Building the early education workforce in England: A model for change

Description

Social Dialogue and Structural Reform

The Executive Summary of the Model for Change provides an overview of the evidence presented across seven thematic briefings and three international case studies. It concludes with recommendations from researchers on how England can achieve deep and sustained reform for its early education and childcare workforce.

Key Findings

• Workforce strategies that have proved successful were ambitious, long-term, flexible, and involved serious and sustained consultation with a broad base of the sector.
• Governance must include stakeholders in meaningful and deep consultation and make progress visible, including high-quality and public workforce dashboards.
• Core or supply‑side funding is the single most important enabler of coherent workforce reform. The amount of core funding must, however, represent sufficient provision for improvements to take place, with workforce costs explicitly recognised in public funding.
• Conditionality can be an important lever for ensuring uplifts in workforce status and pay follow increased funding.
• Pay reform is vital and requires sustained improvements which are achieved through a combination of reforms, which reinforce one another over time.
• Professional registers can be powerful tools when they are introduced alongside other reforms and are linked to other mechanisms.
• Social dialogue, including workforce voice and sector partnership are key drivers of successful reform.
• All enabling mechanisms are underpinned by the need for trusted, transparent, high-quality workforce data.
• Successful career frameworks and pathways are characterised by clear job roles and role differentiation, aligned pay structures and supported opportunities for CPD.
• Childminders constitute a core and flexible component of early years provision and must be included, with specific provisions that reflect the unique nature of their businesses.
• Public perceptions more broadly require structural as well as narrative intervention.
• The timing and sequencing of reforms matter.