Children’s Workforce Strategy

A response to the Department of Education and Skills Consultation.

Published July 2005

1. NIACE (the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education) works to encourage more and different adults to engage in learning of all kinds. Its functions include research, development, publishing and consultancy; advocacy to inform and influence public policy; information services, conferences and dissemination; campaigning for and celebrating the achievements of, adult learners. Established in 1921 NIACE is an independent non-governmental organisation, a registered charity and company limited by guarantee. Its corporate and individual members come from all sectors concerned with adult learning: colleges; local authorities; universities; voluntary and community organisations; churches and faith communities; broadcasters, employers and unions, calls for evidence by various committees, commissions and enquiries.

2. NIACE welcomes the Government’s plans for a world-class children’s workforce, competent and confident to deliver the ambitious improved outcomes for children and young people as set out in Every Child Matters. The plans are radical, ambitious and represent an encouraging policy and economic investment in the future of Britain’s children and young people.

3. NIACE has two observations around the structural approaches to workforce reform within the sector. Particularly welcome is the understanding that the profile and the status of the sector’s workforce needs to be raised and that every worker within the sector must have a common core of skills and knowledge, delivered in induction and in-service training. This is a powerful endorsement of comprehensive and inclusive workforce development. NIACE trust that the significant proportion of the workforce who are part-time will be included.

4. This common core will assist in building the integration of services so vital to the aims and aspirations of Every Child Matters and will facilitate the integration of disciplines to create a cohesive workforce. Furthermore, in order to improve the access of under-represented groups into the workforce, local and national workforce strategies should recognise the role of quality community-based family learning provision in providing progression routes from 'first steps' learning into higher level programmes, building on the interest in supporting children's learning that many parents develop when they engage in family learning with their own children.

5. A second welcome aspect of the attempt to raise status is the creation of the Transformation Fund, and the understanding that salaries in the sector must be raised to ensure that the sector is as valued as the consultation document indicates.

6. Training programmes for new recruits and those already working with children should:

1. recognise the primary role of parents and carers in supporting positive outcomes for children;
2. take into account the new National Occupational Standards in Family Learning and Working with Parents, recently approved by QCA; and
3. understand and take account of the culture, language, values and communities to which children belong.

7. In constructing a training strategy for the children’s Workforce it will be necessary to recognise the UK’s changing demographic profile. The sector will not be able to rely on a stream of first-time entrants to the labour market to the extent it has in the past and should give consideration to how it recruits, trains people at a range of different life stages, acknowledging their prior achievements and diverse motivations.

8. NIACE would welcome a fuller explanation of the role of the Children’s Workforce Development Council. The consultation document indicates that this body is to be an integral part of the emerging Sector Skills Council for Care and Development, a federated organisation composed of organisations covering each of the UK constituent lead organisations. This body will produce a Sector Skills Agreement, and will have a powerful influence on sectoral training. Work undertaken as a result of this consultation and the recent work on the National Occupational Standards, referred to in 6 above, should contribute to the emerging Sector Skills Agreement.

9. We would be pleased to provide further information about anything in this paper. Please contact, in the first instance, Anne Hansen (Development Officer), tel: 0116 2044200, e-mail: anne.hansen@niace.org.uk  or Alastair Thomson (Senior Policy Officer), tel: 0116 2044241, e-mail alastair.thomson@niace.org.uk.

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