Graduate Leader Fund (GLF)

The graduate leader fund is a 3-year £175m fund nationally that replaces the time-limited Transformation Fund. This sum has been identified to enable a local plan to be put in place that will facilitate the vision to have a graduate in every PVI full daycare setting by 2015. This follows the ambition laid out in the 10-year childcare strategy.

Why the Graduate Leader fund?

The funding has been allocated to support three things

• To strengthen the support and challenge provided by local authorities to settings in order to continuously improve the quality of practice.
• To develop the early years workforce to respond effectively to that stronger support and challenge
• To directly support the recruitment and /or training of a graduate leader for every PVI full daycare setting in local authority areas.

In addition it will continue the work of the transformation fund but with much greater flexibility for the authority.

In the near future we will be announcing plans on how you will be able to utilise this funding and publishing our strategy.

All settings should be aware of the governments aim to have a graduate leader in all full-time setting by 2015. The GLF will assist us in working towards achieving this.

 Important News regarding Level 3 Qualifications and Settings

Plans have also recently been announced that state a Level 3 qualification should be the norm in settings for all childcare staff. This will obviously impact on the training needs for many settings and we will be working with you to support this.