Chamber and committees

We have been working closely with the UK Government. It is aware of the issues that we have with the data sharing and that we are keen to access that data so that we can promote the ELC offer for two-year-olds to some families who might not be aware that they are eligible.

Yes, and the changes in child tax credit and working tax credit rates.

I am certainly aware of the private, voluntary and independent early years sector’s concerns about staffing and the movement of staff between different settings. The issue has been raised with me and my officials in our meetings with the sector and we are alive to it. We have taken steps to support the sector and I am more than happy to write to the committee to outline those steps in more detail.

That is the barrier with regard to the data sharing. As we wait for that data, we have also been working to ensure that parents and carers are aware of eligibility and, obviously, aware of the advantages of accessing quality ELC for eligible two-year-olds. In that respect, we have been working very closely with our local government colleagues, health colleagues on the health visiting pathway, family nurse practitioners and the third sector to promote the ELC funding offer to eligible two-year-olds.

Absolutely.

The Scottish Government, COSLA and many others have a shared ambition to have trauma-informed and trauma-responsive workforces across the country and to have transition and support planning in place for people with care experience. That is central to our commitment to keep the Promise. As I said in response to Gillian Mackay, as part of our national trauma training programme, we are developing tailored trauma training, which will be rolled out in summer 2023 to members of the workforce who work most closely with care-experienced babies, children and young people, and their families. Focusing on having a trauma-informed workforce across all public services will help to support not only the general population but care-experienced children and young people.

Last week, the committee heard evidence from my colleague Kevin Stewart, who is leading on the national care service. This week, the responses to the call for evidence and the consultation will be published, so I do not want to pre-empt those. Children’s services were included in the consultation, and, from my conversations with stakeholders and others, I am sure that a wide variety of views will have been submitted.

The Government is committed to keeping the Promise, to ensuring that children in Scotland grow up feeling loved, safe and respected, and that the wraparound services that they receive are appropriate to them.

I have no doubt that there will be challenges with the introduction of a national care service. There will be inevitable changes to social work, even if only adult services are covered by the national care service. We are very mindful of that. As with the challenges of addressing child poverty, the commitment to the Promise is a cross-Government commitment. We are mindful of unintended impacts, so we will develop the national care service in a way that does not lead to unintended consequences for other systems and services.

There is a principle of provider neutrality. A parent who has an eligible child can choose from a variety of early learning settings. That could be childminding, a nursery placement or an outdoor nursery.

It is important to remember that, even during the time of school and ELC closures for most pupils and young people, those facilities were there, not only for our key workers so that they could maintain services, but for vulnerable families who were identified by local authorities, because they know them best. Those families were, therefore, still able to access that funded ELC and school-age care.

As I said in response to Sandesh Gulhane, we have made significant progress in delivering a major expansion of provision, and part of that happened during a pandemic. That is testament to the work that many people have done to ensure that we could deliver 1,140 hours in August last year, and we have seen an increased uptake in relation to eligible two-year-olds year on year, which is encouraging. Obviously, there is still more to do and we want to ensure that everyone who is eligible for that provision is able to access it if they choose to do so, accepting that some parents of two-year-olds do not want to use that childcare.

We have done some work to ensure that the services that are in contact with families are aware of the childcare offer and can inform families about it. We are also working with the UK Government to look at UK-level data sharing. A UK Government consultation is calling for views on data sharing with the Scottish Government in relation to families that are recipients of eligible benefits so that local authorities would be more able to communicate directly with them, because there have been general data protection regulation issues, with systems not being able to speak to one other. My understanding is that that will require some legislation at Westminster.

As the cabinet secretary said, we also need to get alongside those eligible families and understand what the barriers are to them accessing the childcare offer.

My figures are slightly different from yours. There was a drop between 2019 and 2020, but it was a drop from 11 per cent to 9 per cent, rather than a drop to 2 per cent. In 2021, it increased to 13 per cent. Given the impact of Covid and the circumstances in which they were living, one can understand why parents did not register for the childcare that they were eligible for, or why they were reluctant to do so.

Childminders and the Scottish Childminding Association are key partners with the Scottish Government and local authorities in delivering the 1,140 hours and developing the wraparound care that we have committed to, and we are working closely with them to understand why childminders are giving up the profession and to help with recruitment and retention. As they are an absolutely key part of the ELC workforce, we are committed to working alongside the national association to understand what attracts people to childminding, to ensure that it is seen as an attractive career option, and to not only expand the workforce, but retain the current workforce and understand why people are choosing to leave.

As I said in my previous answer, we are working with stakeholders to shape and design the whole family wellbeing fund for 2022-23. We recognise that early intervention is essential to ensure that children can safely remain in the care of their families when they are at risk of becoming looked after or are looked after at home. To fulfil our commitments to the Promise, we have to understand the impact of trauma on family relationships and how we can drive a reduction in that. We will continue to engage with stakeholders and listen to those with care experience, to understand how we can support that critical work.

Through the children, young people and families early intervention fund, which is more commonly known as CYPFEI, funding is provided to more than 100 organisations—some of which the committee will have received evidence from—to promote wellbeing, prevention and early intervention activities and improve parenting and family support. We have committed to funding those organisations until 2023. In April 2023, as we committed to in this year’s programme for government, we will launch a £16 million third sector fund to replace the CYPFEI fund and the adult learning and empowering communities—ALEC—fund. Therefore, as I said, there are on-going commitments to continue to work with the sector.