Free Childcare in Scotland is changing

Currently 5,954 childminders in Scotland provide childcare places for 32,660 children and this combination of parental choice and flexibility is vital to ensuring the best start in life for children. Thousands of childminders are delivering services to tens of thousands of children, so clearly childminding is being chosen by many families as the best service for them and their children. SCMA firmly believe that different types of childcare services can really complement one another and should not be seen to be in competition. The ELC expansion should embrace the whole range of services including nursery, playgroup, childminding, and out of school care so that we work together to ensure the best start in life for children. The SCMA family support services in particular should be integrated with the funded ELC places in order to really support children and families and reduce the poverty related attainment gap

The Blueprint for 2020 ELC in Scotland Action Plan released by the Scottish Government to support the expansion of ELC clearly asks local authorities to include childminders in their plans. In reality this isn’t happening yet, even though it is well known that childminders are adept at providing quality childcare that builds confident children within a family setting. This is evidenced In the latest Care Inspectorate report on Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) which highlighted that 94% of childminding services in Scotland achieved the highest top three grades on all quality themes.

The latest report published by SCMA on The Current State of Childminding Services in Scotland to Deliver Funded ELC shows that a staggering 98% of childminders are currently not commissioned to deliver funded ELC. As a result we appear to be losing this vital workforce in Scotland, alongside the quality services they deliver to children to ensure their best start in life.  If correct, this is broader than the pre-school places they provide.  Potentially it also affects their places for babies, their large number of out of school care places and the specialist services they provide, like the SCMA Community Childminding Service.

It is evident to SCMA that many local authorities are not yet commissioning the services of their childminders or even offering them as an option to parents. By signing the pledge you are asking that local authorities give due consideration to professional childminding services in their ELC expansion plans and in on-going service developments to ensure that parents, who wish to do so, can access a childminding service for part or all of their funded entitlement when Funding Follows the Child is introduced in 2020.

SCMA accept that in order to meet the ambitious Scottish Government target of 1140 hours by 2020, local authorities need to expand their own services. However there is now an urgent need to commission with childminders at the same time to ensure their professional services can continue.

Having to move children just to access a free service is clearly unsettling for children and devastating for a childminding service, yet that is what is happening. Right now parents using childminding services for all or part of the day need to be given the option to continue using these services.

Make your pledge today!