To ask the Minister of Education for his assessment of the fragmentation in responsibility for early years provision and childcare across Departments and arms-length bodies.

The key issue for me is not necessarily the number of bodies with responsibility in this area, rather the way in which they work together for the benefit of children and young people.

Within education, the creation of the Education Authority provides new opportunity to streamline our delivery of education provision for younger children and to work more closely with other departments and public bodies.

Across departments, the Delivering Social Change framework is also providing a mechanism for effective cross-departmental working on early interventions including early years.

In recognition of the benefits from aligning children’s services more closely with education, the Executive has also decided that, as part of the wider programme of restructuring of departments here, a new Department of Education will be established that will also have responsibility for certain children’s services. Work is ongoing to determine the children’s services that might transfer to the new Department of Education.