Joint Committee on Health and Children Meeting Tuesday 14th of July 2014
Opening Statement by Mr. Joe Rynn and Ms. Avril McMonagle
Introduction
Good Morning Chairperson and Committee members, thank you for the invitation to address the Committee in my capacity as Chairperson of Childcare Committees Ireland. I am joined this morning by my colleague Avril McMonagle who alongside myself is one of 6 regional Manager representatives of our national network of 30 City & County Childcare Committees. We welcome the opportunity to bring forward our views on some of the challenges which the Early Years Sector is currently facing in particular bringing a local perspective given our local and County delivery structure.
Background
30 City and County Childcare Committees (CCCs) operate across the County and were established in 2001 to advance the provision of childcare facilities in their local areas. City and County Childcare Committees offer a wide variety of services locallyto both early years services, child minders, after school services and parents. The 30 City & County Childcare Committees operate in each of the local authority administrative areas and are governed by a voluntary Board of Management. The boards include representatives the Early Years Sectors and agencies i.e. Local Authorities, Statutory Agencies, Local Development Companies and Voluntary Childcare Organisations.
The functions and roles of the Committees are aligned to support the implementation of national policy at a local level. In addition, we play a key coordinating role and are actively involved in various co-ordinating bodies who support the delivery of supports to Children & Families. This includes Children & Young People Services Committees and Local Community Development Committees. As the established local delivery structure for the Early Years, CCCs play a crucial role in supporting the development of the Early Years sector in each County responding to local needs and implementing comprehensive support plans to address these needs. This has been a core function of the CCCs since their establishment. Over the last 15 years the CCCs have been at the centre of these supports and development within the sector.
Developing and Supporting the Childcare Infrastructure in Ireland
Over the decade 2000 to 2010, the State, initially in partnership with the EU, invested €425 million capital funding to create childcare places throughout Ireland. From the years 2006-2010 the National Childcare Investment Programme (NCIP) was the states vehicle for investment in the sector. The NCIP succeeded and built further on the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme (EOCP) 2000-2006 which provided capital funding, staffing grants and quality programmes. The programme aimed to provide a proactive response to the development of quality childcare supports and services, planned for and developed locally and centred on the needs of the child and the family. Over the period 2000-2010, CCCs supported the creation of over 65,000 places in the early childhood sector.
The role of the CCCs has expanded to enable greater flexibility and responsiveness to local needs, and more recently, CCCs have been increasingly dedicated to locally managing administrative processes associated with the various national funded programmes. The recognition and value of our work are evaluated on a yearly basis and the most recent published reported completed nationally show that 95% of services reporting high satisfaction rating to the supports provided to them by CCCs. The value of a local delivery agent working with the sector is an important building block for the sector and remains so. Indeed the efficiency and value for money delivered by this structure, shows of circa€260 million investment to the sector, the CCCs account for 4% of this budget, and for this, a national delivery structure is in place across all counties in Ireland.
The CCCs have remained very focused on responding to the local need, but equally they have been very responsive to the implementation of a range national programmes on a consistent basis. For example CCCs have assumed responsibility from Tusla for the roll out of the Always Children First child protection training programme in relation to early years settings with a stated aim of ensuring that staff from every service throughout the country receive accredited child protection training. The roll out of this training is coordinated and delivered at county level by CCCs, to date
- 3,665 Early Years Services have received training
- 6,459 Early Years Practitioners Trained
This approach has been further strengthened through our national network Childcare Committees Ireland, which provides a coherent structure for various bodies in particular the Department of Children & Youth Affairs to plan and implements its policy brief. CCI as the national network works closely with a range of stakeholders to ensure we put in place strong, effective systems with our partners, including Pobal, National Early Years Quality Development Service, DCYA, DSP and Tusla.
In conclusion, it is important to recognise that the Early Years Sector and in particular the role of the State within it, is still relatively new in Ireland. Primary school education has been in place since the state was established and dates back to 1831 while free post primary school education was introduced in Ireland in 1966. The early year’s sector in Ireland is still in the early stages of development, the introduction of the Free Pre School Year in 2009 was a milestone and represented an important step, in the provision of universal Early Childhood Care & Education. The introduction of the free pre-school year has brought with it significant changes which the sector has adapted and work with. Committee Members here this morning will be well aware of these and some of these have been elaborated on in previous presentations, however, we would like to give you an overview on how some of these challenges can be addressed. My colleague Avril will now elaborate on these in particular the current policy issues which we are engaged with and future support priorities.
The Changing Landscape of ECCE
The introduction of the Free Pre-School Year in 2009/2010 marked a turning point not only for the early childhood sector, but in the work of City and County Childcare Committees. As my colleague has highlighted, this seesus increasingly dedicated to managing the administrative processes associated with five core childcare funding programmes and grant initiatives.
Since its introduction last year, Childcare Committees have supported over 4,500 early years services to access and administer their compliance requirements via the department’s new online system (PIP).We are currently administering €2.96m of grant funding through the Learner Fund to 2,860 members of the workforce who are up-skilling as part of the initiative. The transition from supporting not only early childhood services but also parents, alongsidethe administration of childcare funding programmeshas been in itselfa challenge for Childcare Committees, especially in the context of a reduction in overall fundingby some 20% over the same period.
The challenges faced by the early childhood sector are constant and have been well communicated to this committee by previous contributors. However, as a collective of organisations thatexclusively have direct reach into all 4,500 early childhood services nationally, we would like to shareour perspective on how these challenges manifest at local level and their correlation with, and repercussions for, our work.
The introduction of the various childcare funding programmes – whilst overall a welcome development, has brought with them an element of challenge and change that early childhood services were never established to cope with. Prior to the introduction of childcare funding programmes, the only engagement early childhood services had was with the then HSE Inspectorate. Currently, compliance validation involves Pobal, Túsla, NERA and the forthcoming education focussed inspections will see the Department of Education come into services for the first time.Imminent changes to company law andvoluntary sector governance have also increased pressure points. Each policy change or new initiative has a direct correlation withan increase in demand for localsupport – much of which is on an individual 1:1 basis. Many of these supports are difficult to measure in our own performance reports and their specialised and individualised nature makes them extremely resource intensive from a CCC perspective.
Childcare Committees have played a fundamental role in quality development over the years. The initial phase of this work under a quality sub measure of the EOCP programme saw us addressing quality at its most basic level – in those days training and CPD consisted of supporting services to develop policies and procedures, good work practice, child protection and health and safety measures. The early childhood sector was starting from a low base at that timeand the fundamentals had to be put in place first.
In recent years, this work has included the delivery of training and CPD around Aistear the early childhood curriculum, supporting the implementation of Síolta quality standards alongside onsite professional pedagogy and practice support, advice and guidance at local level. However, for CCCs, the notion of quality standards goes far beyond early childhood practice standards. Whilst this is a core element of our work, we take a much more multi dimensional view of the fundamentals that have to be in place before quality practice with children is realised.
By way of example, we are facing an ever increasing demand for financial advice and for individualised plans for service sustainability, often helping create detailed financial projections to determine if a service is sustainable from year to year.This can be caused by fluctuation in child enrolments in a given year which has the potential to close a service in a short space of time.
Challenge around human resource management, employer and employee conflict resolution and general HR supports are ever present. High staff turnover in services, unsatisfactory working conditions and low pay collectively cause workforce stress which can manifest as conflict situations. CCCs undertake a mediation role in these situations as much as possible which again is an extremely resource intensive element of our work.
The area of corporate Governance, compliance with regulation and effective management are noteworthy stress points for early childhood services. The Company Limited by Guarantee model whilst important for transparency and protection, places an onerous burden on community and voluntary childcare services in particular. We are currently facing a situation where it is becoming impossible to attract volunteers to participate on voluntary management committees. This presents a huge threat to the continuance of community childcare services in Ireland and alternative models need to be considered and provided for in terms of administrative funding.
All Childcare Committees report high levels of engagement with parents and early childhood providers in trying to provide supports for children with special educational needs to participate in mainstream pre-school education. A properly resourced framework of supports coordinated at local level through Childcare Committees is urgently required for provide equality of participation for all children. This area warrants immediate attention and is placing untold stress on parents and childcare providers alike.
As previously highlighted, the fundamental strength of the City and County Childcare Committee structure is not only our local response and national reach – it is our ability to be flexible in responding to policy change and development. We have responded to recent unplanned developments such as the introduction of the Learner Fund and the introduction of the Programme Implementation Platform in an efficient and timely manner. CCCs have a unique ability to monitor, collect and collate national data making us both a valuable support, implementation and delivery mechanism.
Conclusion
We are fully aware of the many competing priorities for funding. We hope that we have provided a perspective that identifies specific pressure points that pose significant risk to the future of the early childhood sector and the crucial nature of localised and responsive supports in alleviating these. In trying to make savings, we caution against the streamlining of the City and County Childcare support structure to office based administration duties. CCCs need to be sufficiently resourced to continue to act as the local ‘one stop shop’ for early childhood services and parents looking for support with childcare funding schemes, quality development, HR, governance, financial sustainability and continuing professional development. This will enable us to respond to current and future challenge and support this fledgling sector in their next stage of their development.
We thank you for your attention and welcome any questions you may have.