Continued Petitions

PE2112, which was lodged by Carole Erskine on behalf of Pregnant Then Screwed, calls on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to commission an independent review of publicly funded early learning and childcare in Scotland, in order to better understand and address the challenges that families face when trying to secure and afford childcare.

We last considered the petition on 30 October 2024, when we agreed to write to the National Day Nurseries Association Scotland; the Scottish Private Nursery Association; the parents group Connect; the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities; and the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills.

The Minister for Children, Young People and The Promise wrote to the committee on 29 November 2024. In her letter, she reiterated that the Scottish Government does not plan to commission an external review at this point in time and that it intends to learn from an evaluation of the 1,140 hours of funded early learning and childcare. That evaluation was due in 2025. The minister also referenced the Government’s early adopter community work, which is taking place in six local authorities and aims to help the Government to understand what it takes to deliver local childcare systems that support families with children.

The submission from the National Day Nurseries Association supports the aim of the petition and expresses concern that the delivery of the 1,140 hours policy, which, in itself, is beneficial, can lead to the closure of nurseries, due to unsustainable funding and workforce pressures. That is echoed by the submission from the Scottish Private Nursery Association, which states that the failure by some local councils to pass the full funding for the 1,140 hours on to childcare providers leads to nurseries increasing their fees in order to cover the shortfall.

The submission from Connect highlights the results of its 2021 survey on experiences of the 1,140 hours entitlement. Among its conclusions is the lack of variety and flexibility in the range and type of childcare provision, which sometimes leads to many funded hours going unused—because the arrangements make no practical sense for families and their needs.

On the other hand, COSLA’s response points us to its publication, “Getting in Early—Local Government’s role in Delivering Early Learning and Childcare”, which highlights increases in the numbers of children accessing funded ELC and in the proportion of children who are accessing the full 1,140 hours entitlement.

Finally, the committee has received written submissions from our colleagues Liam McArthur and Monica Lennon. They both say that the current approach to childcare provision does not work for families and support the petition’s call for an independent review of publicly funded ELC in Scotland.

We are joined by our colleague Meghan Gallacher. I wonder whether she would like to say a few words to the committee before we determine how we might best proceed.

Thank you, convener, and good morning, committee. Before I make my opening remarks, I declare an interest as I sit on the advisory board for Pregnant Then Screwed. It will therefore come as no surprise that I am here to support the petition in the name of Carole Erskine and the fantastic work that Pregnant Then Screwed does to highlight the challenges that many families right across Scotland face with childcare.

The challenges are very evident from the petition that has been submitted and the 2,600 submissions from parents who are struggling to grapple with the current 1,140 hours offering. If I may, I will use my personal experience of applying for childcare for my daughter, who is three. I have just embarked on the application process for the 1,140 hours of childcare, and even filling out the forms is not an easy process.

09:45

The process is usually quite lengthy. You have to number the nursery or childcare provision that you wish your child to undertake 1, 2, 3 and so on, and then you are beholden to local government as to whether you obtain one of those nursery slots or are directed to other nursery provision elsewhere. When the latter ends up being the case, parents have to travel considerable distances just to drop their child off at their childcare provision.

We have not even begun to look at the costs associated with the 1,140 hours provision. The hours will cover roughly two full days and another half-day; if you are a full-time working parent, you will have to cough up the costs for another two full days of provision. That shows the significant financial challenges of not only trying to access a nursery close to home, but the additional costs associated with the current funding model that we have in Scotland.

In the Pregnant Then Screwed survey of 2,600 parents whose submissions I have just mentioned, 83.7 per cent of parents said that their childcare costs were the same as or more than their income. Moreover, anyone listening to the radio this morning will have heard a parent explaining that their childcare costs could amount to £1,600 a month. That shows the stark costs of childcare in Scotland.

You have received useful responses from the SPNA and the NDNA about the petition’s request, setting out their concerns about local government, which has overall control of the budgets, and the requirement to provide funded hours. The fact is that nurseries in local authority areas cannot normally accommodate working parents who, for example, have 9-to-5 jobs. They might have to drop their child off at about 8 o’clock in the morning and might not be able to pick them up until 6 o’clock, and not all local authorities are able to provide that offering. As a result, those parents have to rely on the private sector, which is usually the poor man in the relationship with local authorities when it comes to the 1,140 hours provision.

I believe that it is time for an independent review, because we need to fully understand the costs facing parents and what they are having to front up in addition to the 1,140 hours. In other areas of the United Kingdom, the free funded childcare offering has been expanded from nine months to three years old, and I believe that that should be considered, too. We should be putting childcare back at the top of the Government’s agenda.

My request to the committee, therefore, is not to close the petition, but to look at referring it to another committee. I understand that we have roughly 20 weeks left before the end of the parliamentary session, but I would suggest that there are legacy reports. Even if the committee in question could not find time to consider the petition between now and the end of the parliamentary session, the matter could be covered in a legacy report, and it would show that the Parliament is taking seriously the issues that parents across the country are experiencing daily when it comes to providing their children with the best possible start in life.

Thank you, and I hope that we can do a bit more than that. Colleagues, do you have any suggestions for action?

If there are no other comments from colleagues, are we content to keep the petition open and to make that further representation to the Scottish Government?

Members indicated agreement.

I thank Meghan Gallacher very much. We will keep the petition open and act on that basis.