Chamber and committees

Under our new Funding Follows the Child approach, which will be introduced in 2020 as part of the national roll-out of the expanded early learning and childcare (ELC) entitlement to 1140 hours, local authorities will retain statutory responsibility for ensuring that the funded ELC entitlement is available to all eligible children in their area. As part of this local authorities are required to consult with representative groups of parents and carers in their local area to seek their views on how they should make ELC available.

All local authorities have developed expansion plans, which set out how they propose to deliver the expansion to 1140 hours by 2020. These expansion plans include details of how they intend to increase flexibility, including increased operating hours and year round provision, whilst ensuring the provision remains of a high quality. As these plans are implemented we expect to see further increases in the number of ELC settings operating outwith school hours, and year round.

Some families have already benefitted from participation in Scottish Government expansion trials, which have included a focus on innovative and flexible models of delivery, as well as from the early phasing of the expanded entitlement in some authorities. This includes access to more flexible provision outwith school hours and in school holidays. We expect this trend to continue to increase over the next 3 years as authorities prepare for 2020.

We do not hold all the information requested centrally. Current local authority estimates are that 138 new builds will be needed. As set out in the answer to question S5W-16245 on 27 April 2018, the Scottish Government and COSLA Leaders reached agreement on a multi-year revenue and capital funding package for the expansion of early learning and childcare on 27 April. This agreement represents a shared understanding of the costs required to deliver the expansion – including all required additional capacity - in entitlement to funded early learning and childcare to 1140 hours from August 2020.

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 .

The information requested is not held centrally. Each local authority will be able to provide the requested information for local authority run early learning and childcare settings in their respective areas.

The additional further and higher education places for 2018-19 are informed by the following 2014-15 baseline data, set by the Scottish Funding Council:

a) 1,789 (HNC level)

b) 492 (managerial level)

The additional course places for 2018-19 do not include those additional places previously announced in 2017-18.*

* 2017-18 data is in-year data and final audited data will not be available until after the end of the academic year.

The additional course numbers for early learning and childcare courses in 2018-19 are based on an estimated 20% withdrawal rate. This rate was set in collaboration with the Scottish Funding Council and is based on analysis of data on course enrolment and partial and full completion rates. This allowance has been factored into Scottish Funding Council guidance issued to local institutions for 2018-19.

a) HESA data relating to additional teacher training for 2017-18 is not held centrally, and will not be available until after the end of the academic year.

b) All of the additional 270 BA places were filled in August 2017. As noted in my answers to S5W-15849, S5W-15850 and S5W-15851 on 8 May 2018, 2017-18 data is in-year data and full and complete data will not be available until after the end of the academic year.

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 .

The Scottish Government is currently working with local authorities to deliver our commitment to provide an additional graduate in nurseries in Scotland’s most deprived areas by August 2018. Up to £18 million has been allocated in 2018-19 to cover the additional staffing costs associated with delivering this commitment. £12 million of this has been initially allocated across local authorities based on their share of the 435 graduate posts, as set out in the Revenue Funding Allocations letter issued to local authorities on 22 February 2018.

Following confirmation of funding allocations in February 2018, local authorities are working towards the recruitment of the additional graduates in line with their Additional Graduate Action Plans to ensure that the additional staff are in place by August 2018. We recently wrote to local authorities to agree their proposals, as set out in their Action Plans, that a small number of the additional posts could be allocated across more than one setting.

The Scottish Government estimates up to 11,000 additional early learning and childcare (ELC) workers will be required to meet the demands of ELC expansion. In order to attract those additional staff we are working with delivery partners on a range of initiatives, all of which will contribute to the collective recruitment effort. These include:

• Our national recruitment campaign, which includes advertising across multiple advertising channels in order to ensure messages are delivered to the target audiences. Our advertising encourages people to apply to training or work opportunities, but also addresses societal misconceptions around the ELC sector.
• Our advertising for phase one of the national recruitment campaign focussed on school leavers and has been supported by a programme of field events, involving roadshows in schools across the country and activity at all three Skills Scotland national career events. The roadshows directly engaged over 5,000 pupils, encouraging them to apply to training opportunities.
• We work with colleagues in local authorities to adapt the national recruitment campaign for local needs and to support local initiatives, such as jobs fairs or sectoral information events.
• We are working with colleagues in Skills Development Scotland to ensure the number of Modern Apprenticeships available for the ELC sector is increased by 10% year on year up to 2020. Data for 2017-18 (the first year of this commitment) will be available shortly.
• Funding will be available to ensure that all childcare workers delivering funded ELC will be paid the “real” Living Wage from 2020. We are working with a range of delivery partners to ensure new pathways are opened up to enter the sector, in particular for those furthest from the labour market. For example, Glasgow City Council are piloting a new pathway for refugees to join the sector, and Perth and Kinross are exploring innovative ways to recruit males in to ELC. These are new initiatives which may only recruit small numbers of people to the sector, hence no particular targets are set for how many they will directly recruit to the sector. These examples indicate that we are pursuing every avenue to ensure the required workforce is in place for 2020.
• Local authorities, as commissioners and providers of their early learning and childcare services, have individual recruitment requirements in line with their local delivery plans. National recruitment initiatives will facilitate the recruitment of additional staff via local authorities and their funded partners. A full monitoring and evaluation framework for the early learning and childcare workforce expansion will be in place this summer.

The first phase of our national recruitment campaign, “Shape their worlds. Shape your career”, focussed on school leavers and predominantly encouraged applications to training opportunities.

The national recruitment campaign is one of many initiatives underway to assist the recruitment of additional workforce. A monitoring and evaluation framework for the early learning and childcare workforce expansion will be in place this summer.

(a) National enrolment targets for ELC courses were set from 2017-18 only. Information on unfilled places is therefore not available before 2017-18. As noted in my answers to S5W-15849 and S5W-15850 on 8 May 2018, final audited data for 2017-18 will be available after the end of the academic year.

(b) Comparable data prior to 2014-15 is not available. Information on the number of people who did not complete their HNC for the relevant years is shown in the following table. This data includes all withdrawals, but does not account for partial completion i.e. those who re-apply and complete in subsequent years. There were no managerial level course places uncompleted for the periods requested.