부산대학교 도서관

Introduction: This paper reports on the outcomes from an analysis of 500 noncompliant regulations drawn from 1563 Early Years Services inspections that took place in Ireland between January and December 2017. Aim: The aim of this study was to consider the impact of the early years inspection process on the quality of early years services. Methodology: A two-stage approach was adopted. First, the extent to which regulatory compliance, as determined by the Early Years Inspector (EYI), was achieved at the end of the corrective and preventive actions (CAPA) process was calculated using a content analysis. Second, illustrative case studies are presented for the purpose of providing an insight into the approaches through which compliance is achieved. Results: The results show that the inspectorate successfully identifies noncompliances in respect of children's health, welfare and development, the safety and governance of the service and the premises and facilities. Following the detection of these noncompliances, it provides opportunities for early years providers to rectify the deficiencies and works in a collaborative way to achieve improvements to the services. More than eight in every 10 services (83%) make demonstrable and evidenced improvements to their service on completion of this process. A further 10% of services report improvements which the EYI will review at the next inspection. Conclusion: The results demonstrate that through responsive regulation as described by Boyne, Day, and Walker (2002), the EYIs are successful in effecting changes to the behaviour of service providers and securing improvements in the quality of the service.