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Plenary, 17 Nov 1999

17 Nov 1999 · S1 · Plenary

Item of business

Child Care Strategy

Monteith, Mr Brian Con Mid Scotland and Fife Watch on SPTV

No. The Conservatives do not believe in universal provision of free education for three and four-year-olds. However, we recognise that there must be some state provision. Our manifesto included a policy that recognised that the current system provided only for part-time care and that the expansion of provision to three and four-year-olds would still provide only part-time care. We therefore advocated the use of vouchers to provide a minimum—to ensure provision for every child—that could be topped up. Parents could decide to split the voucher to provide part- time care for three or four years or to use it for full- time education for their four-year-old. That shows that we want to work with the grain of parental need, which is particularly important when discussing the child care strategy.

Labour claims that its child care policies improve choice and access for parents. Although we may get there in the end, that is not necessarily the case yet. When we introduced nursery vouchers, 80 per cent of children went into local authority provision. Since the vouchers were abolished, that figure has risen to 86.2 per cent. It is evident from many of our constituencies that private and voluntary provision is being crowded out. There are a number of reasons for that, and it is important that we take due regard of them when applying the strategy.

When, for example, local authorities decided to provide nursery care, often adjacent to existing playgroups, many parents decided to take their children out of playgroups and put them into the nurseries, because they saw the nurseries as a route into the schools that they wanted their children to attend. It was not the teaching, the play or the care that mattered to them, but the fact that the nurseries offered them a way of getting their child into a particular school. The Executive should take note of that.

It is also important that we pay regard to the education white paper cum bill, which proposes to make nursery provision a statutory duty. I have some concerns about that, because the funding is not ring-fenced. Some local authorities, by top- slicing for an administration charge, are already making it difficult for parents to choose private or voluntary care. In East Dunbartonshire, for example, the local authority imposes an administration charge on voluntary or private nurseries of some £268. In Falkirk, the charge is £295. In Highland, it is £245 for the voluntary sector and £105 for the private sector. In North Lanarkshire, it is £240. Western Isles Council charges £35. Local authorities impose those charges, but private nurseries often pass them on to parents—for whom they represent, in effect, an extra charge.

I am worried that, because the white paper imposes a statutory duty on local authorities, they may decide to change the pricing structure further and to enter into partnership agreements that make it impossible for private sector nursery provision to co-exist with local authority provision. Because there will be no ring-fenced protection, the private nurseries may be forced out of the sector; there will be not so much a partnership as two classes of provision. That does not accord with what I have heard the minister and many members of the Scottish Executive say in the past—that they want partnership, rather than a divided, isolated society.

It is important that we give some consideration to the sort of care that is provided. Teaching is not always appropriate; child care should be more about play and interaction through which children can develop social skills. We should be encouraging flexibility of choice, rather than monolithic provision by local authorities.

It is also important that we are assured that, if the private and voluntary sectors use new opportunities fund money, they will not face funding problems two or three years down the line. Children in Scotland has said:

"Out-of-school care and study-support schemes are being promoted through ‘pump-priming' funds from the National Lottery. The grants, however, are only for one- year after which projects are expected to sustain themselves—which is likely to be unrealistic."

I recognise that the minister has made an announcement on this, but we need greater assurances before we can be relaxed—or complacent, to use Nicola Sturgeon's word—about groups surviving beyond the initial period.

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Plenary, 17 Nov 1999

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