Accessing school age childcare in rural and island areas: research

7. Conclusions and recommendations

Key points

In rural and island areas, flexible wraparound school age childcare is essential for parents, while financial and operational support and good community relationships are essential for providers. Many challenges faced by rural parents and providers mirror those in urban areas, but are exacerbated by rural and island characteristics. Solutions to parents' and providers' challenges need to be tailored to specific community needs in order to be effective. School age childcare in rural and island areas is a community service.

We recommend that the Scottish Government consider the following three opportunity areas when exploring future school age childcare initiatives: greater flexibility, sustainable financial support, and increased community collaboration. Many of these recommendations have been successfully implemented elsewhere, as discussed in the best practice examples in the previous chapter.

7.1 Conclusions

We have explored the challenges that both parents and providers face in rural and island areas of Scotland. Drawing on the research, we can conclude:

1. Flexible wraparound childcare is essential for parents

Flexible wraparound school age childcare is essential for parents (including those who have children with additional support needs), to be able to:

• fully participate in employment,
• keep their childcare costs low,
• avoid precarious 'patchwork' arrangements and ensure their childcare is stable and reliable, and
• meet their family's other needs.

2. Financial and operational support, as well as good community links, are essential for providers

Reliable and consistent support (both financial and operational), as well as good community relationships, are essential for providers to be able to:

• offer flexible childcare options,
• grow and develop their services while keeping costs affordable for parents,
• offer quality care for all children, including those with additional support needs, and
• meet their regulatory requirements.

3. Many challenges faced by rural parents and providers mirror those in urban areas, but are exacerbated by rural and island characteristics

Many of the challenges parents and providers experience accessing or providing school age childcare in rural and island areas are similar to those parents and providers experience in urban areas. However, specific rural and island characteristics, such as smaller and dispersed populations, limited public transport, poor weather, and fewer options for facilities or specialist services, all exacerbate these challenges for rural and island parents and providers.

4. Challenges were similar for providers in the different regions we looked at, but solutions need to be tailored in order to be effective

Though many of the challenges for providers outlined in this report were similar across the different types of providers and different regions we looked at, for our recommendations to be effective they should be tailored to meet the individual needs of their communities, and the individual needs of those running them.

5. School age childcare in rural and island areas is a community service

School age childcare in rural and island areas is a service provided by the community for the community. Providers acknowledge that their role is to provide a service that caters to their community's needs, and may not be profit-making. Further research should be done to better understand and evidence the socio-economic benefits associated with provision of school age childcare in rural and island areas, such as maintaining local populations, language and cultural education, and reducing child poverty.^[55]

7.2 Recommendations

When working towards future school age childcare provision in rural and island areas, we recommend that the Scottish Government consider:

• greater flexibility,
• sustainable financial support, and
• increased community collaboration.

Many of these recommendations have been successfully implemented elsewhere, as discussed in the previous chapter. For provision to be effective for both parents and providers, we suggest that no single opportunity area we discuss is enough on its own to ensure consistent and affordable childcare in rural and island areas.

Although these three opportunity areas should be at the core of any future initiatives, further consultation is also needed to tailor these ideas to specific community needs.

Provide greater flexibility

Flexibility is of key importance to rural and island families, and providers should consider this in their school age childcare offerings.

We recommend that more flexible hours, booking, and payment models are provided in order to reduce barriers to participating in employment and education, make childcare more affordable, and better support families who lack informal support networks.

We recommend that flexibility of location should be explored through pop-up or travelling provision models. This would spread access to childcare more widely in areas with fewer services, and reduce barriers to access created by limited transport in rural and island areas.

We recommend that the Scottish Government provide tailored support in accordance with the communities need, through sustainable financial support, guidance and advice, or opportunities to collaborate.

Provide sustainable financial support

Financial sustainability is one of the biggest challenges faced by providers we spoke to.

We recommend introducing subsidies from local authorities to support childcare providers during periods of low demand. Financial support, particularly for operational costs, such as staffing, rent/facilities, and transport, will help services stay economically viable throughout the year, and enable them to explore more flexible options for provision.

We recommend encouraging subsidised childcare arrangements between providers and large local employers/corporations, as this would benefit providers, parents, and businesses.

We also recommend exploring the further expansion of funded places to include school age children and children under 3 years old, to reduce short term and long term barriers to employment and education, and make services more economically sustainable.

Increase community collaboration

Our findings suggest that collaboration between different childcare actors involved is key to successful provision in rural and island areas.

We recommend establishing blended offer models provided by different community services to increase staff retention, better support children with additional support needs, and provide a wider range of activities.

We recommend creating partnerships with local authority employability or career schemes, especially those focused on young people, Gaelic speakers, or parents who are looking for work, to reduce barriers to sustainable recruitment.

We also recommend increasing spaces to share experiences and learnings from different community and local government organisations to encourage communication and collaboration amongst different actors.

7.3 Closing remarks

These conclusions and recommendations have been raised to help with the next steps that the Scottish Government are taking in the development of school age childcare in rural and island areas. We suggest recommendations are taken to account jointly in the running of any further pilots in order to ensure a holistic approach to tackling the different challenges faced in rural and island areas in accessing and providing school age childcare. We also suggest more local consultation is needed to shape solutions for individual communities.