Early learning and childcare: Deferral Working Group minutes - July 2021

Items and actions

Introduction

KT welcomed members and attendees introduced themselves to the rest of the group.

Review minutes and open actions from last meeting

KT reminded members the plan is to be open with the minutes of the working group. They will be shared on Knowledge Hub and the Scottish Government website.

Members are content with the minutes from last meeting and happy for them to be published.

Terms of reference

Due to an IT issue the revised Terms of Reference (TOR) were unable to be sent out to the group.

It was suggested to that to keep track of all actions of the meeting a separate action log is created in which they continue from previous meetings ensuring that it is easier to keep track.

Action – SG to send the revised TOR for comment via email.

Action – SG to create an action log going forward.

Issues arising

Katherine Tierney invited members to highlight any deferral related issues arising in their authority or Regoional Improvement Collaboratives (RIC). Members did not raise any issues currently within their local authority or RIC.

Evaluation

Catriona Rooke took the group through the slides.

Action – SG to share slides.

Any other business

The group did not raise any other business. An agenda will be agreed closer to the next meeting. Date to be confirmed .

Give Them Time update from Diane Delaney and Patricia Anderson

Diane and Patricia talked to the group through the work that Give Them Time (GTT) have been involved in. They highlighted that GTT want to work collaboratively with Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COLSA) and Scottish Government.  They are also keen to help support Local Authorities in their communications to parents regarding deferral.

Patricia explained that GTT would like to see full automatic deferral roll out and for deferral to be as straight forward for parents as possible.