We have more than enough evidence showing us that there are systemic challenges with the way the early years sector is structured and funded. Reports, research, reviews, they are hardly in short supply
The 30 hours offer is underfunded; that underfunding and the families who are excluded from the offer has ramifications. On children, families and parts of the sector, on the people who need it the most. On the other side of the challenge, the voice of parents continues to clammer. ‘It’s so expensive, I’m only working to pay for childcare.’
That cost creates a penalty. One that statistically we know is often paid by women, and we see the impact. In the gender pay gap, the glass ceiling, in representation among decision-makers.
Our key workers, the ones in our settings and those in other sectors across the country, need us. We’ve all lived through a pandemic that has shone an even greater light on the value of key workers, yet we have no mechanism to reward that value in anything more than applause. Our system gives the same number of ‘funded’ hours to a nurse as it does to a consultant sitting just underneath the £100k threshold.
Fighting for fair funding are the lobbyists. We’re represented by individuals and representative bodies who lobby, and lobby hard. Who get us the data to prove this isn’t opinion, it’s fact. We need that representation. It will have played a significant part in the announcement of the additional funding. An increase that is welcomed and appreciated but doesn’t signal the end of the underfunding story.
The lobbying must continue, the current system must be funded adequately, but maybe we also need something else. Maybe we need to be the ones to come up with a new system, a solution that takes us beyond the constraints that would exist in our system even if it was adequately funded. To put forward a plan, a structure, a different way of doing things. Ideas have been proposed at different times to tackle the tension between costs for families and costs for providers. To tackle the high costs of operating quality provision in a regulated sector. Yet we keep looking at issues in isolation.
We have a systemic challenge, and addressing a systemic challenge in a piecemeal fashion surely can’t reap the rewards we’re looking for. We need to think beyond the confines of the current set-up and put it all in the mix. How would we design this if we had a blank piece of paper? It’s time for that debate. A systemic challenge needs a systematic solution.