Speeches

A Milestone Year For The ECC

Sue Thorne speech for the Early Childhood Council cocktail function Rowers Function Centre, Taranaki Wharf, Wellington 15 November 2006 Welcome ladies and gentlemen… 2006 has been a milestone year for the Early Childhood Council. A decade ago we had just 200 centre members. Last year we had 840. Today we are very close to a thousand strong. Our members are both commercially and community run. They educate well over half, perhaps two thirds of all children in the education and care sector. We have achieved this strength by keeping our members informed. By representing their interests. And by helping them to become the best possible providers of education and care. This year we answered thousands of members’ enquiries on hundreds of issues. From the impact of Government policies to dealing with intoxicated parents. We ran a web site. We published a weekly email newsletter, a magazine and launched a health and safety handbook. We ran seminars on ‘Stepping up to Supervisor’ and ‘How to be a Good Employer’. And we toured them from one end of this country to the other. Our 2006 conference astonished us. There had been 350 at conference the year before. This year we got 600. We had to close off registrations so early it was embarrassing. We turned away hundreds. The Minister of Education opened our conference. The Leader of the Opposition closed it. OECD economist Dr Willem Adema spoke on the reconciliation of work and family life and there were dozens of workshops. It was just as this conference was ending that the sector faced a major challenge. The Education Amendment Bill was coming to its Second Reading. It would create thousands of micro-rules that would control almost every aspect of running an early childhood service. And it would do so beyond the purview of Parliament. With the help of Parliamentary allies we won amendments that ensured we have the power to have unreasonable rules scrutinised by Parliament’s powerful Regulations Review Committee. It is a power we intend to use. Some would think it an understatement to say we have not always enjoyed good relationships with Ministers of Education. We have found in Minister Maharey, however, a Minister who listens. And in late September we showed him a survey of our membership revealing that more than a third could not achieve 50 per cent qualified staff by January 2007. The Minister responded by announcing a December deadline instead. This was not a policy change. The deadline remained ‘2007’. But it was the most generous interpretation possible of existing policy. We face today a major challenge with the Government’s election promise ‘to provide funding for 20 hours free early childhood education for three and four year olds’ from July next year. The Early Childhood Council is, of course, not against free early childhood education. Who would be? But we have concerns. The new subsidy is designed to top up existing payments to the point at which childcare is free to parents. Problems arise because the Government is planning to pay an unvarying hourly rate to centres whose current charges vary between $2 and $15. These current rates vary for very simple reasons. For example, centres pay more for teachers in some regions than others. And land that costs $50,000 in the rural South Island can cost more than half a million in Auckland. Because an unvarying hourly rate ignores these differences the risk is that higher-cost centres will have to choose between maintaining their standards and opting into 20 Free Hours. They may not be able to do both. If centres opt out in numbers, and we fear they will, then tens of thousands of children are set to miss out on the 20 Free Hours opportunity. In saying this we are very aware that the current Minister did not devise this scheme. He inherited it. And it is clear to us he is going out of his way to make 20 Free Hours work for everyone. He could have compelled centres to take part. This would have caused some centres to close and others to slash spending on quality resources. But he did not. Furthermore the Minister is trying to allow for centres with higher costs by creating something called ‘optional charges’. These are charges for items not required by regulation. Parents can agree to pay – or not. But once they agree charges are compulsory. Despite the efforts of Government the Early Childhood Council has received, from our members, many dozens of confused, worried and angry emails and phone calls. Higher-cost centres fear 20 Free Hours will force them to cut essential programmes for children. Centres, especially small centres with little in the way of specialist administration, think it unfair that the cost of 20 Free Hours paperwork is foisted upon them with no compensation. Others are anxious because Government is asking them to promote the scheme to families before it has announced the hourly rate. How, say centres, can you promote 20 Free Hours to your parents when you do not yet know the hourly rate and do not yet know therefore whether or not you will be able to afford to offer the scheme? The most common complaint we hear from members pertains to ‘optional charges’. Members do not believe they can effectively manage their revenue if customers can choose to pay – or not. And they are scratching their heads about how they will manage children, some of whose parents have paid for additional services and some of whose parents have not. How, they say, can you forbid a child access to something other children are enjoying because his parents have not paid for it? It is not yet the position of the Early Childhood Council that 20 Free Hours should be resisted head on. And we hope it will never be. We understand the Minister must deliver on an election promise. But we cannot yet live with 20 Free Hours as articulated. That is why we intend to explore the possibility that a tweaking within the confines of existing policy might be enough to maintain a sector-wide consensus. If we fail hundreds of centres will opt out of 20 Free Hours. And tens of thousands of children will miss out on free education. It is in no one’s interest that these things happen. It is certainly not in the interests of the families and children we all serve. It’s a milestone year for the Early Childhood Council. We will have our 1000th member by the end of it. We are stronger in numbers and resources than we have ever been. We have what you might call ‘issues’ with Government. But we have a Minister prepared to listen. We face challenges. But we face them from a position of strength. Thank you all for coming along this evening and sharing in our celebration of a most successful year for the Early Childhood Council and its members.

17/11/06 - Sue Thorne