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 locally to 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
Committees.
Services
Committees
and
Local
Community
Development
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 sees us 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,
alongside the administration of childcare funding programmes has been in itself
a challenge for Childcare Committees, especially in the context of a reduction in
overall funding by 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 that exclusively have direct reach into all 4,500 early
childhood services nationally, we would like to share our 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 and voluntary sector
governance have also increased pressure points. Each policy change or new
initiative has a direct correlation with an increase in demand for local support –
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 time
and 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.