Chamber and committees

The minister has said that there is a wide degree of consensus. Did he hear the consensus across the chamber that none of the actions that the Scottish Government is taking goes far enough or fast enough to meet the challenge?

Will the minister take an intervention?

That is reassuring. The sector will be worried about the timing and the vulnerability of a number of settings, but I accept that you work to the timescale that you have.

I have a question on the 1,140 hours workforce. You have covered the matter extensively previously, but I continue to hear about concerns from the private, voluntary and independent sector that it is not able to recruit early learning and childcare workers and that people who work in that sector are often displaced into the local authority sector. Is that still a risk to the success of the policy?

You recognise that there is a tension between a policy objective to give headteachers autonomy and a group of headteachers not being enabled to take decisions in relation to their pupils. There is a tension between the policy objective of equity funding and, because of where the threshold is set, that opportunity not being available in all schools.

That is helpful. I wonder whether you have reflected on a point that is linked to the point that Mr Ewing made. There is a small group of predominantly smaller rural schools that tend to end up being ineligible for any of those funds and, anecdotally, headteachers in those schools say—I think that most reasonable people would accept that this is the case—that there is significant poverty, deprivation and exclusion from opportunities in rural areas. The headteachers of those schools do not have the opportunity to ensure the provision of educational equity for their pupils. Is that something that you would look at when considering the success of a policy?

That is helpful. I have a question about college funding, which is an issue that other members have brought up. You have said that the college sector has not experienced the same unpredictability as the university sector. However, there is a long-standing feeling in the college sector that it has not had the same funding flexibility and that, over time, that makes it more difficult for colleges to make strategic decisions. If colleges are under significant financial pressure from day to day, it is more difficult for them to reshape matters. Do you accept that, given the Covid pandemic, it is not fair to expect colleges to react nimbly and quickly when they do not have the funding capacity or reserves to reconfigure their offer?

We have already heard that more than £1 billion of taxpayers’ money has been put into the pupil equity funding scheme. You have talked a lot about the importance of being clear about the policy objectives. On a number of occasions, the Scottish Government has attempted to position the policy as being about giving headteachers greater autonomy at the same time as enhancing equity. Have you reflected on that and on whether it is possible for one policy to have two different aims?

I hear what the minister says about the year-on-year increases in funding, but in 2012, when the policy was first introduced, 6,009 two-year-olds accessed the provision, so there are now fewer children accessing it than there were at the start—that is not a policy that is working well.

I do not want to pick on Gillian Martin’s speech. There was lots in it about the good things that are happening, and I recognise those as I see them in my constituency, but I cannot believe that Gillian Martin, in the time since the policy has been under development, has not had any contact from private, voluntary and independent nurseries expressing concern about how the policy has been delivered. Those concerns persist. I will come to some points on Aberdeenshire later.

Although I am willing to accept that Covid has brought with it a unique and unprecedented set of challenges, and that the Government felt that it had no choice but to delay, Covid is not the full story. The policy has been riddled with concerns and poor implementation from the get-go.

I will not forget the previous minister Marie Todd’s explanation to my colleague Liam Kerr when he asked her about concerns that nurseries faced in the north-east and about how the provision would be delivered in practice, with some nurseries facing closure. She told him that one would not expect to be able to drive over a bridge

“18 months before it was built.”—[Official Report, 14 March 2019; c 3.]

As was pointed out at the time, one would not expect the bridge to be there, but one would expect detailed planning to have taken place before the building work began. All the way through development of the policy, it has been clear that no detailed route map or planning existed. That has created unnecessary tensions and challenges, many of which could have been avoided under better leadership.

Although we have come a long way in building a system that has the capacity to provide increased hours, we are not fully there yet. Like many members, including my colleague Pam Gosal, I have concerns about a potential collapse in the private, voluntary and independent sector. In the medium-to-long term, the policy will not be possible without that sector’s support and continued commitment.

I raised the staffing challenges with Audit Scotland at this morning’s Education, Children and Young People Committee.