Inaugural Meeting of the Early Years Forum

28^th September, 2016 at DCYA

Summary

The “National Collaborative Forum for the Early Years Care and Education Sector” (The Early Years Forum (EYF)) met for the first time on Wednesday 28^th September 2016, chaired by Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Katherine Zappone TD.  The following organisations were invited to attend:

DCYA, DES, TUSLA, POBAL, CCI, BETTER START QUALITY DEVELOPMENT SERVICE, CHILDMINDING IRELAND, PEEP, ACP, ECI, NATIONAL FORUM OF COMMUNITY PROVIDERS, BARNARDOS, PLE, NATIONAL CHILDHOOD NETWORK, GAELSCOILEANNA TEO, CNNG, ISKA, HIGH SCOPE IRELAND, SNMSI. 

In advance of the meeting, DCYA undertook a “survey of front-line early years service providers to seek their views on current challenges in the sector”, the results of which were to “inform the agenda for meetings of the Forum”. 

Early Childhood Ireland was represented by ECI Head of Policy and Communications, Dónall Geoghegan, and Paula Hilliard, from Sundancers Montessori, who is a member of the ECI Policy and Implementation Panel.

Given the large membership of the Forum, there was very little time for each member to speak. The Minister welcomed participants and outlined her ambition for the Forum.  She said that her Assistant Secretary, Bernie McNally, would chair most meetings of the Forum from the next meeting on.  ECI welcomed the establishment of the Forum and the positive, future-orientation and problem-solving approach being taken.  We focused on the following points:

• The Forum must be about the long-term development of the sector. And in this, we need to makes sure we are united, rather than divided into categories like private versus community, urban versus urban, daycare versus sessional. 
• We must address all 3 dimensions: Quality for children, sustainability for providers, affordability for parents. It’s critical that we address structural deficiencies, that in the upcoming Budget and beyond we get away from the low subsidies – low margins – low pay model.
• “Doing the Sums“, ECI’s research report on the ‘real cost of providing childcare. Two key findings are that the average service operates on a breakeven basis, and that there is a clear trend towards an ECCE-only model, with Afterschool, as they offer some security of funding.
• There are things we need to do now that will pay dividends in the medium to long term, e.g. put in place a Workforce and Professionalisation Plan, a Capacity Plan for the sector and to move towards agreeing Salary Scales.
• Three is a big opportunity now with the development of the Single Affordable Childcare Scheme and the upcoming Budget to get it right from the start. Get it right for parents, but not just for parents. Critically we need to get it right for providers and give children the best start in life.
• We must acknowledge that early education and care is in crisis, particularly in the area of staffing. Many settings are losing good staff, and finding it hard to recruit to replace them, putting their very existence in doubt. 
• The environment for many providers are working against the provision of quality childcare, for example where private services that provide anything more than ECCE are levied with commercial rates.
• Another area that needs urgent attention is afterschool provision, suffering from a lack of regulation.  
• There are a range of issues that we need to fix that won’t cost anything, such as improving communications with providers, streamlining the paperwork, getting PIP working properly and paying people on time, as well as making our inspection regimes fit better with each other.

ECI distributed a document to all participants at the meeting, available here. 

The meeting included workshop-style brainstorming of ideas for investment, non-cost reforms and the functioning of the Forum.   These were reported back and the Minister and Bernie McNally undertook to follow up on particular aspects, and thanked participants for attending.  The meeting concluded that the first meeting was a “good start”. 

Minutes of the meeting will be compiled and distributed to participants soon and ECI will provide an update to members on the next steps in the coming week or two.