Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 565 to 567, inclusive, together.

Better Start was established in 2014 by my Department, in association with the Department of Education, to deliver quality-related supports to early learning and care services and to support a cohesive approach to State-funded supports for quality across the early learning and care sector. Better Start is hosted by Pobal on behalf of my Department.

The Quality Development Service (QDS) forms one strand of Better Start activities. The QDS works with early learning and care settings in a mentoring capacity to promote and develop the quality of practice, as set out in Síolta, the National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education, and Aistear, the Early Childhood Curriculum Framework.

The QDS provides a skilled and experienced team of Early Years Specialists (EYS) to work directly in a mentoring capacity with early learning and care services, on a national basis. The Early Years Specialists use the Aistear Síolta Practice Guide (National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, 2014) as a key resource in mentoring services to develop quality for children.

The purpose of the Practice Guide is to support early years educators in using Aistear: the Early Childhood Curriculum Framework (2009) and Síolta, The National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education (2006) together to develop the quality of their curriculum and in doing so, to better support children’s learning and development.

Requests for the service come directly to Better Start, principally from the City and County Childcare Committees. All requests for the service are processed centrally. EYSs are allocated to the services on the basis of availability, skills and experience as far as possible matching the service profile.

Better Start EYSs work with the management and staff to build on service knowledge, strengths and experience in order to enhance the quality of service to young children. Early learning and care services are supported in action planning and goal setting using the Aistear Síolta Practice Guide. They will usually visit the service on a weekly or fortnightly basis, over a period of about six months.

These supports are delivered in a coherent and consistent way to support the provision of high quality services and promote positive outcomes for children.

The tables below present the requested information in tabular form. Table A shows the funding that the QDS has received on an annual basis from 2014 to 2023. Table B shows the overall number of early learning and care services that have engaged in the QDS and also the number of services that have re-engaged with the QDS. Table C gives the annual breakdown of services that have engaged with the QDS. Since 2020, the QDS has included a shorter Quality Practice Supports service in addition to the longer format of support provided since 2014. The figures in Table C represent the total number of services that have engaged in either of the QDS supports.

Table A - Better Start QDS funding

Better Start Quality Development Service	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023
Total	€2,496,434	€3,130,000	€2,905,000	€2,946,949	€3,284,658	€3,480,000	€3,336,694	€3,700,509	€3,458,000	€4,472,267

Table B - Participation in QDS

The number of early learning and care services that have participated in the QDS provided by Better Start/Pobal since its establishment	2,100
The number of early learning and care services that have participated with the Better Start/Pobal QDS more than once	413

Table C - Individual early learning and care services that have participated in the QDS

Year	Number of services
2015	277
2016	134
2017	121
2018	169
2019	144
2020	109
2021	157
2022	420
2023	435
2024 (year to date)	134
Total Count	2,100

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Core Funding supports Partner Services with their financial sustainability while enhancing the quality, affordability and accessibility of their services. In accordance with Partnership for the Public Good, (DCEDIY 2021) the Core Funding model commits to drive high quality service provision. To support this, Core Funding requires all early learning and care (ELC), school-age childcare (SAC) and childminding services that benefit from Core Funding to complete a quality planning template annually, using tools provided by the Department and their agents to compile their Core Funding Quality Action Plan.

Through the introduction of Core Funding, provision is made for services to identify actions that will enhance the quality of their service provision. Many services are already engaged in quality improvement processes, for example, through their engagement with the Better Start Quality Development Service or through self-evaluation processes supported by the Aistear/Síolta Practice Guide.

The quality action plan offers a means of systematically capturing and acknowledging this positive work for the first time. As part of this process for all partners, learning from it is being used to inform the development of the process as it evolves. Partner Services are offered an opportunity to provide feedback on the process. The process, and the feedback received on it, supports the commitment in First 5 to strengthen supports for self-evaluation and development of a single quality framework to support self-evaluation and external evaluation of services.

As quality improvement is an ongoing process, activities that services undertake may change and progress from year to year. Quality reporting requirements under Core Funding will also evolve in future years to reflect this, based on the learning drawn from this process. Therefore the quality action plan template may change annually.

From 20 May 2024 to 28 July 2024 Partner Services will be required to complete and submit a Quality Action Plan Report for the programme year 2023-24. This provides an opportunity to outline the option(s) chosen, the actions identified and how they progressed, support sought, and any challenges experienced. There will also be a section for services to provide feedback on the year two process; this information will be used to refine the process for year 3 and future years.

The table below indicates the number of requests for support through the Quality Action Plan process, broken down by organisation. It should be noted that the number of services actually supported may differ from this, and that support organisations may receive requests for support from sources other than the Quality Action Plan process.

Core Funding Quality Action Plan support requests across all Tusla registered services (ELC, SAC and childminding):

Organisation	Number of Requests *
Barnardos	384
Better Start	671
Bláthu	11
Childminding Development Officer	9
Childminding Ireland	18
City/County Childcare Committee	1,544
Early Childhood Ireland	958
National Childhood Network	335
St. Nicholas Montessori	78
Total:	4,008

Note: * Figures do not indicate numbers of unique services as a service can make requests across more than one organisation.