general meeting last week of the Council for Awards in Children's Care and Education (CACHE), chief executive Richard Dorrance confirmed that the Early Years NTO will be wound up as of 31 March 2005 and replaced by the Sector Skills Council for Social Care, Children and Young People.
Dr Dorrance said that it was his understanding that the new SSC would be a 'virtual body' likely to be made up of a small number of representatives from a UK-wide federation of five other organisations - the Children, Young People and Families Council (England), the Adult Care Council (England), the Care Council for Wales, the Northern Ireland Social Care Council and the Scottish Social Services Council.
He also said that there would be a UK-wide strategy with a Children's Network comprising this federation and other representatives from 'all the players in the children's sector' including the Teacher Training Agency and similar organisations. This network was also likely to include the General Social Care Council, SkillsActive (the SSC which incorporates playwork), Skills for Health, the Justice SSC, the Lifelong Learning SSC and the General Teaching Council.
CACHEnow has more than 60 qualifications on the National Qualifications Framework, including seven introduced this year.
Guest speaker at this year's AGM was Peter Moss from the Thomas Coram Research Unit at the Institute of Education who led a discussion on the future of early childhood services comparing the experiences of Sweden with the UK.
* See this week's feature on page 22 about reforming education and childcare by Peter Moss, Pat Petrie and Bronwen Cohen.
