2 in 5 toddlers to miss out on free childcare
Scotland ‘trailing behind England’ on targets
ONLY 60 per cent of eligible two-year-olds in Scotland will have access to more than 600 hours of free childcare by April 2021.
By contrast, estimates for England show 70 per cent of children in the same age group are expected to take up their funded places.
The Scottish forecasts come despite the SNP’s plans to double the number of free hours available to all three and four-year-olds as well as eligible two-year-olds.
Predictions for Scotland suggest 8,707 two-year-olds will be taking up their entitlement to 600 hours of funded early learning and childcare by April 2021.
The figures were revealed in response to parliamentary questions submitted by the Scottish Liberal Democrats,
Beatrice Wishart, education spokesman for the Scottish Lib Dems, said: ‘High-quality childcare provision is essential to giving all young people the best start in life.
‘The minister for childcare should be royally embarrassed that this flagship policy is being so poorly mismanaged it won’t even bring us up to speed with the rest of the UK by 2021.
‘We are years into this policy so the problems it’s having identifying which twoyear-olds are eligible for free childcare should have been prioritised long ago.’
The questions also revealed that the Scottish Government’s August 2018 target to recruit 435 additional graduates to nurseries in the most
‘Won’t even bring us up to speed’
deprived areas has still not been met, with only 92 per cent of these positions filled more than a year later.
The doubling of the statutory entitlement to funded early learning and childcare from 600 hours to 1,140 hours – is due in August 2020.
It will cover all three and four-year-olds and around a quarter of two-year-olds.
But only ‘approximately 10 per cent’ of the additional infrastructure capacity required for the expansion is complete, with 44 more projects ‘in construction’ and 738 projects ‘in development’.
Previously published figures show that families could be ‘left in the lurch’ because nurseries are not ready for the SNP Government’s expansion of free childcare.
Nurseries are currently 5,135 childcare places and 416 staff behind schedule.
It is estimated that local authority nurses will need to provide places for 24,970 children, but actual capacity is only 19,835.
An extra 2,173 full-time staff have been recruited - but this is also short of the target of 2,859.
A spokesman for Minister for Children and Young People Maree Todd said: ‘From August next year we will be making available 1,140 hours per of childcare to all three and four-year-olds and eligible two-year-olds. This is far more ambitious than what is available south of the Border.
‘In terms of reaching out to families of eligible twoyear-olds, it is well known that we require the UK Government to pass legislation so that Scottish councils can access the same data as councils in England.
‘They have recently agreed to do so – and we now need to see this delivered as soon as possible.’
FAMILIES will welcome the plan by the SNP to double the availability of free childcare to three and four-year-olds and eligible two-year-olds from next year.
However, there are growing fears that ministers will not actually be able to deliver on the pledge.
There are already concerns about whether private and council-run nurseries will have the capacity and the staff to cope.
Now it has also emerged that well over a third of the two-year-olds predicted to be eligible for free care by 2021 will not receive it – meaning the situation will also be worse in Scotland than south of the Border.
Let’s hope the SNP provides adequate resources to this policy, and that it doesn’t become the latest in a long line of flagship pledges that it cannot deliver.