More than 200 people have signed a petition demanding Stirling Council rethink a budget cut they say would put the future of Fintry Nursery in jeopardy and disadvantage working parents.
The minority Labour administration, backed by Tory councillors, voted for changes to the operating models of both Fintry and Aberfoyle Nurseries at the budget meeting last Thursday.
Figures tabled showed the Aberfoyle option would save £59,000 in the 2023/24 financial year and £36,000 the year after, with the Fintry proposals saving £28,000 and £17,000 respectively.
In an online petition set up by Fintry Parent Council, entitled ‘Save Fintry Nursery: Stop the Cuts to Funding and Operating Hours’, the petitioners say the council will save just £11,000 at the nursery and as little as £18.80 a week per child, based on the expected intake for the 2023-24 school year of 15 children, and 39 term weeks per year.
They added: “Under this plan, the service will be reduced from 8-6pm to 9-3 pm Monday to Friday.
“Parents will no longer be able to pay for extra hours/days beyond their government funded nursery hours and the nursery will lose one member of staff.
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“Parents have told us that this change could put their jobs in danger. They have told us that they might have to take their kids out of the nursery, potentially putting the survival of the service itself at risk.”
One signatory added: “For working parents, especially in rural areas. full days are essential because of long travel times and often no obliging relatives available for pick ups etc.”
It is believed that children already at the nursery may not be affected by the changes, but subsequent children would.
At last week’s budget meet, SNP councillor Rosemary Fraser said she had had a host of messages from parents and grandparents and other carers in her ward asking what they were supposed to do for childcare to allow them to get to work.
She said: “Many work in Glasgow and Edinburgh and are asking how they are supposed to get back for 3pm.
“Fintry Nursery literally this week received a five star grading demonstrating the excellent care by council staff.”
She added that having to move children elsewhere would increase carbon footprint.
The council’s Labour administration insisted their hands had been “tied” by Scottish Government ringfencing when drafting up the council’s budget, which had forced them to make difficult choices about non-statutory services.
Rural Labour councillor Gerry McGarvey said: “Councillor Fraser asked a very good and valid question about what we tell those people in the areas we live.
“I use my words carefully - these are decisions not choices. A choice is something you make when in a free position to determine without both hands tied behind your back.
“That’s the situation this administation has found itself in. We have brought forward a series of considerations to the best of our ability with our hands tied behind our back. It’s with a heavy heart that I find myself in this room today in the position where we have had to be telling people of these decision.”
He said he had been bombarded with emails by people in Fintry, but added the budget had effectively been “damage limitation”.
“We have tried to spread the burden but someone was going to get hurt. That’s the hand of cards we were dealt.”
