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Meeting of the Parliament 15 March 2012

15 Mar 2012 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Childcare

Campbell, Aileen SNP Clydesdale Watch on SPTV

We are committed to making improvements to the life chances of children across Scotland and to introducing potential legislation next year. We will work with local government to ensure that all people across the country get the level of provision that we aspire to provide.

The fact that more than 600 hours of funded early learning and childcare will be provided is great news in itself, but the First Minister’s announcement was about more than hours and numbers. Key to our ambition of implementing a transformational change in Scotland’s delivery of early learning and childcare is flexibility. We want to ensure that provision can be accessed in ways that meet the needs of parents and families. We are heading on an ambitious and bold journey, and local government and other partners will have important parts to play as we work together to deliver our vision for high-quality, flexible and affordable childcare across the nation.

In addition to the offer of extended early learning and childcare provision, we will work with the early years task force and we will use its wisdom and expert knowledge to build a clear picture of current provision and to identify any gaps. I am happy to confirm that we will go further: in June 2012, we will convene a national business summit to explore new ways, including the promotion of childcare vouchers, of incentivising and encouraging more flexible working in the private sector to make it easier for parents with young children. We will develop a series of public-social partnerships, or PSPs, which will cover a range of specific childcare issues on which I believe more action is required. Those issues include parents who are on low incomes and/or in poverty; parents and carers who work shifts; out-of-school care, including holiday clubs; families who live in rural areas; and outdoor and nature kindergartens. PSPs represent a partnership approach to service development once an issue, such as childcare for shift workers, has been identified. PSPs will give all partners an opportunity to test new services and to evaluate them before tendering for delivery. The Scottish Government is promoting the PSP approach through the sector generally and we will, in the coming weeks, discuss with our local partners the best way to progress PSPs. I am sure that that approach will bring huge benefits to design and planning of local childcare provision in the specific areas that I have mentioned.

The Daycare Trust and Children in Scotland report “The Scottish Childcare Lottery” has made a significant contribution to the childcare debate. Although the report highlights that costs in Scotland are high, I emphasise that they are not the highest in the UK and that, in many cases, increases in costs in Scotland have been smaller than those south of the border. I also acknowledge the report’s raising of issues to do with the sufficiency of childcare and variation in costs across Scotland. I will ensure that those issues are investigated by our early years task force and local partners.

The Government will not rest on its laurels when it comes to taking action to improve the lives of Scotland’s children and families, and we are setting out the steps and actions that we need to take to improve early learning and childcare provision in Scotland in order that we match the best in Europe. High-quality early learning and childcare are vital for parents and children. For parents, they can provide a route out of worklessness and an opportunity for increased access to rewarding careers, and there is a wealth of evidence relating to babies and young children, perhaps most notably the effective provision of pre-school education—or EPPE—study to tell us about the benefits of high-quality early learning experiences. That is why the Government is committed to increasing the range of flexible and affordable high-quality early learning and childcare provision.

We have already announced an additional £4.5 million to provide early learning and childcare for all looked-after two-year-olds in Scotland, and a further £4.5 million to promote community-based solutions to family support and childcare from April this year.

I have outlined the range of work that we are undertaking to develop flexible and affordable childcare provision, but there are limits to what we can achieve to support parents with the costs of childcare while most of the levers for doing so remain reserved. We should contrast the Scottish Government’s actions and aspiration for a Scotland that is the best place to grow up in with the regressive welfare reforms by the coalition in London. I have huge concerns about the impacts that those reforms will have on our children and families.

We think that it is right that people should be supported into work, but the coalition’s welfare reform agenda is leading to a number of arbitrary budget cuts that will have damaging impacts on individuals and families in Scotland. As Malcolm Chisholm mentioned, the UK coalition Government reduced the cap for the childcare element of the working tax credit from 80 to 70 per cent in April last year. “The Scottish Childcare Lottery” report cites Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs data that estimate that that represents an average cut of £531 per year for families in Scotland.

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Meeting of the Parliament 15 March 2012

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