Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-24701 on 9 September 2019. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

A breakdown of Modern Apprenticeship starts in Early Learning and Childcare frameworks by self-declared ethnicity for the years 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19, is in the following table.

Modern Apprentices are asked to provide details of their ethnicity, rather than race. This is provided on a self-declaration basis.

NHS Education for Scotland (NES) and NHS Health Scotland have been jointly commissioned by the Scottish Government to take forward a programme of work to support implementation of Action 2 of ‘Every Life Matters’, Scotland’s Suicide Prevention Action Plan. The work is organised in two phases; the first of which was the release of a series of animations to raise awareness of mental health and suicide prevention. The second phase will run from now until September 2021 and will include promoting resources developed during Phase 1 across different workforce sectors; develop / commission education and training resources to meet specific workforce needs; develop an infrastructure to support long term learning and develop impact measures.

The Audit of Rejected Referrals contained a range of recommendations to improve the effectiveness of CAMHS. As a direct response to the Audit’s findings, we announced the establishment of the Children and Young People’s Taskforce. Over the past year, the Taskforce’s Specialist workstream has engaged and consulted with a wide range of children’s services professionals including Psychiatry, Clinical and Educational Psychology, Social Work, Education and the third sector. The findings of the Specialist workstream have informed the Taskforce recommendations, which will be published in the coming weeks. This will address the issues raised in the Rejected Referrals audit.

We have also provided £4m of investment for additional CAMHS staff. This will reduce pressure in the system, and result in engagement with other services as they increasingly start to focus on mental health.

The Scottish Government does not collect information on the number of funded providers involved in delivering expanded hours as part of phasing.  

Delivery progress data from local authorities showed that in the period from 1 May to 30 September 2018, 935 children accessed more than 600 hours of funded ELC at a funded provider as a result of early phasing. A further update on delivery progress will be provided to Parliament in the Summer.  

Expansion planning guidance, which was issued to local authorities in March 2017, made clear that plans for phasing should reflect the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation to ensure that families who stand to benefit most for the expansion benefit first. Local authority settings are more likely, compared to private and third sector providers, to operate in deprived areas so it is expected that early phasing of 1140 hours would be more concentrated in these settings.  

Any setting involved in phasing will have met the respective local authority’s current requirements for becoming a funded provider, which will include requirements related to Care Inspectorate inspection grades. All services which provide ‘day care of children’ for at least 2 hours in any given day are required to register with the Care Inspectorate and will be subject to ongoing regulation.  

From August 2020, any provider wishing to offer funded ELC hours will have to meet the National Standard, which sets clear quality standards drawing on Care Inspectorate gradings. The Scottish Government are regularly monitoring the proportion of ELC providers achieving good or better on all 4 Care Inspectorate inspection themes and are working with local authorities to ensure that any funded providers falling below this standard are supported to improve the quality of their provision as we plan for August 2020.

The data on the headcount of the workforce working in settings delivering funded early learning and childcare is published by Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) in table 14 at the following link:

https://data.sssc.uk.com/data-publications/194-the-childrens-services-workforce-2017

The data on full-time equivalent is a matter for SSSC as the information requested is not in the public domain or held centrally.

Childminders are playing a vital part in achieving our ambition for Scotland to be the best place in the world to grow up. They provide a nurturing setting for children to play and learn, and families value the flexible service they offer. The expansion in funded early learning and childcare (ELC) entitlement to 1140 hours from August 2020 will offer further opportunities for childminders to deliver funded ELC.

In August 2020 we will introduce Funding Follows the Child. This will be underpinned by a National Standard that all providers, including childminders, will have to meet in order to be able to deliver the funded ELC entitlement. This provider neutral approach will empower parents and carers to choose from a range of high quality ELC providers, including childminders.

Each local authority has developed an expansion plan for how they intend to deliver the expanded entitlement. These plans estimate that the share of the funded hours being delivered by childminders will increase with the introduction of 1140 hours. The overall number of childminders involved in the delivery of the funded entitlement in each local authority will be determined by parental demand and availability of childminding services in the area.

The information sought is set out in the following tables.

2016-17:

There was a total of 1,400 starts in ELC related Modern Apprenticeship frameworks in 2016-17.

Starts by gender and framework:

The Scottish Government publishes its total marketing spend annually.

The spend for 2017-18, including the costs related to the Early Learning and Childcare Recruitment campaign, can be found via the following link: https://www.gov.scot/publications/marketing-spend-2017-2018/

Budget reconciliation is currently taking place for the 2018-19 spend and will be published in due course.

Evaluation

The Marketing campaign is one lever that will contribute towards the recruitment of the required workforce.

The campaign itself is evaluated via pre and post campaign evaluation research in terms of levels of awareness, recognition and attitudes related to the marketing. This is carried out by an independent research agency.

Burst One (October 17 – February 18, targeting S4 and S5 pupils) was evaluated using online self-completion surveys undertaken in the classroom among selected schools pre and post campaign. Schools were selected to achieve a mix of urban and rural areas; with emphasis on those with out-of-home activity. 14 schools took part at pre-wave; 12 also took part at post-wave, plus a further six at post-wave. A pre-wave was carried out in September/October 2017 and a post-wave in February/March 2018.

Burst Two (May – July 18, January – February 19, targeting a “career seeker” audience - 22-44 year-olds in the BC1C2D demographic) was evaluated with three waves of research (one prior to campaign launch (May 2018), one in June 2018 and one in February 2019). At each wave, a sample of c.300 adults in Scotland aged 22-44 in the BC1C2D socio-economic groups (excluding students) who were considering changing jobs or going back to work was interviewed.

Key findings across each burst are as follows.

Burst One

•  73% of the total target audience recognised the campaign, peaking with S4 girls (at 88%).
•  There was an increase pre to post in the proportion of those in the target audience who reported to definitely/probably see themselves applying for a job in a nursery at the end of school year OR definitely/probably considering going to college to take a qualification in ELC, by end of February 2018. The increase was largest amongst those in S4 (+9 percentage points) and particularly amongst girls in S4 (+18pp).
• The campaign increased the number of those agreeing with the statement ’I could make a positive difference to children’s lives’. This went up 5pp amongst the total audience, up 11pp amongst those in S4 and up 13pp amongst S4 girls.
• The campaign led to 24% awareness of the website across the total target audience.
• The campaign has prompted action (e.g. visited the website, applied for a college course/job) for a good proportion, especially S4 girls, with 41% of those who have seen the campaign claiming action as a result.

Burst Two

• The campaign has generated good levels of recognition across the target audience, but this was particularly high amongst parents potentially interested in changing jobs/career (57% at the second post wave).
• The campaign has prompted action for a good proportion, with 50% of Parent Changers who have seen the campaign claiming action as a result at the second post-wave.
• Likelihood to consider a job or course in ELC or already be working in the sector rose from 42% to 48% over the campaign period among Parent Changers.
• Attitudes towards ELC among Parent Changers were generally positive and stable, with a significant increase over the campaign period in agreement that it is ‘a varied role’ (from 65% to 71%) and ‘a career that would be suitable for me’ (from 42% to 55%).
• The campaign led to 23% awareness of the website across the total target audience, rising to 27% among Parent Changers.

Since the ELC Recruitment campaign launched in October 2017, up until the end of May 2019, the website stats show there have been:

• 255,100 sessions
• 198,864 users
•  686,315 page views

The data we get from the evaluation data helps us to refine and maximise performance of the campaign as it progresses. For example, upweighting budget towards audiences or marketing channels which we can see are delivering best impact.