The Scottish Government uses a range of approaches to assess the needs of non-working parents.

We develop our own evidence in this area. A key example is an evidence paper which was produced to inform the 2012 Women's Employment Summit. The paper focuses on women's labour market experience but covers issues which are of importance to non-working parents generally. The paper provides a comprehensive overview of the evidence on key issues related to women's employment and highlights that accessible, affordable and flexible childcare is fundamental to participation in work and training. The paper is available at:

http://www.employabilityinscotland.com/media/294295/8_-__women_s_employment_summit_evidence_paper.pdf

Evidence is also drawn from Scottish Government survey data. For example, in the Sweep 1 Growing Up In Scotland survey over half of unemployed respondents indicated they would prefer to work or study if they could afford good quality, reliable and convenient childcare.

In addition, the Scottish Government makes use of analysis of the Annual Population Survey and Labour Force Survey, published by the Office for National Statistics, when considering issues related to employability.

There are a number of ways in which the Bill is expected to benefit women. Amongst other things, the Bill will require public bodies to consider how their procurement activity can improve the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of the authority’s area. It will require bodies to consider including community benefit clauses in all new major public sector contracts. These enable public bodies to maximise social benefits from public spending and are increasingly used in public contracts to advance equality of opportunity and deliver thousands of targeted training and recruitment opportunities. The Scottish Government has commissioned further research into community benefit clauses with a particular focus on using them to promote equality.

The Bill will allow ministers to issue statutory guidance on workforce related matters, such as a company’s approach to recruitment and terms of engagement, including flexible working which should be considered when assessing the suitability of a company to bid for public contracts. The guidance will require purchasers to consider, where relevant to performance of the contract, whether matters such as inappropriate use of zero hours contracts or levels of remuneration may affect the bidder’s ability to provide the required quality of service.

The Scottish Government is committed to fully funding local authorities to deliver high quality childcare provision, drawing on a range of high quality service models including public provision, child minders, innovative third sector organisations and social enterprises.

In September 2013, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth announced in the Draft Budget £190 million of investment over the next two years to implement the commitments set out in the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill.

On 7 January 2014, the First Minister announced an additional investment of £59 million over 2014-15 and 2015-16 to extend provision of childcare to 15% of two year olds in 2014-15 and then to 27% of two year olds in 2015-16.

In addition, on 8 January 2014 the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth announced £3.5 million of additional support which will be provided in 2014-15 to meet extra demand for childcare places. This funding will be invested in training and development.

HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) publish bi-annual statistics on provisional awards for child tax credit, available at link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/child-and-working-tax-credits-statistics-provisional-awards-geographical-analyses-december-2013.

HMRC also publish information relating to the value of childcare vouchers through Employer Supported Childcare in the Tax Ready Reckoner and Tax Relief supplementary document:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/statistics/expenditures/table1-5.pdf.

The Scottish Social Services Council publish information on an annual basis on the size and composition of the childcare and day-care of children workforce in Scotland.

The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) provides information about the levels, distribution and make-up of earnings and hours worked for employees in all industries and occupations. The information requested is available from the ‘Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, 2013 Provisional Results’ Office for National Statistics’ publication:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/ashe/annual-survey-of-hours-and-earnings/2013-provisional-results/index.html

Estimates of median gross weekly earnings by gender, part-time status and region are available in the zip file ‘ASHE 2013 (provisional) Table 25-Region by Public and Private Sector’ at the following page:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/publications/re-reference-tables.html?edition=tcm%3A77-328216

Within this set of tables, Table 25.1a gives data on Weekly pay-Gross (£). For female part-time employee jobs: United Kingdom, 2013.

The latest Gross Domestic Product statistics for Scotland, covering the period July 2013 to September 2013, show that total output in the economy grew by 0.7 per cent compared to previous quarter. The services sector, which accounts for nearly three quarters of the economy, grew by 0.7 per cent during the latest period. The production sector grew by 0.6 per cent, and construction grew by 0.7 per cent.

The latest labour market statistics, published by the Office for National Statistics, show that the employment rate in Scotland was 72.7% and increased by 2 percentage points over the year to the period September 2013 to November 2013. This increase was driven by an increase in the female employment rate of 3.3 percentage points, and an increase of 0.7 percentage points in the male rate over the same period.

An employment rate is calculated by dividing the number of people in employment by the total population (employed, unemployed and economically inactive). It is therefore not possible to calculate employment rates for industry sectors since those who are unemployed or economically inactive cannot be allocated to an industry sector.

The Annual Population Survey provides the preferred measure for employment rates for small cohorts of the population in Scotland. The latest data covers the period from October 2012 to September 2013.

The employment rate of mothers by number of children is shown in Table 1 and the employment rate of mothers by age of youngest dependent child in Table 2.

Table 1: Employment rates¹ for mothers by number of dependent² children

Source: Annual Population Survey, October 2012-September 2013, Office for National Statistics.

Notes:

1. Rates based on population aged 16-64.

2. Dependent children are children aged under 16 and those aged 16 to 18 who have never-married.

Table 2: Employment rates¹ for mothers by age of youngest dependent² child:

Source: Annual Population Survey, October 2012-September 2013, Office for National Statistics.

Notes:

1. Rates based on population aged 16-64.

2. Dependent children are children aged under 16 and those aged 16 to 18 who have never-married.

3. Analysis based on age of youngest child to avoid double counting of mothers with multiple children.

The Annual Population Survey provides the preferred measure for detailed labour market information for subsets of the population in Scotland. The latest data covers the period from October 2012 to September 2013.

Female economic inactivity rate by qualification

Source: Annual Population Survey, October 2012 to September 2013, Office for National Statistics

Notes:

1. Rates based on female population aged 16-64

2. Rates are calculated on unrounded figures

3. Rates for all excludes those who didn’t know or didn’t answer