Ms Teresa Heeney:

Currently, there is nothing in terms of pay and conditions to encourage people to work in the early years sector. Large numbers of the early years workforce are trained and qualified to the same level as their primary school counterparts. To signal a date by which that workforce will be included in public sector pay and conditions would have a transformative effect because it would immediately give a signal to people who were training in and qualified in early years to stay and work in the sector. That workforce is the key indicator of a quality service. We would couple that with an extension of equal start. The discussion earlier about DEIS was very important, because when the equal start model was developed, it learned a lot from DEIS. That is why it has taken a different approach. The equal start model identifies where each child is in the setting as opposed to the geographical way in the original DEIS programme. We hear from our members about how beneficial equal start has been in services because the workforce has time to engage and build relationships with families, which is very impactful when it comes to retaining those children in settings. Pay parity would give a signal of hope and professionalism to the early years workforce, whose members would then be able to implement in a very professional way the equal start model.