At lunchtime today, the First Minister announced that from Wednesday 3 June, childminding services and fully outdoor nursery provision can re-open, although capacity will be limited.

As a small token of our appreciation for your continued dedication to childminding and to support your professional growth, our valued SCMA members can now register to choose ONE of our online e-Learning courses for FREE!

Earlier this afternoon, the First Minister announced the Scottish Government’s Strategic Framework (or ‘route map’) for recovery and emerging from lockdown, including details about re-opening schools and childcare settings in Scotland.

On 6 May we advised that it was the intention of the Competition and Markets Authority to undertake a review of cancellation rights during COVID-19. We have now submitted a joint response with PACEY and NDNA.

To enable SCMA to match families with local childminding settings with capacity and availability, we are once again wanting to gather information from you to enable an accurate overview of the number of settings that are able to support this critical childcare provision for vulnerable children.

Following the UK Government announcements earlier this week regarding some relaxations to lockdown restrictions in England (including in relation to childminding settings in England), we thought that we should clarify that the official position has not changed in Scotland.

As the situation regarding the COVID-19 lockdown remains the same in Scotland, the Scottish Government has updated its Coronavirus (COVID-19): physical distancing in education and childcare settings.

We now understand from a few sources that HMRC has brought forward it’s timescale for the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme, through which it is hoped many self-employed people, including some childminders, will benefit and be able to claim up to 80% of their profits based on the last three years of their tax returns.

Last Friday we reported that following discussion with SCMA and the Scottish Government, the Scottish Funding Council had confirmed that colleges should continue to make payments to childminders and we provided a template to support members with this process.

The Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) has announced that it is investigating businesses failing to respect cancellation rights within contracts during COVID-19. This follows a number of reports of poor business practices in which commercial companies across a range of sectors have delayed or failed to provide refunds requested by consumers and despite contractual requirements to do so. The CMA’s review is understood to include weddings and private events, hotel accommodation and nurseries and childcare providers, and has made reference to “nurseries asking people to pay very high sums in order to keep a place open for their child”.

This week was originally marked in our diaries to be Childminding Week 2020, and due to the current COVID-19 crisis, we’ve had to cancel our flagship Childminding Day event at Blair Drummond Safari Park and find alternative ways to #CheerforChildminding.

In response to increasing reports of variation in payment of fees to childminding businesses by colleges around Scotland during the COVID-19 outbreak SCMA has continued to raise this with both the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) and the Scottish Government.

SCMA has been receiving an increasing number of enquiries from members around Scotland following requests from non-key worker parents/carers for childcare, as they have been requested by their employers to return to work from next week or in the next few weeks within social distancing measures.