Meeting of the Parliament 31 October 2018
The Scottish Conservatives are pleased to bring this debate to the Parliament today. The motion in my name addresses a few serious points that, thus far, have been ignored by the Scottish Government. I hope that we can reach cross-party agreement today and send a signal to all the hardworking childcare partnerships in Scotland that their concerns will be addressed.
Four years ago, the Scottish National Party pledged to almost double childcare provision from 600 hours a year to 1,140 hours a year by August 2020 for all three and four-year-olds, and some eligible two-year-olds. It was quite the headline, but one question lingered: how would that be achieved?
It is clear that there has been a distinct lack of planning in following through on that promise, and if it is left to continue at its current pace, the 2020 target will not be met—in fact, the level of provision is likely to decrease. Almost half of the nurseries say that they are unlikely to meet the target of 1,140 hours, with many pointing to underfunding as a significant barrier to doing so. That has been echoed by Audit Scotland, which, in its recent report on the expansion of childcare provision, highlighted a staggering black hole of £160 million a year in the policy’s funding.
The motion focuses on one of the main reasons why the policy is failing: the lack of inclusion of the private sector, despite the minister’s constant assurances that it is a valued partner. There are more than 6,000 private childcare providers in Scotland. They play a huge part in developing Scotland’s children, but they are being swept aside. I have met several partnerships and local authorities, and one theme has been prevalent. There is a total lack of consistency and understanding in the roll-out of the 1,140 hours policy across local authorities.
The issues that private providers face can be boiled down to three major problem areas: the revenue funding rates across local authorities, the catastrophic staffing drain, and the lack of access to capital funding for private providers.
As things stand, there is no standard hourly rate of funding across Scotland. That means that private providers in some local authority areas receive significantly less than those in other local authority areas. Private providers receive varying rates across council areas, from £3.75 to £4.50 to £5.31. There is material variation and a total lack of consistency.
There is one thing that I want to make clear. The private sector nurseries are not big, multinational corporations; they are usually small, independent organisations with very tight profit margins. In operating at such a level, the slightest change in external factors can lead to difficult business decisions needing to be made. The lack of top-line funding prevents private nurseries from being able to pay many of their staff even the living wage, and the impact of that is that local authorities are able to attract staff who work in private nurseries to work for more money and fewer hours. That has a devastating impact on private providers and is causing a mass exodus of their childcare staff, which will ultimately affect the delivery of high-quality childcare in the long run.
That is why the Scottish Conservatives will support Mary Fee’s amendment. The staffing problem is a huge thorn in the side of the feasibility of the policy in delivering good-quality childcare for children across Scotland.
I turn to the third and possibly the most avoidable problem that private providers face: the lack of access to capital funding. Capital funding is supposed to be available to all childcare providers, but many private providers that I have met have noted with frustration that local authorities are denying them access to funding and instead almost exclusively awarding it to their own council-run nurseries, without even considering private partnerships. Worse than that, there is confusion in several local authorities about whether private providers are entitled to receive capital funding. Yesterday, I spoke to representatives from one local authority who were quite indignant at the idea of private providers expecting to receive capital funding. Another local authority basically said, “Oh no. They’re not entitled to that.”
That can be cleared up today. Will the minister write to each and every local authority to make clear the correct position regarding access to capital funding? I would be happy to give way to her now if she will confirm that she will do that.