Now free childminder places for families

Additional option for care

Childminders in Stirling will from this week be able to offer free childcare places to three and four-yearolds as well as eligible two-year-olds.

It follows the sealing of a partnership between Stirling Council and the Scottish Childminding Association which will deliver additional options for free childcare.

The council has invested £48,000 for the trial of the scheme between January and June and will invest more if it is successful. Cash for the scheme has been allocated by the Scottish Government for expansion of early-years education.

Currently all three and four-year-olds, and some two-year-olds, are offered 600 hours of childcare per year. They can choose to claim this care from councilrun nurseries and private partner nurseries – but not childminders.

The partnership, the largest of its kind in Scotland, will give families the option to instead choose childminders for their free childcare, either for the entire 600 hours or as a split placement option.

More than forty SCMA we are allowing childminders access to crucial funding and to stay in business.”

The initiative is part of Stirling Council plans to meet Scottish Government’s commitment to the expansion of early years childcare by 2020.

This will see an increase in funded hours for all three and four-year-olds and eligible two-year-olds from the current 600 hours per year to 1140 hours by 2020.

Partner childminders attended an induction evening at Raploch Campus with Stirling Council and hosted by the SCMA on December 13 2017.

Chief executive of Scottish Childminding Association Maggie Simpson said: “The partnership will bring childminders into the mix of funded childcare options available to families. Childminders provide highquality early learning and childcare in a ‘home from home’ setting and many parents value this.”

Tory Group social care spokesperson Jeremy McDonald said: “This initiative fails to address the underlying problem we have in many communities that do not have enough registered childminders. In some areas there are none.”

Partnership will bring childminders into the mix of funded childcare options