Early learning and childcare service model for 2020: consultation paper

Progress in Delivering the Blueprint for 2020 Action Plan

In March 2017 we published A Blueprint for 2020: 2017-18 Action Plan ^[3] . This set out the policy vision and framework for delivering the expansion of the early learning and childcare ( ELC) entitlement. It also committed us to a series of actions, to be delivered by the end of March 2018 to ensure that the expansion of ELC is rooted in a high quality experience for our children, and; to support our delivery partners in building additional capacity.

Since the publication of the 2017-18 Action Plan we, along with delivery partners, have made significant progress including:

• publishing a widely welcomed Early Learning and Childcare Quality Action Plan in October 2017, which will act as a driver for improving children's outcomes through the expansion;
• local authorities have developed expansion plans setting out how they intend to deliver the expanded entitlement;
• Skills Development Scotland published a Skills Investment Plan for the sector in January 2018;
• working with the Care Inspectorate to produce Your Childminding Journey, an online learning and development resource for both prospective and registered childminders;
• taking forward plans to implement our commitment to provide an additional graduate in nurseries in Scotland's most deprived communities from August 2018, which will see an extra 435 graduates working directly with children;
• commissioning Children in Scotland to administer our new £2 million inclusion fund to support specialist training and equipment to enable staff to support children with additional support needs or disabilities;
• publishing guidance on delivering the Daily Mile in early learning and childcare settings;
• establishing a multi-disciplinary delivery support team which is working with local authorities to provide additional service innovation and redesign capacity to meet the challenges arising from the expansion;
• taking forward our commitment to increase the number of early learning and childcare modern apprenticeships by 10% year on year up to 2020;
• successfully launching phase one of our national workforce recruitment marketing campaign Shape their worlds, Shape your career to positively promote careers in early learning and childcare;
• working with Skills Development Scotland to produce updated guidance for careers advice organisations on career opportunities in early learning and childcare;
• publishing Space to Grow, a new good practice design guide for early learning and childcare, which promotes innovative design for both indoor and outdoor space, and;
• announcing funding for Inspiring Scotland to encourage and support greater use of outdoor learning in early learning and childcare, including working with eight local authorities to deliver outdoor learning opportunities and producing a 'how to' guide for practitioners, with practical advice on how to access outdoor spaces.

The 2017-18 Action Plan also committed us to establishing a Service Models Working Group in partnership with local authorities to:

• develop the details of the new Funding Follows the Child model; and
• produce a National Standard for a more open process to becoming a funded provider.

This paper sets out the outputs of the intensive work that the Service Models Working Group has taken forward since its first meeting in June 2017.