The Scottish Government

EARLY YEARS / EARLY INTERVENTION FRAMEWORK

WORKFORCE TASK GROUP - FINAL DRAFT - 25 JUNE

INTRODUCTION

1. The earliest years of life are crucial to a child's development. However, it is in these first years of life that inequalities in health, education and employment opportunities are passed from one generation to another. A child's world in the early years of life is largely defined by the family and those who are most directly involved in their care or share their everyday activities. The biggest gains in improved outcomes and reduced inequality will come from supporting parents and by creating communities which are positive places to grow up.

2. The challenges of the strategic focus of Government [1] and, in particular, the importance of the Early Years Framework (the Framework) as a driver for social justice and longer-term sustainable economic development throws into sharp relief the critical importance of the workforce that delivers the broad range of services in question.

3. These services vary considerably from those delivered every day, to specialised interventions in times of crisis. There is no agreed boundary or definition around the sorts of workers delivering services to young children and their families.

The majority of services are located within (or close to) the professions of teaching, early years and childcare, medicine, nursing and social work (including all relevant support staff) and is located in the public, private and 3rd sector. The evidence presented to and through the work of the Group demonstrates enormous complexity and diversity within the workforce, including within particular service disciplines. For instance within early years and childcare services we have very well qualified graduates who work in teams and lone workers (childminders) or parents who volunteer and who can work with young children for a considerable part of the day.

4. Although there is currently no single definition of this workforce, part of the task in coming months will be to tease out these issues so that people can better understand the workforce development agenda. Nonetheless and however the boundaries are drawn, we know that there are significant differentials in qualification, pay and status within and across the workforce

5. Although there are differences it is important to remember the aspiration in For Scotland's Children (2001) that set out the concept of the children's sector becoming a "single unitary system". A lot of good work has taken place since then to reduce the differences between professions. The most high profile work is around Getting It Right for Every Child (GIRFEC). The challenge articulated in GIRFEC is that relevant professions work together to develop coherent services around the needs of children and families and includes "single assessment plans, practice guidance and skills development" and the "removal of barriers to joined up working and what prevents timely and appropriate responses".

6. Curriculum for Excellence and Better Health Better Care also emphasise the importance of an outward looking, collaborative workforce with strong inter-personal skills and a good understanding of relationships. This is supported through Equally Well, the recent report of the Ministerial Task Force on Health Inequalities which has strong linkages with the Early Years Framework.

ENGAGEMENT & PARTNERSHIP

7. A highly skilled, appropriately rewarded and supported, and highly valued workforce is essential if we are to succeed in meeting the aspirations of the Framework. Recognition of these facts, a commitment to engage strategically with workforce development, to deploy and as necessary redeploy resources and to contribute wholeheartedly in partnership in the further work identified in this report are fundamental pre-requisites if we are to make progress. It is vital that workforce issues remain at the forefront of policy development and implementation under the Framework.

8. The Framework looks to a 10 year programme of transformation. That is a significant period of time in workforce development terms given the fluidity and changes that we are already seeing around roles. It also encourages us to take the time to think through properly how to capture the breadth of skills and behaviours in question and deploy education and CPD resources most effectively to address them. It is essential for us to develop durable long-term partnerships around the reform agenda.

9. However, it should be remembered that it takes time for higher and further education courses to be developed and that students applying for courses now will emerge as fully fledged practitioners mid way through this ten year period. So there are significant inflexibilities in the system as well and we need to go with the grain of these and be clear in setting expectations about what changes can be anticipated and when in relation to certain aspects of the agenda.

HOW WE WENT ABOUT OUR TASK

10. The Workforce Task Group was given two specific areas to explore:

• Examining the use of key workers, family care worker and pedagogue roles and multi-disciplinary structures in early years services
• Improving workforce skills in engaging with families, especially those with higher needs

11. In order to carry out long term visioning the Task Group considered an analytical evidence paper and split into five subgroups to look at the tasks and additional relevant areas which it thought were fundamental building blocks of workforce development. These were:

• Values and Standards
• Initial Education
• Existing Roles
• Pedagogy
• Continuous Professional Development

12. These strands of work interact very closely and through this analytical approach a range of key themes and challenges were identified.

13. There Group also commented that the workforce considerations contained in this report have applicability out-with the specific age range of this Framework (pre-conception - age 8) and, depending on future decisions, may include developments that continue well beyond the initial 10 year plan.

WHERE ARE WE NOW?

14. Significant workforce development activity has taken place in recent years and continues right across services for young children and their families. However, this work generally focuses on a particular part of the workforce. There are of course many excellent examples of cross-sector working and development and GIRFEC is making a major contribution to the effectiveness of integrated service delivery.

15. A major national development is the Standard in Childhood Practice that has recently been created for those working in early years and childcare services. The Standard will strengthen leadership in the sector and improve career opportunities and pathways for early years and childcare professionals. The development of Childhood Practice awards are designed to put Scotland at the forefront of the development of integrated qualifications for early years and childcare sector. The Group felt that we should not miss the opportunity to use the Standard more flexibly and ensure it forms the cornerstone of future developments right across children's services.

16. The Group also highlighted the importance of the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF). The SCQF provides a way to understand and compare qualifications. It helps describe the programmes of learning that lead to qualifications, supports the development of progression routes and maximises the opportunities to transfer credit points between qualifications. It helps employers and learners understand how qualifications relate to each other and how different types of qualifications can contribute to improving workforce skills.

17. However, despite excellent localised examples and the undoubted development of more strategic approaches within sectors, we do not yet see a national strategic approach to workforce development e.g. across CPD, induction and initial education.

18. The Framework provides challenges for everyone working with young children and their families. A broader range of skills are required to work with children, families and communities in general. The ability to build capacity in parents and communities is crucial as is the ability to recognise and help, at an early stage, children and parents who need additional help.

19. There is a lack of clear and comparable evidence and research across the workforce, especially in terms of the current state of readiness in the workforce to meet the new agenda. However, the Group is clear that for services to respond to this challenging new agenda requires substantial commitment to and investment in workforce development. A more strategic approach to utilising the significant resources already in the system will be required to enable this to happen.

WHERE DO WE WANT TO GET TO?

20. Investment in the pre-conception to age 8 group, as the Framework makes clear, is a major contribution to our Purpose. The Group was clear that we need to see a workforce equipped to meet these challenging expectations. The starting point for this is the need to recognise that, despite the many excellent aspects of the workforce, we need to be more ambitious and take a more strategic view of this agenda; strategic in setting the context for and determining priorities for investment. Above all, and notwithstanding the undoubted complexity of the terrain and challenging resource environment, all agencies and the workforce itself needs to take responsibility for delivering against this agenda.

21. The Group identified a developmental agenda across the workforce building blocks, taking advantage of existing developments which will pave the way for more substantial and transformational change in the medium to long-term (subject to the commitment of agencies and the workforce noted above).

WHAT DO WE NEED TO DO?

ROLES

22. The Group recognised the difficulty in finding an acceptable term to describe the common roles across the workforce. In general, services are led by degree qualified professionals who work as part of a larger team comprising a number of workers qualified to a lower level. Terms such as "para-professional" and "assistant" were discounted as unreasonably downgrading the importance and impact of these roles. It is also important to remember lone workers, volunteers or indeed parents and grandparents who also have significant roles in this context.

23. The Group identified a range of recent and ongoing developments affecting roles across the workforce. These developments are designed to assist the workforce to respond to the needs of children and families more effectively. It noted the existence of common themes around the roles and skills required (e.g. carrying out case work or initial assessments, being a key contact for children or parents and specialist professionals), the similar conceptualisation of qualification levels and of values, and the frequency of cross-sectoral working and 'joining up' associated with the jobs.

24. The Group is of the view that we need to take advantage of these possibilities for cross-sectoral development, possibly to the point of looking at more flexible and mobile posts working across services. It is also of the view that we could facilitate such development by changes to regulation, initial education and of course to exploit opportunities for joint CPD and induction. Importantly the Group stressed that these roles should not stand alone, they should be integrated into organisational workforce planning and development systems. Current workers should have the opportunity to undergo the training to fulfil these roles, if they choose to do so.

How will we do this?

25. There are current plans in the health service to create a new "assistant practitioner in child health" role that will work across organisational boundaries. There is scope to build on the research done as a result of Changing Lives (The 21st century social work review) that looked at possible new roles in social services. As a first step the Group proposes that NHS Education Scotland and SSSC take forward their thinking together, involving employers as necessary, to create a new role that can work primarily in the health and social service arena (but with an outward focus, linking with all of services working with young children). Evaluation of this role and its effectiveness will be built in from the beginning, so we can learn from the approach and consider its applicability across other parts of the workforce.

26. The Group also suggested that a functional analysis of roles across stages and services in early years be carried out with a view to informing the development of a more strategic approach to roles in the medium to long term.

VALUES & STANDARDS

27. The Group noted that different regulatory systems exist around the separate parts of the children's sector workforce. It was not suggested that an appropriate approach would be a single regulatory regime since there were perfectly reasonable aspects to some of these differences; it is important to ensure holistic systems around social workers, medical practitioners, education and so on, (although the Group identified the possibility of streamlining the regulatory systems in the event of future workforce developments).

28. However, in order to emphasise the distinctiveness and priority of the agenda in the Framework and its Scottish context and to help to break down cultural and language barriers they suggested the development of a Scottish Values Statement for those working with children and families.

29. This Statement would be based upon the discrete philosophy underpinning the Scottish context i.e. would embrace conceptions of rights, wellbeing and would be rooted in the principles of the Framework. It would provide a reference point for all aspects of workforce development, whether that be development of roles, CPD and induction or initial education.

30. The Group suggested that substantive building blocks exist in the form of the Standard in Childhood Practice and existing developmental work and thinking around GIRFEC. They also suggested that the underpinning principles of the concept of a Scottish Pedagogue (a holistic, child centred approach where children can contribute to their own learning and development and a workforce that sees families, carers and communities as partners) could also form a starting point for the work.

· The Group was clear that such a statement would not replace existing values statements which are in use in regulatory systems. Within these disciplines there are a range of symmetrical sets of values and standards which are fundamental e.g. medical ethics. The statement would have to fit with and complement current regulatory structures and processes across every part of the children's sector workforce.

31. Notwithstanding the distinctive Scottish context for such a Statement, the Group noted the example in England of a shared values statement around inter-agency working with children signed up to by the General Teaching Council, the Nursing & Midwifery Council and the General Social Care Council.

How will we do this?

32. The values and standards subgroup suggested the setting up of a multi-agency short life working group to create and consult on the Scottish Values Statement. It is imperative for all relevant regulatory bodies to be fully engaged in this work.

CONTINUOUS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

33. When the group refer to CPD they include induction training in their definition.

34. Currently we know there is a plethora of training opportunities available right across the children's sector workforce. We know that some areas receive more opportunities to train than others and some smaller organisations struggle to afford training. We also know there are some ground breaking developments that we can build on, such as around GIRFEC, which demonstrate strategic approaches across services geared towards delivering better outcomes for children and families

35. The SSSC and IRISS (Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services) are currently developing a Continuous Learning Framework (CLF) for all those working in social services. The CLF sets out what people in the social services workforce need in order to be able to do their job well now and in the future, including a set of 17 personal capabilities. From the consultation so far there is evidence that the personal capabilities make sense to other professionals and have the potential to support multi-disciplinary working. Health are moving towards 10 essential shared capabilities as a base for all their educational initiatives. There is some common ground with the values and capabilities in the CLF.

36. The Group felt that there is a need for a much more strategic direction in order to equip workers with the skills required to deliver the services we need for young children and their families through the Framework.

37. A strategic approach to CPD in this context is not about being dictatorial around the types of training available to staff. Ultimately we hope that this work will create a common and easily accessible "core" of CPD opportunities that will equip workers with the skills to deliver the sort of services needed in the Framework. It is about developing a clear description of the skills, behaviours and qualities required to work with children, families and communities in line with the broad aspirations of the Framework and challenging employers to consider whether the current considerable resources that are available across and within the workforce are deployed strategically and efficiently and what reprioritisation may be required.

38. The Group also thought an important feature of CPD and induction would be to facilitate movement across and within disciplines. In other words to support career progression for those who wish to specialise in working with children, families and communities but potentially in a variety roles and settings in their career. Facilitating such progression is a key feature of the developing Continuous Learning Framework.

39. One example of where this would be crucial is in supporting children with speech and communication difficulties. Members of the Group and the Cross-Party Group on Children and Young People strongly support a concerted effort across agencies in this area.

How will we do this?

40. Our opportunities around CPD are closely linked to the Scottish Values Statement, which could provide a starting point for benchmarking. We also need employers, national voluntary umbrella organisations, regulatory bodies, CPD providers and Scotland's research community to gather evidence about skills and skills gaps across the different parts of the workforce. Scottish Government will facilitate further work in this area in 2008.

INITIAL EDUCATION

41. Many of the issues touched on under CPD, such as the Scottish Values Statement providing a starting point for benchmarking and strategic review of provision, apply also in relation to initial education.

42. Whilst there are many excellent examples of cross sector working within initial education, of joint working across higher and further education and of partnership between educational institutions and employers, it remains the case that there are significant silos around training for professional groups. There is competition on the ground for resources and for students across disciplines and even within faculties or Departments. Transition from further to higher education can be challenging both in cultural terms but also by way of difficulty in articulation and recognition of prior learning. Education providers have demonstrated a healthy approach to innovation but there are structural difficulties in responding flexibly and strategically to changes in the workforce. Innovative approaches can be hampered by difficulties in ensuring the availability of employment opportunities for graduates of innovative courses.

43. An effective response to the significant changes both in the conceptualisation of the children's services workforce and the different mix of skills that may be required and ensuring the range of experimentation and testing that is required, will necessitate the development of more robust strategic partnerships both across and within further and higher education and with employers and national agencies.

44. It is also essential that we more rigorously harness the potential of the research community in further and higher education in exploring and debating the issues. The developing Research and Development Programme emerging from Changing Lives provides a potential vehicle for taking this forward (alongside developing research capacity within services and the workforce)

How will we do this?

45. The following practical suggestions were made by the Group:

• An initial step to establish a high level forum for dialogue across and within the sectors building on the approaches adopted in the recent Change Academy around Social Work degrees, which drew in all of the providers in order to explore the strategic issues identified above.

• To engage the academic community and other key stakeholders, on the development of the Scottish Values Statement and to work with the community to reflect on the extent to which that Statement is currently reflected in provision and what steps ought to be taken

PEDAGOGY

46. The Framework calls for a transformational change in the outcomes for young children and their families. The work set out earlier in this report will certainly take us towards that goal, but we need to learn from more "radical" approaches that deliver good outcomes for children and families.

47. Our starting point in considering the role of a Scottish Pedagogue is not to assume a fundamental gap in our workforce that cannot be filled by existing or developing roles. Rather, it is to suggest that a thorough exploration is made of the apparent differences in workforce structure elsewhere in Europe and the distinctive qualities around the role of the Pedagogue that seem to be particularly well suited to the breadth of skills and role required as a consequence of the Framework. As well as potentially identifying any structural gaps in workforce provision such investigation will inevitably provide benchmarks for workforce development within current structures.

48. The pedagogy group set out a vision for the workforce:

We want a workforce which is child centred, treats children as active participants in services, recognises parents, carers and community as partners and is appropriately skilled, valued and representative of the population that it serves.

49. In theory, the new type of worker would operate at graduate level and be supported by assistants at SCQF level 7. The new worker, in the long term, could adopt roles occupied by a number of different workers (and currently largely unconnected) in Scotland and work across settings such as residential child care, early years and childcare, schools, youth-work and disability services. So in exploring this model we need to reflect across to our work looking at new roles in the sector. Although the Scottish pedagogue model will undoubtedly raise questions, it would enable Scotland to make use of a model which is demonstrably effective in many other European countries (and is currently being investigated in England).

50. Without committing to any particular path at this stage, we want to fully explore the issues across Scotland and give everyone the chance to air their view. The Group felt it was important to stress that the concept of a Scottish Pedagogue should not be seen as an "all or nothing" option. The principles of pedagogy are already embraced within the Standard in Childhood Practice and could be made more explicit and built upon for future developments.

51. The point was made that Scotland's workforce should not become isolated in the UK and Europe and that the mobility of the workforce across country boundaries was healthy (both in terms of employment and further and higher learning opportunities). The English already have a shared values statement around integrated working with children that is based on pedagogy principles so the time is right to continue with this debate in the context of the wider work in this report.

How will we do this?

52. The Scottish Government is already promoting and stimulating debate on these issues (i.e. Working It Out: Developing the Children's Sector Workforce Conference 30 April 2008) and we will continue to do so by taking steps to ensure the issues reach "front-line" employers and workers.

53. In parallel we will engage Scotland's academic community to help us understand what the concept of social pedagogy means in the Scottish context. This work will be heavily linked to the skills analysis work mentioned earlier in the report.

ENSURING DELIVERY

54. Fundamentally we need everyone with a stake in this agenda to take ownership and to engage in discussions and debates and to lead those debates with their own workforces.

55. Ensuring delivery will require collaboration from central and local government, regulatory bodies, employers, trades unions, workers and families themselves. Certain organisations will take a lead role in the short term and the role for other organisations will only be evident after further research, evidence gathering and two-way communication.

56. NHS Education Scotland and the Scottish Social Services Council will work on a joint proposal for a new workforce role. This will offer an opportunity to evaluate a number of the aspirations of this report, including the "mobility" of these staff across the sectors and how positive the impact of joint qualifications / CPD is.

57. Employers need to create an environment for "new" people to work in. This is an important point and will impact the culture in some areas. Secondments or other short term cross sectoral activities will help.

58. There is also a key role here for partnership bodies such as the Learning Networks and the Childcare Partnerships to achieve a more rationalised approach to CPD by bringing key stakeholders together to identify what is needed and deliver best value solutions.

59. Umbrella early years and childcare representative groups (such as Children in Scotland) and employer/employee representative organisations (across the public, independent and voluntary sectors) have a crucial role to play in promoting and supporting the developments.

60. Scotland's academic, research and learning community is key on a number of fronts. We will look to the sector to show academic leadership of the agenda, to work along side government and employers.

BARRIERS

61. There are significant barriers to change in this area, these should not be under-estimated but we must also strive for the type of transformational change required through the Framework. It is clear that the different ways the professions have evolved over the years will lead to differences in how they embrace this agenda. Some parts of the sector traditionally accept change and others are less responsive. A huge amount of infrastructure has been established around the professions, from different qualifications and cultures to different laws and regulatory systems. Some boundaries are perfectly reasonable but others may not be, we need to have the debate to identify those in Scotland

62. We need a solid conception of the service delivery structures required to meet the challenges in the Framework. This will set the context for future workforce development. As one Group member put it, "are we talking about one children's service in the future or a family of services working together in an integrated way?"

63. We must be able to focus on the reasons for workforce change, rather than the implications of it. As we have shown throughout this report (especially around the idea of a Scottish Pedagogue) the only way to work through our concerns is to engage in the debate and the challenge is for us all to do just that.

64. The different language or understanding of key terms was raised a number of times. We have not reached a common understanding on the use of key terms, including "early intervention". The significant diversity in status across the sector is another fundamental barrier to engagement and change.

65. The Group felt that time was important. We do need to carry out further communication, engagement and analytical work to ensure we make the right decisions for Scotland.

RESOURCE IMPLICATIONS

66. There are potentially significant costs associated with increasing the skill levels and quality within parts of the workforce, but some group members also pointed out the possibility of longer term savings through rationalising our combined effort. Furthermore, there are considerable resources already for development of the workforce. Strategic engagement with CPD and initial education may, however, lead to some tough decisions having to be taken about redeployment of such resources.

67. It is also reasonable to assume any strategic approach to CPD across the disciplines will use resources in the short term (dropping certain topics and creating more of others) but will reap benefits in the medium to longer term (as CPD is rationalised to the most effective and places are filled across agencies).

68. We hope that any future changes to initial education courses could be woven in as part of institutions normal review processes.

69. The analytical work and communication activities will be funded by the Scottish Government in 2008 and early in 2009. Only following the results of this activity will we be able to judge the wider resource implications for the sector at large.

70. Those wider resource implications could come in a variety of forms but one that is frequently mentioned is pay and conditions. We have indicated the wide variations currently across the children's sector workforce. We have also outlined the analytical work we need to do to identify the commonalities (and opportunities) across the workforce. It is too early to know what the possible implications for pay and conditions will be and much more work needs to take place before employers are in a position to reflect on their total resource allocation to the workforce delivering the Early Years Framework.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Joint Roles - Leading the Way

71. There are clear opportunities in Scotland for us to take a strategic look at role development. There is real potential for this work to make enormous progress on the "integration" agenda first highlighted in For Scotland's Children.

ACTION 1 - Short term

72. As a first step NHS Education Scotland and the Scottish Social Services Council will work on joint proposals for a new role. A pilot cohort containing students from both sectors will run. Will look to utilise the Standard in Childhood Practice as the basis for the role.

ACTION 2 - Short Term

We will commission a functional analysis of roles (utilising analysis and work already done) across all early years stages and services. That work will directly influence the consideration of further developments of joint roles across the sector.

ACTION 3 - Medium to Long Term

We will evaluate the joint health / social services role and analyse benefits for CPD and initial education. Critically, we will need to gauge the positive impact on children and families and engage with other parts of the workforce to expand the joint roles if appropriate.

Scottish Values Statement

73. For the fist time in Scotland we have the chance to break down barriers of language, and different values across regulatory bodies and employers to focus our entire workforce on the needs of young children and families.

ACTION 4 - Short term

74. A multi-agency short life working group will be established, involving all relevant regulatory bodies and other stakeholders, to create a Scottish Values Statement around working with young children and their families.

ACTION 5 - Medium to Long term

Once created the Scottish Values Statement should be used by agencies for multiple purposes at national and local level. At local level it will help individual workers and employers understand what is expected of them and emphasise that they are part of a larger team, all working to achieve the same outcomes for children and families. At a national level the statement will inform strategic projects around CPD and initial education.

CPD

75. We will build on recent developments such as the Continuous Learning Framework in social services and the 10 essential shared capabilities in health to form a strategic approach to CPD provision across agencies. This has the potential to significantly streamline CPD provision across the sector and allow employers to focus on the most appropriate for their staff.

ACTION 6 - Short Term

We will forge ahead with the implementation of the groundbreaking Continuous Learning Framework and ensure the linkages with the 10 shared capabilities for health (and other parts of the sector) are further explored and built upon.

ACTION 7 - Medium to Long Term

We will use the Scottish Values Statement and analysis of skills gaps across the sector to identify core skills needed to deliver on the Early Years Framework. We will work with employers to ensure they have plans in place to equip their workers with those skills, particularly helping those workers with least access resources (and the most need in terms of up-skilling), such as childminders, parent committees and volunteers.

Initial Education

76. The importance of Scotland's academic community cannot be underestimated, both as course providers and as research and knowledge hubs. We have an opportunity to develop strategic connections and foster further collaboration between providers in HE, between HE and FE and between employers and the learning community.

77. We will stimulate Scotland's academic community to take ownership of this agenda, not only to help policy makers and employers understand the implications of decisions, but to better equip universities and colleges to offer courses that are future proofed and meet the needs of learners / employees.

ACTION 8 - Short Term

78. The Scottish Government, using the work of the Task Group, will create the terms of reference for research and analysis projects and will commission the first (analysing skills and skills gaps across the different professions in early years) in 2008.

ACTION 9 - Short Term

79. We will harness innovative thinking by establishing a high level forum for dialogue across and within the sectors building on the successful "Change Academy" approach to reforms around the Social Work degrees.

ACTION 10 - Medium to Long Term

We will use the Scottish Values Statement and analysis of skills gaps across the sector to identify core skills needed to deliver on the Framework. We will work with the Scottish academic community to reflect on the extent to which the Statement is currently delivered in provision and what steps ought to be taken to ensure it is.

Pedagogy

80. We have an opportunity to seriously engage in an issue that could herald transformational change across children's services in Scotland, in the long term. To fully explore this issue we will need strategic partnerships between HE and employers (in the event of future pilots), we need to strengthen our evidence base and first and foremost we need to communicate and engage widely across Scotland to raise awareness of the issues and stimulate discussion.

ACTION 11 - Short Term

81. The Scottish Government will take steps to further the communication and engagement work immediately, taking the messages to the "frontline" and ensuring everyone has the change to have their say. We will continue to learn from developments around pedagogy from overseas and the rest of the UK. If appropriate opportunities present themselves we will look to pilot the approach in Scotland and evaluate.

ACTION 12 - Medium to Long Term

We will use the Scottish Values Statement, functional analysis, skills gap analysis - along with the views of people across Scotland to make decisions around the long term viability of the Scottish Pedagogue model for Scotland.

Engagement and Partnerships

The Early Years Framework will focus minds and mobilise effort across a huge range of organisations in Scotland's children's sector. It is crucial that we keep the momentum going.

Action 13 - Short Term

Every stakeholder involved in providing services to children and families needs to seriously commit to making the Framework a success. There must be a willingness to engage in discussions around workforce development. We need organisations to form strategic, long term partnerships where appropriate. We need everyone to put children's sector workforce development at the forefront of thinking and seriously consider resource issues, once information and evidence is available.

Action 14 - Short Term

The Scottish Government will look to create "communities of interest" spanning the entire sector on various subjects. The communities lead and inform discreet projects as necessary and will ensure that the views of the entire sector can always be taken into account and new information / research results shared effectively.

[1] " To focus governmentand public services on creating a more successful country, with opportunities for all of Scotland to flourish, through increasing sustainable economic growth."