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Childcare Bill

This has been a very useful debate on the important issue of the quality of training and qualification, which members of the childcare workforce attain. We attach great importance to quality and training. It is central to our policy, hence Clause 13, which imposes duties on local authorities in relation to training. I pick up the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, in respect of accreditation. There are standards now about qualifications which those who work in under-fives settings are required to achieve. The annex to my letter of 2 May to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, sets out the existing standards and the standards we will expect those working in such settings to attain after the measures in the Bill and other reforms have taken effect. We want to see steadily more highly trained professional staff working in our under-fives settings. An essential part of the 10-year childcare strategy is the transformation fund, to which we have made repeated reference in these debates. Some £125 million a year between 2006 and 2008 will go towards improving quality, without providers having to pass those costs on to parents. The stringent duty in Clause 13 on local authorities to secure the provision of training for childcare providers is a crucial part of the Bill. I circulated a paper to the Committee entitled Childcare Bill: Duty to Secure Sufficient Childcare; it went out in the batch of 30 March to the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and was copied to others. It set out our expectations on the information, advice and training that local authorities must secure for providers. Paragraph 35 on page 6 shows that we are clear about the duties that we intend to set out. It says:"““Regulations and guidance will indicate that local authorities should ensure that providers have access to information, advice and training on””," followed by a list of specific areas where they are required to ensure that providers have access to training. Those are: Ofsted registration procedures; delivery of the early years foundation stage; the Ofsted Childcare Register; safeguarding and child protection, which I know the noble Baronesses, Lady Morris and Lady Walmsley, will refer to later; inclusion; the Common Assessment Framework; and business skills. It adds:"““Local authorities will be expected to work with a range of organisations to secure the information, advice and training that childcare providers need rather than provide it all directly””." So their role is a commissioning role as well as that of a direct provider. I believe that the statements we have made about how we intend to take forward the duty to secure sufficient childcare, including the duties in relation to information, advice and training, meet a number of the points that have been raised. We are currently considering the detailed requirements of the early years foundation stage and the Ofsted Childcare Register including, for example, how we might require that a certain proportion of practitioners in each early years setting are qualified to levels 3 and 2, and what requirements should be placed on providers in terms of training in areas such as first aid and child protection. While many courses that childcare practitioners undertake lead to qualifications that are accredited in some way, some are not. That does not mean that they are not good and effective courses that address the needs of the childcare sector. For example, some local authorities choose to devise their own pre-registration courses for childminders rather than buying in off-the-peg ones so that they can tailor them to meet the specific needs of childminders in their area. For example, local authorities may have a number of individuals who expressed an interest in childminding who have English as a second language and would prefer courses to meet their particular ESOL needs. In areas such as those, local authorities are right to consider providing their own courses rather than off-the-peg courses provided by others. Since we want to ensure that there is proper flexibility for local authorities to meet needs, we do not believe it right that we should over-regulate them in the way we think would occur if we accepted the amendments. Requiring local authorities, by law, to use accredited training only would, we believe, impose unacceptable rigidities and restrictions upon them. It would also increase the cost of providing such training, whether or not that cost was value for money, meaning more of the cost being passed on to childcare providers and trainees. Taking up the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, in previous debates, we need to bear it in mind that many practitioners working in childcare will have gained their qualifications some time ago, before current accreditation arrangements were in place. We would not wish to establish new requirements that inadvertently disregarded those qualifications or imposed an expectation that such experienced practitioners would have to requalify. Furthermore, the amendments would be rather difficult to implement in practice, as they do not specify who the qualifications and training should be accredited by. If there were a satisfactory route through which some courses could be accredited, we believe that would be unlikely to cover them all. Turning to the noble Earl’s idea of introducing mandatory in-service training days or afternoons following the model of INSET days in schools, which is the intention behind his Amendment No. 73A, we entirely agree with him that high quality training is crucial to ensure that we have a highly skilled workforce that can help our children achieve the best possible outcomes. The early years foundation stage welfare requirements will include requirements for qualification levels, and I have sent a note to Members of the Committee on some of our proposals in this area. They are set out in the annex to my letter of 2 May to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. We would strongly encourage early years practitioners and providers to engage fully in ongoing professional development, including training days and sessions as appropriate. But we do not believe that a statutory requirement for practitioners to take days or afternoons away from settings would be the right course, because we fear the rigidities that this would introduce into the provision, including the adverse effects on the children whose provision would be interrupted thereby. Instead, we believe it should be for providers and managers to ensure that their employees have access to training, including that secured by the local authority. Providers are best placed to balance such training arrangements and the consequential impact on staffing with the needs of children attending their setting. Local authorities are already encouraged to provide opportunities for early years practitioners to undertake continuous professional development in any event. The current Sure Start guidance says:"““We expect local authorities to continue to promote, fund and deliver training and development programmes in order to ensure that Foundation Stage practitioners receive an average of 4 days training and development per practitioner, per year””," which I think is the kind of level of training provision the noble Earl has in mind in his amendment on INSET days. We will continue to guide local authorities and providers in this way, but we do not consider that a statutory requirement for in-service training would be in the best interests of early years providers, their staff or the children concerned. I turn to the issue of pre-registration training, covered by Amendment No. 64 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. We believe that to insist that pre-registration is undertaken by childminders prior to registration in all cases would act as a disincentive to some to apply for registration, and may result in valuable childcare places being lost. We have looked carefully at the key issues impacting on the recruitment and retention of childminders, particularly the impact of Ofsted’s regulatory role, and the length of time taken to be registered and start working is already, without such a requirement, identified as a key disincentive among those suitable to come forward. Childminders said that they had set out to start childminding as soon as possible, for obvious reasons—the need to start earning a wage was important to them—and of course many childminders operate only for a short period of time while they are at home looking after their own young children. We intend to carry forward the existing requirements that wherever possible childminders should complete a local-authority-approved registration course prior to being registered, and it is an existing requirement that such courses must be completed within six months of becoming registered. That requirement is effectively policed, because Ofsted inspects all newly registered providers seven months after registration, and the training of childminders is a key part of that inspection. Furthermore, regulations under Clause 35 will set out requirements for registration. We have made available a paper to illustrate the matters we expect to include in those regulations. As well as setting a requirement that, in order to be registered, an applicant and their premises must be suitable for the care of young children, the regulations will enable Ofsted to take into account the likelihood that the applicant will be able to meet the learning, development and welfare requirements of the EYFS once registered. Childminders will therefore not be able to be registered if, in the view of Ofsted, they will not be able to deliver the EYFS to an appropriate standard. I believe that we have sought to address the concerns raised by noble Lords in Committee today, but we are not minded to further amendments that we believe would introduce unfortunate rigidities into the system that would not be to the advantage of the workforce or the children concerned.