Councils should truly work with private providers to deliver more nursery hours

Your article “SNP council warns childcare ‘revolution’ in doubt over staff shortfall” (1 August) sheds light on extremely important issues faced by parents and nurseries in Scotland as we move towards the 2020 vision for Early Learning & Childcare (ELC).

Worryingly for private nursery providers, there is a major disconnect between high-level Scottish Government Policy on ELC and what is happening on the ground as the 1,140hour policy is rolled out. All councils seem to be saying one thing and doing something completely different. There is no common approach – apart from the fact that all local authority areas are in a mess when it comes to implementing the policy. Many problems have been highlighted by our sector body, the National Day Care Association, as well as by Audit Scotland.

Your article highlights a shortage in staffing for councils, but that only tells one part of the story. The other side is that councils appear to be insulating their own provision to the detriment of the private sector, despite the guiding principles for 1,140 hours stating clearly that choice should be both flexible (to meet the needs of the child and working parents) and provider-neutral (no differentiation between providers, whether they be public, private or third sector).

The insulation of provision by council means the staffing shortage will be filled by headhunting the brightest and best from the private sector. One of my own establishments lost six staff to South Lanarkshire Council (SLC) at Christmas last year, as SLC geared up their staffing for 1,140 hours. These were staff we had invested in, trained, developed and valued very highly. As with my experience with SLC, councils will sway people to join them because of the historic perception that working in ELC within a local authority provides better financial and other benefits for staff.

The roll-out of 1,140 hours is meant to change this twotier system and offer a level playing-field from 2020. Again, this is not our experience. What we see is councils rolling out the programme to their establishments first, soaking up capital funding to extend their provision and largely ignoring the expertise and capacity we have within the Private sector (as well as pinching our staff ).

This is not an approach which takes working parents’ needs into account – and many of them need the high-quality, flexible and fairly priced provision we have offered five days a week, 50 weeks a year, for many years.

There is a massive culture shift required if the 2020 policy vision is to be delivered. We are called “partner providers”, but the practice is not currently one of equal partnership. To roll out 1,140 hours successfully, honesty, transparency and a fair and equitable sharing of available resources is required. Private providers are key to helping councils deliver the Scottish 2020 ELC commitment. They cannot do it without us.

BEN MCLEISH

Managing Director Almond Park Nursery, Macbeth Moir Road, Musselburgh Bizzyberry Nursery Market Road, Biggar