Incentives are shrinking for childcare providers to join a quality assurance scheme. Mary Evans looks at where the Government's plans may have gone awry
The names of the first 24 early years quality assurance schemes to be fully endorsed under the new Investors in Children (IiC) kitemark will be announced in early October - if all goes to plan.
However, the plans have become such regular visitors to the drawing board that cynics in the sector are not holding their breath. Indeed, some are wondering whether, after the latest developments, there will be any incentives other than altruism for childcarers to join a quality assurance programme.
IiC has come a long way since the Prime Minister unveiled plans in early 2001 for awarding providers with hotel-style star ratings of their facilities and quality of service.
The stars have been dropped. The target, for early years partnerships to ensure that by next April at least 40 per cent of providers had gained quality assurance accreditation, has been scrapped. Finally, there are concerns over whether there are adequate funds for a publicity campaign.
Some changes have been made in response to demands from the sector, while the core aims of IiC have been constant: raising standards of childcare and informing parents about quality of provision. Unlike its forerunner Investors in People, the IiC scheme does not assess providers directly but accredits quality assurance schemes, which in turn assess providers.
Extra work
There are more than 60 QA schemes. Accreditation gives guidance to local authorities on which to promote, to providers on which to join and to parents on what is meant by quality childcare. But a panel of six independent experts, led by Sue Owen of the National Children's Bureau, gave full endorsement to only two out of the first tranche of 47 applications. They required 22 to submit further evidence and instructed the other 23 to reapply in the New Year.
While quality advisers feel frustrated, none wants publicly to criticise the Sure Start Unit administering the scheme. But privately, they are fuming that the timetable slipped. Instead of being announced in June, QA scheme teams did not get feedback on applications until late July, leaving eight weeks, over peak holiday season, to make amendments.
Sue Owen says, 'Originally the timetable planned for fewer applications than we had. IiC has very specific criteria, agreed by the sector, as underpinning high quality assurance schemes. In some cases people did not produce clear evidence that they had met this criteria.'
One quality team leader whose scheme gained conditional endorsement explains, 'They say it is only minor things that need to be done and submitted to the DfES by 26 September. But this is now the summer holidays. It is going to involve two weeks' work, and we have a scheme to run. We cannot ignore our normal work.
'All who submitted applications worked extremely hard and put in hours and hours on top of running our schemes. This extra work had to be paid from our existing budgets.'
The Pre-School Learning Alliance (PLA) was the most high-profile casualty of the process. Endorsement of its scheme was withheld and the PLA has been told to re-apply. A spokeswoman says, 'The PLA, because it has a long history of concern for quality, welcomed the Government's initiative. IiC will give parents reassurance that their children are in groups offering high-quality standards of care and education. Our scheme has been successfully operating for over ten years and has been constantly updated, and is currently being revised to fit the framework of IiC.'
Insiders suspect the longer-established schemes, like the PLA programme, found it tougher to meet the criteria, as they were developed in a vacuum with no national standards on which to draw and no framework to fit.
Having access to such material was a boon, according to Sue Griffin, national training and quality assurance manager at the National Childminding Association. She says, 'We were lucky. We were working on our scheme when the consultation document for IiC came out. We were able to see what they were driving at. We have not got to make any changes to the scheme, but they want more evidence on issues around the edges - the training and support we give assessors and mentors.'
A DfES spokeswoman confirmed it has dropped the target for 40 per cent of providers to be QA accredited by next April, denying that the target was dropped because so many areas fell far short. 'We told local authorities and EYDCPs that in order to reduce the administrative burden from 2004, we will not require detailed monitoring information on reaching this target. We will expect them to be working on expanding and developing quality assurance and we will remind them.' There is no ring-fenced extra funding to reward schemes gaining accreditation.
Publicity needed
A further chapter in the catalogue of complaints concerns how the scheme will be launched. Insiders want a widespread publicity campaign to educate parents about IiC and QA schemes, as well eliminate confusion over new Ofsted gradings.
Sue Owen says, 'I think people in the sector would like a high-profile launch. This is the Sure Start Unit's programme and we are waiting to see. It would be nice if they made a big splash with it because of the amount of hard work people have put in. It is quite an accolade for people who have produced QA schemes and they should be recognised. They do need to do a fairly high-profile publicity launch so that people see IiC means something.'
The DfES sidestepped the issue of funding. The spokeswoman said there were no firm launch plans yet. 'It depends upon ministerial diaries and co-ordinating things with Number 10 (Downing Street.) As far as a press launch, we cannot say what we are going to do at this stage.
'As for reaching the general public, we are going to put details of each of the schemes that have been endorsed on the Sure Start website. All the information will be available from Children's Information Services and Sure Start Unit publications.'
But Christine Goldsack, national co-ordinator of the Sheffield Quality Kitemark, says, 'If parents do not know what IiC is, they are not going to look for childcare that has got IiC endorsement. So what is the point? It involves settings in a lot of additional work. Some will be altruistic and do a QA scheme because they want to raise their standards and they want to be recognised as having standards beyond the requirements of Ofsted. But I think a lot of settings will say, "I haven't the time, resources or energy to have my staff involved in doing this if there is no advantage in doing it and if there is no publicity".'
IiC accreditation runs for three years. Already there are questions about how the DfES plans to monitor schemes to ensure they maintain standards. Sue Owen says, 'I think the sector is mature enough to police itself. We have some very robust organisations and people want to maintain standards. I hope they will form an IiC accreditation group to support each other and make sure standards are kept up.'
Procedures and practice
Although the criteria were agreed with the sector, there are concerns that the key tests for IiC focus on procedures rather than practice. Christine Goldsack says, 'Quality assurance should be a means by which settings evaluate and develop their practice in order to improve the experiences for children and their families. Unfortunately, the IiC process concentrated more on procedures and documentation than on the content of the schemes - what people actually do with the children.'
The value of QA schemes is questioned by Mog Ball, an author on evaluation of social programmes, member of the Sure Start National Evaluation Team and chair of the Isle of Wight Early Years Partnership. She says a whole QA industry has grown up which has led to a gulf between those who do hands-on childcare and the 'intermediate bureaucrats' who assess them.
'QA schemes in some ways betray our lack of confidence. What we should really care about is meeting the child's needs and being flexible enough to meet all the different children's needs. Good quality is about the relationship with the child.
'Quality is about the spirit and demeanour of a setting. We have all been to places that are well equipped, well decorated and well designed, and you go in the door and you know it is not working.
'Early years work is badly paid. People who stick with it have a vocation. What worries me about quality assurance is that you have wonderful people working in this field, and they do not need to be constantly checked. What they need is support.