What additional funding is available to ensure quality and choice in pre-school provision in rural areas.

The provision of pre-school education in rural areas is the responsibility of local authorities, working with partner providers in the private and voluntary sector. To take account of the additional cost of pre-school provision in rural areas, the pre-school education grant, which from April 2002 will be re-integrated into the local government settlement, includes a rural weighting. For 2002-03, this rural weighting will be worth £6.4 million.Families are not provided with additional resources to obtain part-time pre-school education places for three- and four-year-olds, since from 1 April 2002, local authorities in all areas of the country will be under a duty to secure these places at no cost to the parent or guardian. The Executive encourages the identification and dissemination of good practice, in meeting the need for pre-school provision in rural areas. The Executive is therefore funding two themes of Children in Scotland's programme Growing Up in Rural Scotland. This programme includes a series of seminars which are intended to assist local authorities, childcare partnerships, pre-school providers and other organisations in providing quality pre-school education in rural areas.