Sustainability in the Sector: Survive vs Thrive

Sustainability is a word we hear more and more nowadays. We are becoming more aware of what we can do to support a sustainable economy and environment, because we associate it with ultimately building a better future for our children. It's a funny word though - when used in the context above, it’s a good thing. In early learning and childcare (ELC), however, it doesn’t really have the same connotations. In our sector, particularly for private, voluntary and independent (PVI) colleagues, it’s like the bare minimum – a term used to describe nothing more than what’s needed to survive. It’s just about enough.

We hear, time and time again, that our settings, and indeed the sector overall, needs to be sustainable. We have to prove that how we are shaping the lives of our youngest children, in the most positive way, is sustainable. We call for a sustainable funding rate so that our PVI colleagues can attempt to ‘catch up’ with resources, opportunities and above all wages, afforded to those working within local authorities.

But we should be striving for more than just enough to survive. We should be able to talk about a thriving early years sector, which realises the ambition of the intention behind the Scottish Government’s flagship 1140 hours expansion policy. Where PVI providers don’t have to fight and prove their worth in order to be paid a much less favourable rate per child than their local authority counterparts, and where there aren’t significant and polarising disparities between pay and terms and conditions.

When a parent or carer places their child into an ELC setting, it’s expected that they will learn, grow, develop, and thrive. As long as our sector is allowed to remain fractured in the way it currently is, and when we have no option but to choose to survive rather than to thrive, we absolutely cannot take for granted that the amazing staff who work so hard to give our children the best start in life will continue to be able to do so.

That’s why we need to be serious about what our staff are paid. If we can address the huge gaps in pay – as well as terms and conditions – between local authorities and PVI settings, we can begin to stem what is already a significant staffing crisis in the sector. After all, where is the motivation to stay in ELC, despite being one of the most rewarding careers an individual can undertake, when wages are significantly higher in a supermarket or a shop?

In our manifesto for last year’s Scottish Parliament elections, we called for the creation of a national pay scale, which would create a nationally agreed set of pay grades for our entire workforce, regardless of where they work. Without such a measure, we’re going to continue to see qualified, highly skilled, valuable staff leave the PVI sector for local authorities or worse, leaving the sector altogether because they are paid better elsewhere. The creation of a national pay scale would ensure that the (predominantly female) workforce delivering the flagship 1140 hours policy are paid a fair and equitable wage, based on qualifications, skills and experience, and not the type of setting that they work in. 

It’s quite simple – if we don’t have the staff, then settings can’t fulfil the expansion to 1140 hours. If there are fewer options for families to access ELC, then our children – who were promised so much with the introduction of this policy, for whom this policy was designed – will lose out considerably.