As a working mother of four I welcome this commitment and, in the May elections, childcare will once again be one of the main points of focus with a commitment by the SNP to double free hours by 2020.
SNP candidate leaflets are already dropping through folks’ doors claiming free childcare as one of the SNP’s key achievements and promising the doubling of free childcare hours.
Unfortunately, there is no acknowledgement from the Scottish Government of the current problems with the delivery of the existing commitment of 600 hours, or the recent findings of the Commission for Childcare Reform which called for a complete overhaul of the current ‘broken’ system that is letting so many working parents down.
For many families in Scotland, the system is not delivering a model of childcare that matches the needs of the modern working family. As a result, thousands of families across Scotland are unable to access their legal entitlement to free early years learning and childcare because most council nurseries do not offer suitable hours for working parents.
The Family and Childcare Trust annual survey found that only 13% of Scottish local authorities reported enough childcare for parents who work full-time, compared to 43% in England. The survey also showed children costs in Scotland have increased by 4.1%, despite only marginal increases in the rest of Britain.
The Family and Childcare Trust believes that the increase in cost for nursery provision for a child over two is a result of underfunding of the free childcare entitlement. Julia Margo, the Trust’s Chief Executive, said:
With costs outstripping rises elsewhere in Britain we are particularly concerned about the growing unaffordability of childcare for Scottish parents. While we warmly welcome recent commitments from the Scottish Government to increase the hours of free early education, we urge it to address the rising cost of childcare and make the flexibility of childcare provision a top priority
Fair Funding For Our Kids was founded in the Summer of 2014 and is a group bringing together everyone concerned that 3 to 5 year-olds are unable to access their entitlement to a free nursery place for 600 hours a year.
We are diverse mix of people from difference backgrounds with different political views with one thing in common – we found ourselves unable to access our promised free childcare. Last year with only a month to go until my twin girls started nursery I found out I would only receive six hours of funded childcare out of my promised sixteen hours a week.
We are fairly unique as we are not lobbying the government for a change in policy – merely for the existing policy to be implemented fairly and effectively.
The key issues we have identified are:
1. MOST COUNCIL NURSERIES DO NOT OFFER THE FLEXIBLE HOURS THAT WORKING FAMILIES NEED
Most local authority nurseries offer places in three hour sessions rather than full days and these are only available during school term times.
In order to access these places, working parents must make alternative arrangements for drop off, pick up and care for the rest of the working day and during holidays. Those with children in school may have two or more drop off / pick up locations. This patchwork of childcare is impossible for many families to manage.
In these circumstances a private nursery is a necessity, not a parental choice.
2. THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH FUNDED PLACES AT PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP NURSERIES
In the absence of a council nursery place, private nurseries can provide a solution for parents who need to work. However, in a number of local authorities places are only purchased in partnership nurseries if they think there are not enough sessions available in council nurseries.
This has led to a shortage of funded places in the partnership nurseries which are providing parents with the service they need to enable them to work.
My son had a funded place at a nursery in West Lothian. We moved house within West Lothian and moved nursery to keep travel time to a minimum in order not to extend what is already a long day for a 3 year old. We chose the only local nursery with opening hours which suited our working hours. To my surprise I found that funding would not be transferred and at the new nursery only 15 out of 70+ eligible children received funding. Since then our nursery has decided not to continue being a partnership nursery due to the costs and admin involved so now West Lothian has fewer than 10 partnership nurseries. We will lose out on approx £3500 over the 20 months when my son should have been eligible. Paying for childcare is crippling and it would have helped us hugely if if what was promised by the Scottish Government was being delivered by West Lothian Council. (West Lothian parent)
3. PARENTS ARE BEING ASKED TO MOVE THEIR CHILD TO A DIFFERENT NURSERY TO CHASE THEIR ENTITLEMENT, ONLY TO FIND THAT THERE ARE NO OTHER FUNDED PLACES AVAILABLE TO THEM
Continuity of care and established emotional bonds are vital for the well being of young children, but parents are being asked to take their children out of a settled environment in order to access their funding entitlement.
When councils purchase places in private nurseries annually, a child may be expected to move nursery three times by the age of five in order to maintain access to funding.
However, because of the shortage of funded places available, most partnership nurseries do not have enough places to cover the children already in attendance. This means that a child whose nursery has had its funded places reduced or withdrawn is unlikely to be able to secure one elsewhere. Parents may well find that the only nursery able to offer them a funded place is too expensive to consider.
This lack of stability in funding for partnership places creates real difficulties for children, parents and partnership nurseries.
My happy wee girl has been crying for a week. It has been so distressing – all because of a Glasgow City Council funding decision. She’d been at her original nursery for three and a half years. We are now only getting 3hrs funding a week. For the last school year it had been the full 15hrs. We’ve also had to pay 2 lots of deposits. (Glasgow parent)
4. THERE ARE NO RECIPROCAL FUNDING ARRANGEMENTS BETWEEN LOCAL AUTHORITIES IN SCOTLAND:
Many parents travel across local authority boundaries to work and choose to place their children in partnership nurseries near their place of employment. This causes financial difficulties for councils without reciprocal funding arrangements because the Scottish Government funds provision for children resident within the local authority boundaries only.
The Government has suggested that local authorities ‘maintain a dialogue’ where there is an imbalance. Without formal arrangements, councils can do what they like.
My grandson’s private nursery not receiving funded places from the council will most definitely result in my daughter-in-law reducing her working days/hours to make costs more reasonable, or else she may gave to give up work altogether. (Glasgow grandparent)
5. EVEN COUNCIL NURSERIES DO NOT ALWAYS HAVE ENOUGH PLACES – ESPECIALLY FOR 3 YEAR OLDS
There are parts of Glasgow where parents of three-year-olds are told their children will not get a council nursery place until the pre-school year because of nursery closures or high demand.
6. COUNCIL PLACEMENT AND PARTNERSHIP ALLOCATION SYSTEMS ARE HARD TO UNDERSTAND AND NAVIGATE
It can be very difficult for parents to establish where and when places are available.
The difficulty parents have finding suitable nursery places causes stress, lowers parents’ confidence in the education system and, for some, can mean the difference between returning to work or staying at home.
7. THE SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT IS NOT TRACKING THE PROBLEM:
The government has said the roll out of the free hours is a massive success story.
Yet our research combined with research by the National Day Nursery Association. shows that as many as one in five kids could be missing out on their free hours.
The Scottish Government needs to accept that this policy is failing to deliver the flexible childcare needed to get parents back to work. So far no political party has offered a solution, and an “arms race” of offering free hours or free meals will not provide the flexible childcare required for working parents.
The Fair Funding For Our Kids Campaign is asking all political parties to commit to our action plan:
1. Stop focusing on ‘free hours’.
It is over-simplistic and does not deliver flexibility or affordability for working parents.
2. Commit to a cross-party ten-year plan to transform Scotland’s childcare system.
We don’t have any kind of coherent childcare system at present and we need to take time to plan and build that so that quality standards are not lost.
3. Commit to the capital investment that will be required to support the new system.
Figures from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICE) shows the SNP’s budget for councils next year to deliver the childcare pledge has fallen by £10.5 million (5.3%). This includes a cut to the capital budget for nurseries of 57%.
The fourth and final call to all politicians before May: don’t abandon the kids who are 3 and 4 now. They can’t wait ten years. They’ve been promised a free nursery place and that’s been harder to deliver than anyone thought. Just admit it. Then we can all do something about it.
Image: nursery in Blantyre © Leslie Barrie CC BY-SA 2.0
Quotes from http://fairfundingforourkids.org
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