Work should be carried out to establish if nursery workers switching employers poses a risk to the Scottish Government ’s flagship childcare, MSPs have said.
Ministers had pledged to increase the amount of free early learning and childcare eligible pre-school children receive to 1,140 hours a year – with this achieved across Scotland by August 2021.
A Holyrood Committee said while meeting the 1,140 hours target had been delayed because of coronavirus, the policy had been “rolled out despite the challenging circumstances of the pandemic”.
But the MSPs have now written to Education Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville urging a “mapping exercise” be carried out across the sector.
They made the call after hearing from the National Day Nurseries Association of a “crisis” in the early learning and childcare workforce caused by an expansion in the local authority sector and the pandemic.
The MSPs told Somerville the hourly rates paid to childcare workers in both the private, voluntary and independent (PVI) sector should be examined, and those working in council-run facilities.
This should also look at “the extent to which to which staff are moving from jobs in the PVI sector into local authorities”.
The committee said: “This would allow the Scottish Government to establish whether there is a risk to the delivery of the 1,140 policy due to staff capacity in the PVI sector.”
The committee had previously heard from council body Cosla that the 2022-23 Scottish budget included a 4% reduction in specific revenue grant funding for local authorities to implement the policy.
While Cosla accepted the “rationale for the reduction in funds was based on a national reduction in the number of eligible children”, it added that councils had “significant fixed costs which are rising faster than anticipated owing to inflationary pressures”.
It highlighted that a “reduction of a small number of children at an individual setting level will not allow for any reduction in costs relating to staffing, or costs relating to the building such as heating and cleaning”.
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