Chamber and committees

We are working with partners to explore the extent of on-site provision and will set out more information in the Scottish Government’s response to the consultation in Spring 2017.

Through our consultation, A Blueprint for 2020: The Expansion of Early Learning and Childcare in Scotland, we are seeking views as to how payment of the Living Wage and wider Fair Work practises can be encouraged across the Early Learning and Childcare sector.

We will publish our response to the consultation in Spring 2017.

We do not collect specific data on the number of parents not using funded early learning and childcare. We do collect data on the number of funded registrations through an annual census in September which is published in December.

Scottish government provided significant additional capital funding to local authorities to support implementation of the early learning and childcare elements of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014: £71 million in 2014-15, £69 million in 2015-16 and £30 million in 2016-17.

Local authority capital expenditure on pre-primary education for financial years
2010-11 to 2014-15 (most recent data available) is shown in the following table.

Scottish Futures Trust have not provided any funding for capital investment during the last five years.

We are currently in the process of gathering detailed information on the available capacity within the early learning and childcare sector.

In line with National Records of Scotland 2014-based population projections, we do not expect any significant demographical changes in terms of eligible children by 2020.

In order to ensure that the expansion of funded entitlement will support the delivery of more flexible provision, the Scottish Government is committed to substantially increase the number of qualified early years practitioners and invest in early learning and childcare infrastructure.

The statutory guidance is being revised in light of the amendments to the Additional Support for Learning Act which were brought forward through the Education (Scotland) Act 2016. The statutory guidance will be published for consultation, alongside non-statutory guidance and draft regulations in 2017.

A draft of the Skills Investment Plan for the Early Learning and Childcare sector will be produced by January 2017 and shared with partners. The final version of the Plan will be published in spring 2017.

We will commission a Flexible Jobs Index for Scotland, which will determine the availability of flexible jobs in Scotland, by the end of 2016 and we will seek to publish as soon as practicable thereafter.

The Scottish Government does not make student debt projections.

However, the Student Loans Company publishes data on total student debt and average student debt:

http://www.slc.co.uk/official-statistics/student-loans-debt-and-repayment/scotland.aspx

Table 1: Total amount owed by borrowers who received loans as Scottish domiciled students studying in the UK, or as EU domiciled students studying in Scotland

Source: Student Loans Company

Table 2: Average Loan Balance for borrowers who received loans as Scottish domiciled students studying in the UK, or as EU domiciled students studying in Scotland

Source: Student Loans Company

There are currently no plans to merge Scottish Funding Council and Skills Development Scotland. Plans to better align of the functions of the two agencies will be developed as part of phase 2 of the review.