Chamber and committees

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.

As I close today’s debate for the Scottish Conservatives, I will return to where my colleague Meghan Gallacher began. We have heard time and again in the debate about the widespread support and unity across Parliament for the policy aims behind provision of 1,140 hours. Speaking as one who was also a member in the previous session and who has been party to a number of debates on the topic, the question for me has always been about delivery.

Eligibility is one thing, but access is another. Siobhian Brown talked about learning to be kind at nursery. If I was trying to be kind, I would say that we have had two different debates today; SNP members talked about the principles behind early learning and childcare, which we can all get behind, but they have perhaps been too kind to their own Government, because they did not get into the nitty-gritty of practical delivery on the ground. That is the real question.

I fundamentally disagree with the minister on that characterisation. The Government, local authorities and everyone across Scotland are dependent on the PVI sector, but it is not well supported. It continues to pick up the slack because the sector cares about the policy and is keen to deliver the hours. I will come back to that in more detail later.

If what the minister said is correct, why would Audit Scotland acknowledge this morning that the risks in relation to the workforce that it previously identified continue to exist? It has been persistently raised in Parliament, since the policy was first announced, that without increasing the workforce we will not be able to provide access. We can announce eligibility, but people will not get the flexibility or access that they want if we do not have the workforce to deliver it.

It is important to remember that ELC settings also provide increased parental choice and, in many cases, are leading innovation in the sector. They often work in the hardest-to-reach areas, including my Dumfriesshire constituency; they are the voluntary groups and childminders who serve many small rural and remote communities. They certainly do not feel well supported or valued, but feel that they are second to local authority provision, even when it is not available in the communities that they serve.

They have also worked hard during the pandemic and, in many cases, are willing to provide the greatest flexibility in respect of available hours. That is not to say that there is not good partnership working in some local authorities, as my colleague Brian Whittle pointed out. The challenge is in ensuring that best practice becomes universal.

It is not good enough for the Scottish Government simply to say that it is down to individual local authorities. This is a Scottish Government led policy; the Scottish Government must, for that reason, be willing to continue to drive improvement and best practice across the country. The success of the policy is too important for it to get stuck in the chasm between local authorities and the Scottish Government, which has become all too common an occurrence when it comes to education policy.

It is clear that the expansion to 1,140 hours continues to have broad support and has the potential to be truly transformational. If it can meet the needs of our young people and their families and benefit our society, it is a policy that the whole Parliament can be proud of. We simply ask the minister to recognise that, despite the delay in introduction of the policy, we are still seeing many challenges, and we are not there yet.

That demands a watchful eye, and willingness to get a handle on what is happening on the ground and to question, where necessary. It also comes with a responsibility to be the embodiment of the partnership working that we all want to see, which means that we must treat all partners as equals in the process.

We simply cannot afford to see the number and choice of settings being reduced. In fact, in a vibrant and well-supported sector we should see an increase in the number of providers and more people wanting to get involved, not fewer settings. That should be across all parts of the sector.