Chamber and committees

Rather than just putting on record what those inequalities might be, do the witnesses have any thoughts about how to address them? On broadband, for example, could the Parliament book a specific suite where there is good internet connectivity close to where the person lives, to ensure that there are no issues with connectivity or house space?

I have one final question, in case I do not come back in on this topic. As Artemis Pana and Bill Scott both mentioned, if someone has caring responsibilities or lives in a remote or rural area, it is great that they can contribute from home, but that should not cut them off from being able to come to Parliament. Might there be some inequalities in that regard? If we say to people, “Well, it’s difficult to get you to Parliament, so just go remote,” an inequality emerges. How can we address that sort of stuff?

I name-checked Artemis and Bill, so I should give them the opportunity to come in. Perhaps Bill can go first.

Good morning, everyone. To give some brief context to my question, there is consensus that, during Covid, great opportunities have been taken to improve equality, but every measure that is taken can inadvertently create some form of inequality. We have heard that remote participation is great unless a person’s device or broadband connection is not as good as someone else’s. Have there been any equalities issues that specifically relate to the change to online? Things can get better, but inequalities between different groups can still increase.

Do you want me to roll my second question together with this one, convener?

It is not, of course, for me to speak for the committee, because it will have its own deliberations, but, if the committee thought that it would be useful for the Improvement Service to do that work, would you be interested in doing it in the months ahead?

Can I ask another question, because we have time constraints? The process has been outlined by you and COSLA, and there was a health check in August last year. That all sounds good, and it is very positive that 1,000 partners have fed in on what the costs pressures are and so on.

Rates are being set just now, so engagement is taking place. If we were to fast forward a few months, would we get a report from the Improvement Service on where improvements have been made and—just as important—on the local authority areas where more work still needs to be done? If, later in the year, we were to ask, “How did things go?”, would we be told how they actually went instead of getting some reflective general comments about the process of engagement? How will we be able to measure success in a few months, after the rates have been set?

That all sounds great, but is there a disconnect between all of that and what happens locally on the ground? Is there a best-practice template that every local authority should use? There should, absolutely, be flexibility, but surely there are certain key things that every local authority should do in relation to the matter. We heard from witnesses that not every local authority is doing that, but they did not take up Mr Dey’s offer to name and shame or to put on the record the local authorities that have not stepped up to the plate. This is not about naming and shaming; it is about improving practice across the 32 local authorities and having an open, transparent and structured approach to engagement.

I ask Matthew Sweeney, then Adam Hall, to respond. I want to know how we can say, “Tick—that local authority is doing what we anticipated,” or, “That one has some work to do.” Unless we know what is happening on the ground, we will not drive up improvement. It is not about naming and shaming; it is about identifying who has to do a lot better.

Thank you. I had another question on diversity in the workforce, but I am looking at the convener. Do I have time to ask it just now, convener?

I am concerned about the word “patchy”, because the point of the recommendation in August last year was, kind of, that the situation was patchy and that the Government, COSLA and the Improvement Service should stop it being patchy.

I understand that having a strong process through which local authorities engage with the third and private sectors does not mean that providers will necessarily get the rates that they would like—although we hope that the output will be good news for the sector—but there must still be a strong, robust and engaged set of practices across the 32 local authorities. We understand that everyone is under financial pressure, but that is not an excuse not to have strong processes.

Matthew Sweeney, has the process been strengthened? How can we measure that across 32 local authorities, instead of just asserting that we have engaged? That is not, in the slightest, a dig at COSLA. How can we measure whether a robust process has been put in place for engagement?

I want to ask about the diversity of the workforce. The recent exchange with Mr Rennie was helpful because it flushed out quite a few things, but we need to see the bigger picture.

We have had a revolution in the provision of early learning and childcare, the number of local authority staff in the sector has gone from 10,000 to 18,000 and there is now a requirement to pay the real living wage across all providers, which is the right thing to do. My earlier line of questioning was about the financial challenges on the sector, irrespective of that, but we have to look at things in the round.

There is something called a stability index, which is very important. That is about the retention of early years staff in the sector—

I am really interested in the exchanges that have taken place. The submission from the National Day Nurseries Association welcomed the “Financial Sustainability Health Check of the Childcare Sector in Scotland”, which was published in August last year, because it acknowledges some of the challenges in setting sustainable rates. There is a call for that to go further and for the rates to be reviewed.

I dug out that document, which says that the Government will

“Strengthen the process for local authorities to set sustainable rates for providers in the private, third and childminding sectors to deliver funded ELC.”

It goes on to say that the Government would

“work with COSLA ... in time ... for setting ... rates for August 2022.”

That recommendation is from August last year, and we have just heard that the rates are about to be set. Has the process been strengthened? Jonathan, what engagement has there been to ensure that that happens?

This is important, convener, and others on the committee are allowed to give a context to what they say.

The stability index shows that 78.9 per cent of staff in the sector are there at the start of the following year—they are retained for a year—and that is up by 2.5 per cent.