Chamber and committees

I will start with a question to Wendy Brownlie about funding and pay rates for staff. Why are staff in private and voluntary sector nurseries paid so much less than those in council nurseries?

Carrie Lindsay, do you think that that is fair? Have you seen staff leaving the private and voluntary sector?

I have a couple of brief questions about the fee rates for two-year-olds versus those for three and four-year-olds. Some councils, including Argyll and Bute Council, pay a different rate, because they recognise the different ratios and requirements that are determined for two-year-olds. However, some councils, such as Fife Council, offer exactly the same rate for two-year-olds as they do for three and four-year-olds. Why is there no differential in Fife?

I have one more question. Why are we so terrible at getting two-year-olds to take up their provision?

That is fine.

Having spoken to nurseries, including those in Fife, I know that there is no doubt that they are reducing capacity, because they cannot get the staff. They have constant turnover, partly because jobs elsewhere, including those in council nurseries, are paid so much more. The examples are pretty stark: in Falkirk, a local authority head of centre is paid 71 per cent more than their private nursery manager equivalent, despite working fewer hours. The difference is astonishing, and what is happening is no surprise.

However, this is not really about market forces, is it? In the past, there was the ability to cross-subsidise, because there were fewer state-funded hours and you could see the cross-subsidy working—although it is debatable whether it was fair for private customers to subsidise the state to such an extent. However, if the state is expanding so much that it is now paying the bulk of the revenue to private nurseries, there is no room for cross-subsidy any more. The issue, therefore, is not market forces, but what the state is prepared to pay for that service. I just urge you to consider whether it is fair for the state to discriminate in that way between private and council nurseries. I know, Carrie, that you will be reluctant to say whether that is fair, but the answer is pretty obvious, is it not?

In the past 12 years, the number of early years education teachers has dropped from 1,500 to 700. Does that not indicate that we are offering just childcare rather than early learning and education?

Is it fair that they are paid so much less by the state than the council nurseries are paid for doing exactly the same job?

I am just debating whether what you have described is 71 per cent more valuable and whether such a difference is justified.

I will move on. I think that Kirsty Maxwell wants to come in.

We should recognise that significant progress has been made. The guidance is a massive step change from what was in place, and that is, in large part, down to the work that Beth Morrison and her colleagues have done. Beth has been a ferocious campaigner. I have met her several times and she has been ferocious with the campaign—and rightly so—because she has personal experience of when things go wrong.

We have to make sure that the guidance works. Everybody should get behind the guidance so that we can get the step change in training and support in schools that is necessary to make sure that teachers are able to comply with the guidance. I think that we should focus on that initially.

I have sympathies with Stephen Kerr and think that we should look at putting the guidance on a statutory footing, but I would not want to delay things too much longer. We need to get on and make sure that the guidance is in place and that there is a united front behind it, so that it is effective.

If we find that we need extra tools and leverage in the future to make sure that best practice is spread, we should return to the statutory footing. We should ask the minister what steps should be taken to get to that position and how she will monitor that, and we must make sure that we have sufficient resource behind the guidance so that teachers feel capable of implementing and following it.

I support what Graeme Dey says—it is the right step to take at this stage. I understand the frustration that Beth Morrison might feel at that, but we have great admiration for what she did. We need to capitalise on the benefits that she has delivered and ensure that the guidance is implemented effectively.