Expansion of Early Learning and Childcare – Reinstatement of 1140 statutory duty - Island Communities Impact Assessment (ICIA)

Conclusions and recommendations

Our conclusion is that the impact on island communities of the reinstatement of the statutory duty for local authorities to deliver 1140 hours of funded ELC by August 2021 is not significantly different to the impact on other communities (including other island communities). The main impact of the policy – to universally entitle all 3 and 4 year old children and eligible 2 year old children to 1140 hours of funded ELC regardless of their geographic location – is the same for all communities across Scotland.

Nevertheless, we recognise that the implementation of the duty may cause issues that are more challenging for some island communities and these issues are likely to be more acute for smaller island communities when compared to larger island communities. Whilst challenging, we do not assess these issues to amount to a significantly different impact of the 1140 expansion policy on island communities when compared to other communities across Scotland.

The mitigating actions set out in this ICIA, including provision of additional funding to island communities for infrastructure costs and national support with recruitment challenges, will continue to support island communities to overcome these challenges and work towards the delivery of the ELC expansion by August 2021.

Recommendations:

• The Scottish Government should continue to engage with island authorities to provide additional support for the implementation of the 1140 policy where needed.
• As part of the evaluation of the 1140 policy, the Scottish Government should update this ICIA to understand if the policy is having a significantly different effect on island communities when compared to other areas of Scotland (including other island communities).