Dr. Anne-Marie Brooks:

We have an early learning and childcare stakeholder forum. This is the main mechanism through which the Minister and the Department engage with key stakeholders including provider representatives, workforce representatives, children and family representatives and other groups. We meet regularly with that forum on key issues facing the sector, most recently a number of weeks ago. In addition, there is a range of other mechanisms through which we engage with representatives to inform ongoing work. An example of this is the work in developing the funding model, which was led by an independent expert group but core to that development was very significant stakeholder engagement that ran over the two-year period of that piece of work, starting with an open call for submissions and a nationwide survey about the funding model.

The second and third phases involved engaging with the early learning and childcare stakeholder forum. The consultation for the funding model was independently run by Frontier Economics and it engaged with early learning and care stakeholder forum representatives on two occasions in phases two and three. The reports of those consultation exercises were published and did inform the work of the expert group. There are other very good examples of the way in which we engage with the sector. In the context of work that Mr. Wolfe led on, the nurturing skills, there was an advisory that worked hand in glove with the steering group that designed the nurturing skills plan. We currently have a sub-group of the early learning and care stakeholder forum soon to meet to look at workforce recruitment and retention issues.