Early learning and childcare expansion: BRIA

10. Enforcement, sanctions and monitoring

10.1 Education authorities (i.e. local authorities) have a statutory duty to provide the ‘mandatory amount’ of ELC to eligible children within their local area. From 1 August 2020 they will be required to provide 1140 hours of funded ELC to eligible children in their local area. Local authorities will be under a statutory duty to ensure funded ELC is delivered within the bounds of the minimum framework for the delivery of funded ELC (i.e. funded sessions must be of the duration of 10 hours or less)

10.2 To monitor the impacts of the expansion of ELC, the Scottish Government is developing an ELC Data Transformation Project, a long-term data development project, which will improve the robustness of the census data and expand the analysis that will be possible for this sector, allowing us to monitor access to funded ELC and the workforce delivering the funded entitlement.

10.3 The Scottish Study of Early Learning and Childcare is designed to test and measure the outcomes and the effectiveness of the ELC expansion to 1140 hours. Baseline data is currently being collected from a sample of children and parents accessing 600 hours of funded ELC. The same data will be collected from a sample of those accessing 1140 hours, allowing for an assessment of the extent to which the expansion’s long-term benefits have been achieved.

10.4 Annual statistics compiled by the Care Inspectorate and Education Scotland will also provide information on quality evaluations of ELC settings across Scotland.