Meeting of the Parliament 11 March 2020
In September last year, 50,000 children across Scotland were already benefiting from additional high-quality early learning and childcare—high-quality learning and care that we know, from international evidence, can transform their lifelong outcomes.
The expansion is already happening. Nurseries have been, and continue to be, extended, refurbished and built. Staff at all levels have been, and continue to be, recruited. However, the most important thing—the reason why the Parliament supports the policy—is that children are already benefiting, and many more will benefit as of this August. Yes, there is still much to do. However, we are confident that by continuing to work closely with our partners in local government—as we have done from the beginning—we will have a successful delivery of the expansion of early learning and childcare in Scotland.
In its report last week, Audit Scotland recognised the progress that we have made. I want to start by reading out the first two lines of the key messages in that report, which say:
“The Scottish Government and councils are making steady progress to deliver the expansion of funded early learning and childcare (ELC). At a national level, progress is broadly in line with plans to deliver the increased hours by August 2020.”