Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of transparency and proactively publishes delivery progress reports when quality assurance processes are complete.

The process to prepare these publications requires significant work by the Improvement Service and local authority partners from the point of collection to the release of the final publication. It is important that ample opportunity is given to allow for quality assurance and detailed analysis of the data, to ensure quality and accuracy in the final report. This process takes time. The reports published in December 2018 and August 2019 cover a wide dataset, and a full 6 month reporting period.

The most recent publication related to an additional data collection focused on a snapshot of data at ‘one year to go’, and were collected over the summer period, and covered a more limited dataset. As a result the collection, analysis and assurance process as a whole was quicker, and officials worked to enable publication of the data on 2 October 2019.

The process to prepare these reports for publication requires significant work by the Improvement Service and local authority partners from the point of collection to the release of the final publication. It is important that ample opportunity is given to allow for quality assurance and detailed analysis of the data, to ensure quality and accuracy in the final report.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of transparency, and proactively publishes progress reports when appropriate quality assurance is complete.

The Scottish Government Letter of Guidance to the Scottish Funding Council for academic year 2017-18 sought an additional 650 places on Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) related HNC courses. The number of people completing ELC related HNC courses in the 2017-18 academic year was 1,564.

An additional 350 places at graduate level were also sought for the 2017-18 academic year. The number of people entering such courses in 2017-18 was 645.

Information for academic year 2018-19 will be available for graduate level courses in December 2019 and for HNC courses in January 2020.

Based on the latest published data, Local Authorities forecast that 26% of funded ELC places will be provided in private sector, third sector or childminding settings in April 2021, with the remaining 74% provided in local authority settings. This will mean an increase in the share of private, third and childminding sector providers’ income accounted for by funded hours, in part due to previously paid-for hours becoming funded with the increase in the statutory entitlement, and in part due to children newly accessing funded hours at the setting.

There is no requirement that providers in the private, third and childminding sectors change their overall size of service as a result of the ELC expansion – it is up to providers to work with their local authority to agree whether and to what extent they wish to offer funded hours, in order to meet local parental demand. We are aware that some local authorities are supporting providers who do wish to increase their funded provision, including through access to grant funding. In July this year we published a summary of the different types of support available to providers in each local authority: https://www.parliament.scot/S5_Education/Inquiries/In_Attachment_ELC_rates.pdf .

Local authorities are investing in expanded services. The latest published data shows that local authorities are currently planning to deliver 900 infrastructure projects to support the ELC expansion, including refurbishment, extension and new build projects. As of September 2019, 214 projects were complete; 120 in construction; and a further 566 in development.

DWP provide aggregate data to SG to estimate eligible 2s when new data becomes available. This is part of our ongoing relationship. Use of aggregate, administrative data for analytic purposes does not require creation of a new gateway. We are in regular contact with DWP on a range of data sharing issues. As outlined in my response to S5W-25751 on 6 November 2019, regular updates are requested inside our ongoing working relationship, but DWP are not currently able to provide an expected date for the supply of the latest data. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

Consultation on the development of Island Community Impact Assessments (ICIAs) provisions within the Act has now been completed. Policy development is underway and a timeline for the commencement of section 14 is being finalised.

In the meantime, although there is no duty to do an impact assessment, all Ministerial colleagues have been advised of the provisions of the Islands Act, with the recent Fuel Poverty (Targets Definition and Strategy) (Scotland) Bill being a good example of how Ministers are trying to reflect the need to island proof legislation, in advance of the development of the ICIA tool being finalised.

We have also been advising our agencies and partners, where possible to operate in the spirit of the Act, and to consider island issues in their work bearing in mind that the Act would allow for an impact assessment, to potentially be applied retrospectively, where appropriate.