Wake up! As each day passes the world seems to turn ever faster.
By the time you read this Gordon Brown, Labour's champion of Sure Start and related early years initiatives may be gone as Britain's Prime Minister. Added to which a Cameron-led Conservative government is almost certainly only two years away.
Sad isn't it. Ultimately these Labour governments have proved to be an underwhelming dissappointment and Gordaon must take a great part of the blame. In fact the roots of this failure lie with Prudence, Gordon's first term pledge to stick with Tory spending plans. This was a mistake at a time when we had a strong and growing economy and set the scene for the last eleven years of managerialism rather than radicalism. Basically the fight of child poverty was never going to be won, because the government was too cautious and not radical enough.
So what will a Conservative government mean for us in Early Years?
Probably not a lot, although the tories have been rather light on detail on early years, the Leveller has come to the conclusion that Cameron and Gove are far from radical, certainly not as originally feared, tories in the Thatcher mould. Cameron seems nice enough and he is young, bright, energetic, reasonably good looking and keen not to offend. Basically not all that scary. Of course for most people his greatest attribute is that he is not Gordon Brown.
Wha t we know at the moment is that there will be more involvement of the private and voluntary sectors in the delivery of early years services rather than local authorities. There will probably be more encouragement for parents to be involved in setting up there own provision - hopefully more localism and pluralism rather than top-down target setting. There will certainly be more 'proper old style education',i.e. phonics pushed down the age range to pre-school. Less Ofsted they say they want less regulation, although I don't believe there'll deliver on that one (As an aside did you know that Ofsted has a budget of £400 million a year - just think what could be done with that), more health visitors and less family support workers.
One thing we do know the credit crunch and the end of the free market will mean a straightened economy for all of u, there will be an all-round lack of funds. From a self-interest point of view this will mean more families will be struggling. I am sure that there will be a renewed drive on welfare to work, as what we will be lacking is people with the skills to earn wages in the grimmer global job market. Interestingly there are signs that this may solve one problem for Children's Centres, as money becomes tighter in households there are indications that women are asking for additional hours, moving from part-time to full-time or going out to work when previously they would have been content to stay at home with the children longer. The Leveller believes nurseries will be busier and more viable. One small problem solved, but what does this mean for society... ...a bigger question than I can answer today.
Footnote.
If, as he so desperately wants to, David Miliband deposes Brown and becomes PM there may be a brief respite. Naomi Eisenstadt, in her days as Director of the SureStart Unit, told me that David Miliband's mother had been one of the founders of the Pre-School Learning Alliance. One would hope that he would be an ally.