Childcare Sector Working Group minutes: May 2024

Attendees and apologies

• Care And Learning Alliance (CALA)
• Care Inspectorate (CI)
• Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA)
• Scottish Childminding Association (SCMA)
• Early Years Scotland (EYS)
• National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA)
• Association of Directors of Education in Scotland (ADES)
• Scottish Out of School Care Network (SOSCN)
• Scottish Government (SG), Chair
• Unison
• Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS)
• Scottish Trade Union Congress (STUC)
• Association of Head teachers and Deputes in Scotland (AHDS)

Items and actions

Welcome, apologies, minutes and actions

The Chair opened the meeting and welcomed the group.

Minutes from the previous meeting were agreed by the group and have now been published online. The link was shared with members Tuesday 21 May.

The Chair made members aware of First Minister’s update to Parliament this afternoon and encouraged the group to look out for this. 

SG will be in touch about a programme of ministerial engagement over the summer and a response to the group’s letter to the First Minister. 

Updates from the Scottish Government (SG) and COSLA

Workforce priorities 

SG officials are grateful for members’ input to date on workforce priorities. SG recognises the importance of workforce planning to sustaining 1140 delivery and delivering SG commitments to expanding funded childcare. SG also recognises the importance of pay. We have provided local authorities with an additional £16 million in 2024 to 2025 to increase pay for staff in the private and voluntary (PVI) sector who are delivering funded early learning and childcare (ELC) to at least £12 per hour from April 2024. In line with Audit Scotland recommendations we will also work with local government colleagues to develop a means of monitoring implementation of the real Living Wage. 

Our engagement with the sector identified four thematic areas as priorities for the workforce. Those are:

• enhancing the profile of the childcare profession to attract a wider pool of applicants 
• supporting a wider range of pathways into the profession 
• facilitating professional learning 
• reducing the level of paperwork and quality assurance required

SG officials highlighted the staffing capacity and financial resource available and how that will limit our ability to progress all of these areas in the short term. This helpful input from the sector will form part of discussions with the Minister in the coming weeks. 

MMR Vaccines

SG highlighted the increase in cases of measles in the UK and parts of Europe, with 11 confirmed cases of measles in Scotland in 2024 as of 8 May. In response to this, the SG are working with Public Health Scotland colleagues to issue letters to parents/carers of children in nursery about the importance of ensuring their children are up to date with their MMR vaccines. This is particularly aimed at children who will be making the transition to P1 over the summer when they will come into contact with new groups of people, and also ahead of summer holidays which may take them to areas where there are greater numbers of cases (most of the cases seen in Scotland have been linked to travel). The current plan is to issue the letters before the end of May. SG will be working with PHS to distribute the letter via ADES and the Care Inspectorate and will share the letter and the new measles social media toolkit with this group following this meeting.

Action:

• SG to issue MMR Vaccines letter to members

Implementation of joint 2024 to 2025 Sustainable Rates Guidance

SG officials thanked members for their helpful contributions to the draft guidance after the discussion at the last CSWG meeting. The joint COSLA and SG guidance on setting sustainable rates for 2024 to 2025 was published on 8 March 2024. There has been a great deal of work underway across local authorities since publication of the guidance and confirmation of funding allocations. SG won’t have the full dataset of 2024 to 2025 rates until the annual data collection takes place later in the Summer, but acknowledged the recent update provided through NDNA’s Freedom of Information requests. SG and COSLA recognise the concerns outlined in Early Years’ Scotland’s recent letter to the Minister and COSLA Spokesperson and reiterated by NDNA in their recent press release about rate-setting approaches. Both SG and COSLA remain committed to the joint national guidance on at least a 7.6% uplift to funded ELC rates in 2024 to 2025, and officials are working together with the Improvement Service to support local authorities as they work towards implementation. The guidance makes clear that where rates are set after 1 April, any increases will be back-dated to 1 April. Officials noted that it would not be appropriate to discuss specific concerns about individual local authorities in this forum and that members should get in touch with SG and COSLA directly to raise specific concerns. 

Provision of funded ELC across local authority boundaries

Following concerns raised at the last meeting and an increase in levels of correspondence and parliamentary business about the provision of funded ELC across local authority boundaries, the Minister for Children, Young People and The Promise and the COSLA Spokesperson for Children and Young People met to discuss the issue at a national level. The discussion reflected that cross-boundary arrangements are working in some parts of Scotland but that there has been an increase in concern from parents and providers in some parts of the country. COSLA undertook to engage across Local Government to understand how cross-boundary places are supported across Scotland by the current statutory, policy and funding frameworks and provide a view on behalf of local authorities. That work is underway and in the meantime local authorities should continue to follow the existing statutory guidance and policy framework while this complicated issue is explored. Where families or providers have concerns about the provision of funded ELC across local authority boundaries, SG and COSLA encourage them to continue engaging with the responsible local authorities. 

Childminding

Scottish Government updated that work is underway with the Scottish Childminding Association to prepare for the launch of a new national programme of childminder recruitment and retention activity, building on the successful rural and urban childminding pilots which have taken place over recent years. Further detail will be provided when the programme launches in due course. 

Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC)

Since last year the SG has undertaken extensive work to understand the prevalence of RAAC across various sectors. We have been working closely with colleagues in Learning Directorate in relation to education settings. A key principle is that it is for building owners – whether in the public or private sectors – to assess and mitigate any RAAC. Following work undertaken by the Scottish Futures Trust we are now confident that the level of RAAC in public sector ELC settings is very low, with only two operational ELC settings where RAAC was present at the end of April. In November we wrote to all registered daycare of children providers via a Care Inspectorate update – providing guidance re RAAC assessments. We are planning some further communication to emphasise the key points from this guidance. In previous meetings of the CSWG we have not received any specific concerns or questions about RAAC in the ELC sector. However SG are keen to continue to engage all members as we monitor RAAC. Members were encouraged to contact SG should there be any further feedback.

Support for quality and streamlining guidance (including Local Authority (LA) assurance)

SG and the Improvement Service provided an update on work in respect of Support for Quality in ELC, including the development of a driver diagram, work on streamlining guidance for practitioners and proposed communications on the LA ‘guarantor of quality’ role. The slides will be shared with members for comment separately.

Members are invited to: 
• confirm if they are content with the direction of travel with the ELC quality driver diagram, to provide comments on the draft driver diagram and agree to contribute to prioritisation exercise
• identify if there are any other issues or linkages we should be aiming to address within the scope of the streamlining access to ELC guidance project
• comment on the Improvement Service’s myth-busting comms on the LA ‘guarantor of quality’ role and how this may be shared with the sector

In respect of the work on guidance streamlining, members welcomed proposals for clarity around which guidance is used in inspections (and therefore essential for practitioners to be aware of) and which guidance is optional and has been made available to support aspects of practice.

Action:

• members to follow up with comments and questions on quality and streamlining guidance with SG

Sustainable Rates Review: Next Steps

The joint SG and COSLA Sustainable Rates Review was published in December 2023. The Review set out a programme of actions for how the sustainable rate setting process could be strengthened. Work is progressing on these actions, alongside other Sustainable Rates related developments. For example the Improvement Service are continuing to provide support to local authorities on rate setting. Part of the Improvement Service work has included the development of myth-busting documents, including on ELC funding (a draft of which was included with the papers for this meeting and will be considered by COSLA Leaders on Friday 24 May). 

The paper on Sustainable Rates that members received sets out how the Scottish Government and COSLA are proposing to take forward the next stage in delivering the programme of actions – in particular the actions regarding collecting robust and reliable data on the costs of delivering funded ELC in private and third sector, and childminding, services; and updated Sustainable Rates Guidance. The Scottish Government and COSLA are committed to working with local government and the sector to delivering the actions in the Rates Review. The approach set out in the paper is to establish a new working group, which will be chaired jointly by the Scottish Government and COSLA and will involve sector representative bodies and local authority representatives. 

It is also vital that providers are able to input directly to this programme of work. The Working Group will therefore be supported by Provider Reference Groups that will bring together a range of different types of providers. The paper also set out an indicative timeline for delivering the Rates Review actions that seeks to balance the need for continuous progress with ensuring that actions are fully delivered. As highlighted in the paper, based on learning from previous exercises and advice from analysts, it could take in the region of 12 to 18 months to fully deliver and embed a new robust cost collection exercise that captures input from a substantial sample of providers. Members were asked for their views on the approach set out for delivering the Rates Review actions, with any follow-up written comments provided by close on Tuesday 28 May.

Members generally welcomed the approach, and highlighted that this was a step forward. It was highlighted that it would be vital for providers to be involved, and that representation should be as diverse as possible and should include providers located in rural areas. Members highlighted that it would be helpful if consideration could be given, as part of the cost collection exercise, to the impact on costs of changes to other guidance (for example, relating to food standards, buildings, etc). Another piece of information that members felt would be helpful to capture is the extra work that staff currently do. Members asked if consideration would be given to the potential impact of rate setting in 2024 to 2025, and delivery of the £12 per hour pay commitment, on the next steps for the Rates Review; and whether there were other approaches for more quickly sharing information on local authority rate setting (before the annual sustainable rates data collection exercise was undertaken).

Action:

• members to provide written comments on the approach set out for delivering the Rates Review actions by Tuesday 28 May

Forward look to agenda for next meeting and any other business

Next meeting date to be confirmed. Members are invited to suggest items in advance. It was suggested that ‘risky play’ should be included on the agenda of the next meeting.

Members asked if SG could share an organogram to provide an overview of key contacts.

Action:

• SG to share organogram with members outlining key contacts.

Any other business

SCMA:

• update from the SCMA on new childminder recruitment and retention programme SCMA are delivering a three-year national programme on childminder recruitment and retention through the Programme for Government commitment. Scottish Government will fund the plan (£1m+ in Year One), with support from Local Authorities (Parental Employability) to cover Continuing Professional Learning and induction within recruitment model
• the recruitment element will scale up SCMA’s demographically-targeted childminder recruitment campaign and supported model of childminder recruitment successfully piloted in remote and rural then urban local authority areas and provides local authorities with opportunity to benefit from this
• the retention programme brings a variety of measures – widening access to previously piloted childminding-specific Quality in Practice CPLs, piloting a mentoring network and also funded time off the floor (3 models) for childminders
• further information about the Programme for Scotland’s Childminding Future (including the 16 local authorities participating in Year One) can be found at Recruiting and retaining childminders and Scottish Childminding Association

Breastfeeding Friendly Scotland:

• an information pack was sent out to members ahead of today’s meeting. The pack provides a range of information on the scheme more generally and how the sector can support this. Members were invited to communicate this with their networks