Early learning and childcare and school age childcare services inspection consultation: SG response

Introduction

Background

High-quality early learning and childcare^[1] (ELC) makes an important contribution to children’s outcomes and life chances, particularly when they are growing up in disadvantaged circumstances. High-quality school age childcare can promote positive social interactions and relationships for children, building their social skills and confidence, as well as providing the opportunity for play and learning in a safe environment^[2].

By supporting professionals to identify and implement improvements in their settings, the inspection of ELC and school age childcare is an important driver for quality across these services. Some funded ELC services are subject to inspection by two bodies, the Care Inspectorate and His Majesty’s Inspectors of Education (currently within Education Scotland, though this function will move to the new Education Inspectorate expected to be operational in 2024).

In his report on education reform, Professor Ken Muir highlighted that some of the sector feels disproportionately subject to external accountability compared to other parts of the education system and emphasised the need to avoid confusion, overlap and bureaucracy. He recommended that both inspectorate bodies should work together to agree a shared inspection framework designed to reduce the burden on providers.

The Scottish Government welcomed Professor Muir’s recommendation and launched a consultation on this issue on Monday 11 July 2022, which ran for 16 weeks until 28 October 2022. The consultation set out our vision for how inspection of ELC and school age childcare services will contribute to improving outcomes for children and families and the guiding principles that underpin that approach. It sought to gather views on the strengths of existing arrangements, where improvements can be made and on specific proposals to streamline and improve the inspection of ELC and school age childcare services through the introduction of a shared quality framework.

Information sources and consultation methods

A range of options were made available to enable participation in the consultation. These included:

• completing an online questionnaire on the Scottish Government’s digital consultation platform, Citizen Space;
• participating in engagement events where views and feedback could be provided anonymously;
• submitting a completed questionnaire or a submission digitally by email; or
• providing a written questionnaire or submission by post.

In total, 254 written responses were provided to the consultation, while 11 events recorded comments provided by 380+ attendees. Feedback was received from a wide range of respondents, including local authorities, trade unions, ELC and school aged childcare representative and membership bodes, academic organisations, the Inspectorates (the Care Inspectorate and HMIE/Education Scotland), and parents/carers. The largest proportion of responses came from practitioners and childcare providers themselves.

Scottish Government response to the consultation

The Scottish Government commissioned an independent analysis of the consultation responses from an external research agency, Wellside Research. The full report of the analysis is published and can be accessed on the Scottish Government’s webpages. A summary of the key findings is included below.

Summary of findings

• A strong desire for change was expressed across all elements of the consultation, with both the vision and principles fully or partially supported by over 90% of respondents;
• There was strong support for a shared framework, with 78% of respondents in favour of one being introduced;
• Strong support for a single inspectorate also emerged through the responses;
• Views were expressed that any new framework needs to provide clarity, including in respect of roles and responsibilities, consistency, a common language, streamline bureaucracy, be supportive and reduce burdens and stress on practitioners;
• There is a need to recognise and reflect the differences between types of providers and settings; and
• There needs to be more communication, collaboration and joint working between both Inspectorates, with the roles and input of both organisations being equally valued. 80% of respondents consider that more could be done to improve coordination and cooperation between the Inspectorates, with only 13% agreeing that they currently work well together.

This document is designed to provide you with the Scottish Government’s initial response to the consultation findings on the areas for which the Scottish Government is responsible, and outline what next steps we will take in response to the evidence provided.

The Care Inspectorate and HMIE/Education Scotland are responsible for taking forward the development of the shared framework. They have made a joint statement, which follows, confirming their commitment to work in partnership to take forward the findings of the consultation.