 I welcome everyone to this, the 25th meeting of the Public Audit Committee in 2023. The first item on the committee's agenda this morning is to agree or not to take agenda items 3, 4 and 5 in private. Are members of the committee content to do that? Yes, we are agreed. The main item this morning for the committee is agenda item 2, which is a session on the Audit Scotland Accounts Commission section 23 report into early learning and childcare, particularly the progress on the delivery of the 1140 hours expansion. I am pleased that we are joined this morning by four representatives. First of all, Neil Renwick, who is the director of general education and justice, Eleanor Passmore, who is the deputy director for early learning and childcare in the Scottish Government. I am pleased that we are also joined by Matthew Sweeney from COSLA, where he is a policy manager for children and young people, and also by Joanna Anderson, who is a policy manager at COSLA on local government and finance. We have questions to put to you. Before we get to those, Mr Renwick, I wonder if you could give an opening statement and then we will ask questions both of yourself, the Scottish Government team and the representatives from COSLA. I genuinely welcome this opportunity to provide evidence to the committee today. As you know, it is now just over two years since all 32 local authorities began delivering 1140 hours of funded early learning and childcare. Achieving this by August 2021 was a significant undertaking, particularly in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic. Working together, colleagues in COSLA and the Government developed and delivered a multi-year investment plan, supporting the building of necessary infrastructure and the training and recruitment of the required workforce. Delivering that programme could only have been achieved through strong partnership working between Government and local government. I would also like to take the opportunity to recognise those working in the private, third and child-minding sectors for the time and effort that they have devoted to delivering 1140 and for their continuing work in supporting Scotland's children and families. I am pleased with the Toadette Scotland's assessment that the Scottish Government and councils have made good progress in implementing since the 2020 report that they published. The universal component of the programme is delivered with very high levels of take-up and most parents reporting that they are satisfied with both the quality and flexibility of provision that is available to them. The latest report from Toadette Scotland sets out a number of important recommendations relating to improving planning processes, data collection and data use. As a countable officer, I accept its conclusions. We have work in hand to take all those recommendations forward. Indeed, progress has already been made on a number of the recommendations, including on data sharing around eligible two-year-olds and on staff movement within the ALC workforce. As outlined in the Audit Scotland report, we recognise the significant impact that the cost crisis has had particularly on the private, voluntary and child-minding sectors. The Scottish Government is committed to continuing to work closely with local government and the sector in responding to those challenges. The committee members will be aware that ministers in their 2023-24 programme for government committed to an uplift in private, voluntary and independent sector workforce of £12 an hour for those delivering fund EDLC from April 2024. The programme for government also set out our plans to work over the next year with local government and partners on the next phase of both early learning and school-age childcare, building on the expansion that was achieved with the 1140. We will implement the recommendations and take on the wider learning from Audit Scotland's report to inform that next stage of work. We are very happy to answer any questions that the committee has. Thank you very much indeed. You said in that opening statement that you accept as the accountable officer all of the recommendations of this report produced by Audit Scotland and the Accounts Commission. Is that correct, Mr Rennick? Yes, it is. Thank you. Perhaps I could turn to Mr Sweeney and ask you that same question. Does COSLA accept the findings and recommendations of this report? Yes, absolutely, and as Neil Rennick said, there has already been work that has been on going to address some of them. Thank you very much. Can I turn to something that we took evidence on back in June when the report first came out from the Auditor General. One of the issues that came up at that point was real interest on capital spend to deliver those ambitious targets. The evidence that we were given at that time was that the Scottish Futures Trust was going to gather up information on capital spend and try to come up with some estimate of current spend and what future spend might be. I wonder whether Mr Rennick could update us on where we have got to with that Scottish Futures Trust piece of work. Yes, absolutely. I will bring Eleanor in in the detail of that. That is helpful, but just to confirm, capital investment and infrastructure was an absolutely crucial element of delivering the 1140. The Scottish Futures Trust has not just been involved more recently in looking at the delivery of that, but I have been involved throughout both in terms of providing guidance on the construction of the refurbishment and new facilities and then also monitoring the delivery of that capital investment. The Scottish Government committed to investing £476 million in that capital investment, and the vast majority of those projects have now been delivered. The last information that I had—I will ask Eleanor to check this—was that nine local authorities had carried forward funding on projects that were still continuing, but 94 per cent of projects were complete, 2 per cent were under construction and 4 per cent were still in the development phase. However, the vast majority were delivered and the flexibility was available in terms of available capacity. Eleanor, is there anything further? That is correct. The evidence that you heard previously from the Audit Scotland report drew on information from 2022, which found that 90 per cent were complete. Updated data from May of this year indicates that 94 per cent of those projects are complete with 2 per cent in construction and the remaining 4 per cent in the development phase. One of the elements of that that we were interested in when we took evidence previously was the factor of construction inflation, which I think was defined as being about 30 per cent, which is considerably more even than the retail price index and the consumer price index. However, we were not clear, and I wonder whether you could shed any light on that. What you have identified as the principal drivers for that inflation in the construction section being, and I do not know whether you can shed any light on that. Obviously, as I said, the vast majority of the capital projects in this particular programme have been delivered, so thankfully they are not affected by that. We are aware of it impacting across a wide range of policy areas. The causes of that are mixed and complex. They relate partly to the impact of Brexit, partly to the on-going impact of supply chain issues, a hangover from Covid as well, and then there has just been a general inflation in the sector both in terms of workforce and materials as well, and that is impacting across a huge range of areas. As far as I am aware, we have not been approached by any councils to ask for additional capital funding with reference to any of the projects that are within the programme, but I absolutely confirm that it is impacting across a wide range of areas. I suspect that this committee will see more of that in other areas. To go back to the question that we put to Audit Scotland at the last session, can you broadly, I realise that there is an aggregation of factors here, but can you broadly say which the biggest driver for that level of inflation in the construction section is? Is it labour, is it supply chain? I know colleagues in our capital investment and its checker teams have been looking at that and I have been communicating and assessing what the impacts are. I genuinely think that that is a combination of different factors that are driving that. As I say, I see it in other areas of capital investment that we are supporting. Just on a related point, the Audit General brought out a briefing recently on infrastructure and the challenges that there are in delivering the projected budgets. To what extent do you think those pressures might have an impact on the delivery of infrastructure in the early learning childcare sector? Obviously, I have read through the Audit Scotland report and it confirms that it is an issue across almost all of our portfolios areas and yet absolutely we will need to factor that into the next phase of work. The particular phase in the immediate term is not largely focused on infrastructure projects. We have development work in a number of individual local communities that we are working on, but those are not reliant on significant capital investment. Similarly, the expansion that we are continuing to move forward with two-year-olds is already capacity built in for the current number of eligible two-year-olds, but, Eleanor? It is something that we are very alive to, as Neil said, in terms of planning for the next phase of the expansion. However, as we were saying, 6 per cent remain outstanding, so we will keep in close contact directly on through the SFT with those councils. I think that it is worth saying that 82 per cent of the infrastructure investment is being delivered through refurbishment and repurposing or extension of an existing asset. So, again, I think that that suggests that the risks are manageable in terms of those inflationary impacts. Right, thank you. I am going to ask the representatives from COSLA. Joanna Aniston, I am sure that your a is pricked up when you heard the director general saying that there had no approaches from any local authority for additional support for capital investment. What is the perspective on what has happened with capital spending from a local government point of view? Obviously, as Neil and Eleanor referred to, there are concerns about inflationary pressures across all character services across the board. As I have already alluded to, there is a vast majority of capital projects in terms of ELC expansion being delivered. We also have not had specific concerns raised in terms of the additional costs that are being incurred in terms of ELC expansion capital costs, but it is something that we will keep an eye on and we will monitor that. There is the finance working group, the jointly chaired group, that would be the appropriate space to monitor that and have those discussions. In terms of, I think that Eleanor has also alluded to the vast majority of projects being refurbishment projects, so it is not the capacity to deliver on expansion is reliant on new build projects that are being held back by inflationary pressures. That is not a huge concern at the moment. Okay, thanks, that is helpful. I am going to turn now to Colin Beattie, who has some questions. Sorry, I should say that we will be asking questions about the operational model as regards the financing of that at some point, but I am going to turn to Colin Beattie. I have just got one or two areas that I would like to explore. The first is really about deferred entry to primary 1 and part of 20 of the report. There are obviously 10 councils running a pilot. The pilot evaluation report was published in June on access to funded early learning and childcare for eligible children who defer entry to primary 1. What actions has the Scottish Government taking in response to that report? I will bring colleagues in, but you will be aware that from August this year that eligible children are able to defer that entry and get access to early learning and childcare. That deferral opportunity is available for children and families. The pilot projects show some upswing in terms of the number of children or the number of families who are choosing to defer, but that was within the flexibilities available within the programme. That is still our expectation for this year. Obviously, we will have full information about how many children have deferred and how that spread across local authority areas when we get the annual statistics in December. As a member, I will be aware of the kind of Ipsosmory independent evaluation that we commissioned to find that, broadly, the deferrals policy had been implemented as intended. We were pleased to see that local authorities were also reporting that they were broadly content. They saw some benefit in simplifying the process for them. The report also found that it did not have a major impact on local authority capacity or resources. The wisdom says that that is something that will keep a very close eye on as we get the latest census data later this year. There were some hotspots that came through in the 10 pilot areas, but for those children deferring between August and December, nationally, there was a two percentage point increase, so from 7 per cent to 9 per cent. We have seen a change, but we are confident that, based on the analysis from the pilot, that that is manageable. In terms of what action we have been taking, we engage closely with COSLA to ensure that local authorities are communicating with parents. I think that one of the findings of the report was that conversation between parents and trusted professionals in schools and ELC settings is really critical in informing their choice. Ensuring that that communication continues to happen and keeping a really close eye on the capacity and cost factors as part of the ELC settlement will be another important action that we are taking from that. Maybe I can ask COSLA to come in here. That sounds fairly positive. Are there any downsides? The first thing I would say is that the phased approach in was something that was agreed between the Scottish Government and COSLA, and the piloting approach was phased through a joint implementation plan that we created in 2020 when the legislation was introduced for the purpose to ensure that we did not get into a situation where we were coming towards the full legislation and coming into effect without understanding what it is likely to be about capacity. It has been useful that the learning from the pilots, as Eleanor mentioned, has been understood by local authorities and they are able to share their practice with others. I suppose that the key point for our members that we have been discussing is around the fact that it feels that it is increasing year on year. I suppose now that it is a national author, there will probably be an increase in communications around what that means, so what that is going to mean, as colleagues have alluded to, is that we have a really close eye on monitoring to understand what impact that has on uptake. However, at the moment, from the pilots, it does not look like it has been massive and could broadly be met, but making sure that we keep an eye on that as the offer is understood will be really important. We want something that is less positive—data. The number of times that we sit in this committee and we hear that there is inadequate data or no data, and that this is no different because paragraph 71 talks about the lack of data on the demand for childcare, which seems pretty basic as a statistic that you would want to help to guide where you are investing. What work has been undertaken to address this lack of national data, both for funder and non-fundered? Obviously, it is one of the key themes that runs consistently through the Audit Scotland report, that issue of data. Coming to this area fresh, not having been involved with it before, I have to say that I have been really impressed by the range of information that is available just now in terms of the number of children who are eligible, the number of children receiving services, a range of different information. By accept, we would always want more data to be available to understand further around what the implications are. Some good progress has already been made particularly around the issue of eligible two-year-olds. We can talk much further about that and the benefits that that is delivering. In terms of the 1140, we know that there is exceptionally high take-up of that, so there is clearly demand for that funded early learning and childcare. Part of the next phase of work that was announced in the programme for Government is to do some further work, including through digital technologies, to get a better understanding of what children and families needs are and how those can be met. That is absolutely a key part of the next phase of work that we are doing. I do not know whether colleagues will say any more about that. The member may be aware that local authorities have a statutory duty to consult with parents and carers every two years around local demands and needs. Local areas should have that understanding. Nationally, the parent survey that we ran through the first national information that we had post 1140 and was undertaken with 8,000 parents gave us an understanding of both funded provision and demand for unfunded provision. We have some information. We are developing an ELC outcomes framework jointly with COSLA looking at the totality of measurement and how we use that information. That will be one of the critical areas that we look at to consider the feasibility and the approach to gathering further data and existing data on whether additional approaches are needed to look specifically at that issue of demand, because there is some information there in the system. I think that it is a question of understanding that picture and where further work may be needed. That seems to me so fundamental. If you do not know what the demand is nationally, how do you put resources behind that? How do you know what resources councils are going to need? How do you know what resource the Government is going to have to allocate? Yes, you are talking about some local data that might be available, which is helpful, but clearly that is not available across the board. Not all councils are producing the data, otherwise you would be collating it. All the councils should be drawing that data together in terms of their local needs, and that is reported in terms of the survey of parents. We have that information and, as I said, we know that there is exceptionally high take-up of the 1140 offer. Part of what we have reflected is, obviously, that for families. It is not just about early learning in childcare, but for many families it will also be the combination of early learning in childcare and school-age childcare. A large part of the work that we are taking forward in the next phase is thinking about those family units and how you create a system that supports families in the whole. Clearly, lots of families have different needs. Positively, the work in terms of the parents survey indicates that the majority of parents and families are happy with the flexibility that the current 1140 offer provides for them. We always want to do more work to make sure that we are matching up what needs and expectations of families are with the offer that is available. If the councils are collecting all that data, are they using a common process to do it, common data sets to do it, so that they are comparable and so that they can collate them nationally? Yes, there is a statutory duty on the local authorities to collect that data, but also then to analyse it locally and develop their own local plans of how they want to respond to that, taking account of local circumstances. If I am comparing one council to the other, would I be able to compare apples with apples? I think that the important thing to come back to with the consultation duty is how it works with the other duties on councils and their responsibilities under the funding falls, the child, which is the model agreed by the Scottish Government, and it caused that in terms of how we are running the expansion and the way that works. The idea in that consultation is to make sure that we have that understanding of what local needs are at the local level. I am not sure of any point in the process that that was designed to provide that sort of national comparison, because fundamentally what is important is that there is that range of models and options open to parents at the local level. Some of the data that Eleanor mentioned, we do have some of the national level parents data, which seems to broadly back up that that consultation process is working, because we have that global figure where we are saying that the vast majority of families are fairly happy with both the quality and the flexibility of the provision local. In the middle of all this, what you are saying is that local authorities are collecting information in a manner that suits them locally but may not be capable of being collated at a national level into something that can be used by the Government. Is that correct? Mr Beattie is right that that is exactly what we need to look at as part of the ELC outcomes framework and recognising that local authorities also collect other data that informs the census, for example. We are carrying out improvement work through the CMIS project that will give us much better information around that. We need to look at the totality of requests and information that we are gathering from local authorities and also nationally to make sure that we can do that consistent piece. That is part of the scope of the outcomes framework work, but it is to look in the round because there is a number of sources of data and we want to make sure that we are collecting it in the right way and using it for the right purposes. It is useful and proportionate, so absolutely demand is a critical component of that, as well as other factors including better demographic information, information about children with additional support needs is a critical one. We are looking at data in the round and absolutely that is a really key part of that work. I think that in the middle of this we have to remember that the Auditor General's report here makes it clear that we do not have national data on the demand for childcare, which to me seems a very basic piece of data that should be getting collected. If it is being collected locally to suit local conditions, that is fine, but how do you collate that nationally and make sense of it on a national basis? That is clearly what is not happening. However positive you may put this, at the end of the day, the national data is not there. It is important to say that we have national data on a consistent basis in terms of the delivery of the 1140 for each local authority, what is being delivered, the number of children, the take-up, etc, additional support needs. There is a range of data on the delivery of 1140. Obviously that issue in terms of what parents' expectations and demands are, we have a national picture from the survey we undertake of parents, but alongside that quite rightly local authorities undertake local assessments of what the needs are and try and match that up with the local delivery. Without information on demand you are not going to be able to work out workforce planning, you are not going to be able to do proper budgeting and so on. That is clearly what is aimed at here. When do you expect to have that national data on the demand for childcare? In terms of the 1140, obviously, we did have that and built that into the workforce plans. Every two years, local authorities do that analysis of what the local needs are, so that information is there. Obviously, as we move into the next phase of the work around both early learning and childcare and the school-age childcare, we will build into that analysis of the workforce needs. In fact, that is part of the work that Eleanor was describing in terms of looking ahead to what the workforce demands are going forward. Just to add to that, absolutely, as I said earlier, we will look at the best way to ensure that we are able to gather a national picture on demand and that that is robust and effective. I think that it is worth differentiating between workforce planning for the funded childcare offer. Obviously, there are workforce issues in terms of the nearly 50 per cent that private providers are funded directly by parents to provide, so the role of national government is different with regard to that. We undertake a lot of work in terms of the full sector's sustainability, but in terms of our responsibilities and 1140, that has specifically been around workforce planning around the funded entitlement. We know that not all parents take up the full 1140 offer that a number do not, and the survey indicates that that is by choice that they choose not to take it up for a variety of reasons. I will move on from that, but I cannot say that I am terribly convinced of what you are saying. I move on to looking at the views of children and specifically looking at the article 12 of the UN convention on the rights of the child. How is the Scottish Government progressing the recommendation in the Auditor General report, paragraph 103, to capture and consider children's views as part of the future evaluation of the policy? That is in line with article 12 of the UN convention on the rights of the child. It is important to say that it is part of the health and social care standards. They already include an expectation that service providers are taking account of children's views and respecting those in terms of how they are individually delivering services for those children. Earlier this year, the Scottish Government published the voice of the infant best practice guidance and an infant pledge to try and improve consistency across a range of services in terms of listening to very young children. That includes good practice examples, including from the early language. How are you actually listening to the views of the child? A lot of work has been going on more broadly linked with the incorporation of the UNCRC about how you engage with very young children and take their views. That best practice guidance makes some suggestions. Clearly parents have an important role in advocating for very young children, but it is also part of ensuring that you find ways to listen to children directly as well on what their experiences are. There are lots of relatively recent analysis and guidance on how to do that and how to develop it. Within individual settings, there are different ways in which they record children's views in terms of how they are feeling each day, how they feel about the services that they receive, how they feel about the food, etc. There are experts in that and local delivery agencies receive training in terms of how to engage with children. Once again, is that engagement common across all council areas? It is one of the standards within the health and social care standards, so that should be being looked at by the care inspectorate in terms of looking at what services are doing. Each local authority is doing the same thing and doing the same evaluation so that, nationally, they can be collected. The standards are consistent across all providers. In terms of day-to-day practice, realising the ambition, which is well evidence-based practice guidance, is really clear about the importance of play pedagogy and engaging children in improving that kind of practice of practitioners. In terms of the evaluation, as you will be aware, we published our evaluation strategy last October, which set out the full suite of how we are approaching that in a detailed way. This year, a critical part of that is the Scottish study of early learning and childcare and the second phase of that being completed post-evaluation. In tandem to that, we are engaging with colleagues at the National Day Nursery Association and with others through our monitoring and evaluation working group to explore how we look at children's views in evaluation, specifically in a meaningful way, because there is a difference between day-to-day practice and looking at how we evaluate a national expansion at a policy level. NGNA has done some thinking around that that we want to draw on to make sure that we do that in a really robust and evidence-based way. We are taking forward that work as part of the evaluation implementation and the totality of that evaluation. We expect to report in 2025, but we will publish components of that as it progresses over a number of years. There are a number of big components to that. Obviously, children's views are a really critical part of it, as Neil has outlined. We are looking carefully at that as part of our monitoring and evaluation group on how we do that effectively. You have said that you are already collecting the views of children through the local authorities. It is done on a common basis. That information is then fed to you nationally. How is it fed to you nationally? How do you evaluate what lands on your desk to ensure that those views are taken into consideration and policies being decided? In terms of the local context of each individual provider, that will be being assessed by the care inspector and reflected in there and the advice that they feed back to the individual service in terms of their improvement. As Eleanor says, we are doing some wider work around the evaluation of how we draw on children's views as part of that. What I am saying is how children are able to input into Government policy. That is part of the evaluation work that will be done to draw on those views. All the work that you are talking about is at a local level. I am not seeing how that is feeding into any policy. The evaluation framework that was published last October includes the information around how we are trying to draw on children's views as part of the evaluation of the programme, as opposed to how individual children are feeling about the services that they receive locally in terms of early learning and childcare. I want to take you back to the questions about demand for childcare and how that has been assessed and what data has been collected. On that question, both Willie Coffey and Graham Simpson wanted to come in, but Colin Beattie was on a roll, so I will let him continue. I am going to go to Willie Coffey first of all. Do you want to come in on that question before you get on to the other questions that you have got? I will bring Graham in on this data set stuff as well. It is just to return briefly to the data gathering issue. Just about every time we come to the audit committee and look at the report from the Auditor General, there is always an issue about data gathering every time. If you were a betting man, you could bet that his next report will also include that. I wonder why that is in general and why we continue to ask questions about data during the course of a particular piece of work. Do you think that there might be a chance to think about defining what a data gathering standard should be in advance of a piece of work so that when work gets under way, the participants, those who are delivering the service for us, have an idea of the range of data that is expected to be gathered? Is that in my mind the old would assist councils to have a consistency of type of data that they are gathering so that the national picture could be built up that Colin was referring to, but I feel that we do not do that in advance. If I am wrong, please correct me, but do you get a sense that that might be something worthwhile doing that we look across the board at the types of data that we would want and define it and gather it as we go so that one day in the future the auditor general might not point that out in one of his future reports? It is a really interesting question that I have been reflecting on in terms of thinking about the report and what it is saying. As I said earlier, coming to this fresh, I have actually been really impressed by the range of data that is available in terms of understanding how the 1140 is being delivered and the impact that is having at the start of it, baseline data was collected and, as Elinon has described, we have set out an evaluation framework that has a range of different indicators and data that we will draw on to try and assess in terms of the impact that this policy is having for children and families, in terms of take-up, in terms of flexibility, in terms of quality, but also looking at the bigger picture in terms of the financial impact and the value for money. That is built into the process, but, obviously, as we go on with the project, it always becomes clear that there is more data that it would be useful to have. There has been a particular issue in terms of data around eligible two-year-olds that we can describe further. I suspect that there will always be the case that, in whatever policy we develop, there will always be a desire for more information to try and improve and refine what we are delivering and how we are assessing its impact. Is it because we have not thought about it up front to do that piece of work, to think about data, the range of data, to define it almost as a standard? It is almost as if we discover it midway or partly through the process. Oh, we need that data. We should have thought about it at the beginning, should we not? Again, coming to this fresh, my impression is that a lot of work was done at the beginning to try and analyse what baseline data was required and how to monitor that, but, inevitably, with a programme this size, we will find out the further data that we need. Equally, there were some recognised particular issues in terms of the IT systems that were available to local government in terms of what we were able to collect and share at a local authority and at a national level. That was partly reflected in some of the work that has gone into investment in the IT systems. It was recognised that we did not have the full suite of data that we would want, and work has gone on alongside the delivery of 1140 to try and expand that access to data. I do not know if colleagues wanted to say anything further. I agree absolutely on that question. There is also something about, as Neil Wrennick said, that, over time, there is new interest. For example, the children's rights journey, obviously, has been a renewed interest with the incorporation. That is probably an angle that we thought about, but probably not in the same degree of where data was collected and what was different at the local level versus needs to be part of a national evaluation. Some of those things happen as part of that. The other thing to mention, obviously, is the very house agreement that exists in between the Scottish Government and local government. Part of that process is looking at a framework for monitoring assurance. It is asking that very question what is the right data that we need to have held locally and what is the right things that we need nationally to understand how services are being delivered and how we inform national policy. I think that we are just at the start of that process, but I think that there is a lot in there that answers the question that you are looking at. Okay. Many thanks for answering that supplementary question. Thanks again on a similar theme. I think that Graham Simpson wanted to come in on this question as well. Yeah, thanks very much, convener. Mr Rennick, you said that the take-up of 1140 hours has been high. How many children are getting 1140 hours? As we currently have the analysis of the number of children who are eligible for funded early learning in childcare, we are currently running 99 per cent of children receiving that level of childcare in terms of the numbers that are accessing 600. I don't have the data right in front of me, so I'm going to bring Eleanor in while I hunt for it. The census data that we publish each year and the most recent one from last year shows that there were 92,500 children accessing funded ELC across Scotland, which is a 1 per cent increase from the previous year. In terms of uptake for the universal offer, so for three and four-year-olds, that increased again over the same period from 97 per cent to 99 per cent. We think that there may have been a Covid impact in there, and that slight change. With regard to two-year-olds, it's a more complex picture, so that, as you'll be aware, is a targeted offer. It's available to children on certain benefits and also to families and children with care experience. We've had an issue on the data there because it's been reliant on data owned by the UK Government and has been through an extensive process to ensure that data-sharing arrangements are in place. As Audit Scotland reported, the legislation was passed by the UK Parliament last October. As of June this year, local authorities have been able to sign agreements to access that data, so that means that, from the census this year, for the first time, we will have an accurate picture of the eligible population as well as uptake. We've estimated that it's been around 25 per cent have been eligible, and then we've had the total number of registrations against that. So it was 7,042 last year, which was 14 per cent of the total population, rather than the eligible population. That's the information that we'll have this year, and we'll publish that broken down by local authority area. So the difference in terms of those taking up the full 1140 was 84 per cent, and then those taking 600 or more hours was the 99 per cent that Eleanor mentioned. Sorry to say that again. So 84.4 per cent, according to the improvement service latest statistics, we're taking the full 1140, and then, effectively, 99 per cent, we're taking the over 600 hours, so between the 600 and the 1140. I'd like to mention the data improvement process. So the census is the most robust data that we have. The CEMIS improvement programme will enable us to have better information about hours, about demographic profile of families accessing it, the children accessing it. At the moment, we don't have that through the census, which is why we commissioned the improvement service to carry out that kind of further survey work in the year to give us that really critical picture around how many families are taking up the full 1140 hours versus over the 600, and also to give us some sort of further delivery information while that improvement project, the census, is taking place. Okay, so let's just drill down into that a bit. Mr Anik, you said that 84 per cent of eligible children are taking up the 1140 hours, but then earlier you said that 99 per cent are receiving it. Yeah, so 99 per cent of eligible children are receiving funded early learning and childcare. A number of families choose not to make use of the full 1140 within that, so they will receive a lower number than that, but that is a choice that they are making. It's not mandatory to take up the 1140 hours. So 99 per cent get something, take something, but 84 per cent take the full amount? Yeah, but the vast majority are taking over 600 hours. Right, and when I asked for the overall figure earlier, you gave a figure of 92,500, is that the number that are taking the 1140 hours? No, so that's the registration date, so that's the number of children in services, funded services, taking a place, and then, as Neil alluded to, the 84 per cent relates the number taking the full 1140 hours. If it's helpful to reflect on the parent survey that I mentioned from last December, we asked the question around why families were not perhaps opting to use the full 1140, and the majority said that that was a matter of choice. For some, for a minority, around 20 per cent, they said that there were issues around flexibility and being able to access the choice of provider or that they would wish or the package of hours that they would want. We know that there are issues around that, but the majority are content overall with the flexibility on offer. As Neil said, it's not a mandatory offer. There will always be reasons why families may not wish to take up the full hours, so we think about that in terms of our understanding of the evaluation and what data we are seeing around uptake and usage. Absolutely. It's a choice for parents. The 84 per cent who are taking up the 1140 hours, what's the number that are? I need to do my calculation in my head of what 84 per cent of 92,000 is. There is a difference because the data sources are different, which may be a source of slight confusion. That's all right, we can work that out, don't worry. Just one more question on data, and it was something that the Auditor General said right at the start of his report that the Scottish Government doesn't know how much has been spent by councils on phasing in the additional hours between 2018-19 and 2021-22. Is that correct? It's a really important question and one that I'm keen to discuss further with Audit Scotland more broadly. We know how much we are spending on early learning and childcare. Now we know how much local authorities were spending on early learning and childcare on 600 hours of early learning and childcare back in 2017, before the expansion happened. So we know how much extra we're paying to deliver the 1140 offer. What we're not able to do is to say how much of the current spending is going towards 600 hours, how much is going towards the 1140, because that's not the way in which families use the service and that's not the way in which it's delivered by providers. So we do have a good understanding of what we're spending, we do have a good understanding of what we spent previously before the expansion of that. What we're not able to do is say what would we be spending now in terms of delivering that 600 hours, because the services are now delivering that wider offer. As part of the evaluation framework that we described earlier, that includes a specific strand that is focused on this issue of finance and value for money and assessing the amount of money that we have spent and what that is delivering, not just in terms of delivering the number of hours but the economic benefit that that is delivering in terms of value for money. However, I think that there is an interesting question there from Audit Scotland in terms of in a live system where we are applying expansion to an existing system, how do we assess what difference that expansion is making and certainly from my past I remember we faced similar issues with repersonal care where that was becoming available on top of existing adult social care services. Eleanor Rennick said that he had two figures there. Are you able to give us the two figures? What was spent before and what was spent now? I don't have the pre-expansion figures to hand, but current spend is £521.9 million that is ring-fenced and £474 million that sits within the general spending line for local government. That is also part of the complexity that Audit Scotland has drawn out in terms of assessing cost and spend that we have looked at. It is worth reflecting that the local finance returns, which are the audited accounts and the best quality data that we have on spend on pre-primary education, is 95 per cent on ELC, but we are undertaking further work to ensure that we can differentiate between the 1140 and other areas of pre-primary spend, so we are doing some quality improvement work there. As Neil said in terms of the before and after picture, we are going to look at that carefully through the evaluation. We did one jointly with COSLA three data collection exercises during the expansion to try to get a better picture of spend. Part of the challenge that Neil alluded to is that services will already be delivering 600 hours. We will be using that cost base in terms of estates, in terms of staff, in terms of shared resources already, so it can be hard for them to differentiate what is a marginal extra hour of provision from 600 hours between 1140. The other thing to perhaps flag that is a challenge that will reflect on hard as we deliver the next phase of the expansion is that local authorities—this was a decision that was agreed as part of the planning process, I believe—implemented the expansion in slightly different ways, so some opted to go early with 1140 implemented from a certain point in time, others phased it in an incremental way. Taking a point in time snapshot of that made it more challenging to understand what the precise costs were at a point in time as the expansion was being delivered. That is one of the recommendations that we are considering very carefully as we look at plans for the next phase of the expansion. There is a striking implementation gap here, isn't there? I am thinking in particular about those eligible two-year-olds. It is targeted according to people's benefit receipts and the care experience of either parents or the child. An extremely important group is very much a priority for the Scottish Government through the promise and other work that has been carried out. However, those two-year-olds are only two ones, aren't they? If the programme has been in place since August 2021 and we are now at October 2023 and you did not know who those children were, that means that an awful lot of children have missed out on an opportunity for early learning that was stated as a matter of public priority and imperative public policy. How do you answer that? Obviously, we have been recording information on the delivery of early learning and childcare and the hours for two-year-olds. The census in December showed that the highest number of two-year-olds were accessing funded early learning and childcare. Over 7,000 children, two-year-olds, were receiving that service. The challenge that we were facing for ourselves and councils was in identifying those children who were eligible and comparing that delivery to the number of eligible children. That was reliant on having information about benefits uptake of individual parents. We did not have a data sharing agreement in place with the UK Government to be able to get that information, or at least allow local authorities to access that information. That is now in place since this summer, so that information is now available. The census in December will be the first time that we are able to look at the number of two-year-olds receiving and eligible levels. More importantly, local authorities are now able to identify and engage with those families and make them aware that that service is available. I think that local authorities have found it challenging to engage with those children not having the exact data, but they have taken a number of approaches that I think is reflected in the fact that there have been increases in the two-year-old uptake year on year. They have worked with family nursing partnerships and health visitors to see if there are ways that they can identify families through that. They have taken part in community engagement exercises as well. Although the work on the data has been on-going, there has been work by councils to see what they can do to maximise the uptake, noting that it is quite a hard job without that data. However, this is an entitlement that those families and those children were entitled to, which does not appear to have been fulfilled. It is a failing, is it not, of this part of the policy? It is a challenge in terms of being able to identify those eligible children, because it was targeted at particular families. We had to have that data available, and that was reliant on the UK Government agreeing to share that data. Obviously, we take our responsibilities in terms of data handling and data sharing very seriously, so we had to ensure that that was in place before information could be shared. I wish it had been earlier, but I am glad that that is now in place and that councils are able to identify that data. I do not know if there is anything fully we can say on that. It has been a source of some frustration that we were not able to access that data sooner. Ministers and officials have sought to progress that work as fast as possible and to escalate this as an issue with UK Government ministers. However, the provisions of the Digital Economy Act 2017 are clear in terms of what steps had to be taken. We have worked closely with Cabinet Office, HMRC and DWP to progress that work as fast as we can. As Matthew has alluded to, councils have not been standing still. We have also been working closely with the improvement service to support councils to maximise uptake as far as possible in the absence of that data. That was a stated Scottish Government policy, was it not? I know that that is the point that Mr Simpson is going to make. I understand what you are saying about the availability of data sharing and so on. However, if the Scottish Government announces a policy, the Parliament legislates for that policy, but we are unable to deliver it, it becomes a rather hollow promise, does it not? You do not need to answer that question, but I will bring Graham Simpson in. Convener, that was the same point. Essentially, you are saying that we had this policy where two-year-olds could access 1140 hours, but we had no way of letting their parents know about it? As Matthew has said, efforts were made by local authorities to contact families, make them aware of the availability. What we did not have was data that was held by the UK Government that could be shared that would allow us to specifically identify those children. Should that not have been put in place before you rolled out the policy? That is the point, is it not? I understand that at the time that the policy was agreed, social security powers were not in place to enable the Scottish Parliament to legislate eligibility criteria based on benefits. That position has changed. We are looking carefully at eligibility for the totality that childcare offers, including new benefits that have come on stream since 2014, when the policy was first conceived. Exhibit 4 in the Accounts Commission Audit Scotland report gives examples of data gaps and will say a little bit more about those again, I am sure. However, one of the ones that is listed there, where there is a data gap, is the extent to which children with additional support needs are not accessing funded early learning and childcare and the extent of any unmet needs. Here is another targeted group and especially important group where there is a significant gap in the data available. Obviously, we would all agree that it is especially important that children with additional support needs and their families have appropriate access to early learning and childcare and the support that they receive. We have information and that is included as part of the census information each year on the number of eligible children who are receiving funded early learning and childcare and the proportion of those who have additional support needs. As I said earlier on, effectively for three and four-year-olds, access to funded early learning and childcare at the level that the parents are looking for is universally available, so that includes children with additional support needs. Our census data indicates that that is around 18 per cent of children, so a significant proportion of children with additional support needs are receiving that funding service. We also know from the parent survey that the vast majority of parents of children with additional support needs are accessing the service and are, in 84 per cent of cases, happy with the service that is being provided. What we do not have is specific information on the number of families with children with additional support needs who are not able to access the full 1140 because of, for example, access issues in terms of the types of service, although universally three and four-year-olds are accessing the service and the vast majority of parents are happy with the service that they have. Equally, we face the same issues in terms of two-year-olds with additional support needs as we have with other two-year-olds. It is not the case that there is no information about the number of children accessing early learning and childcare with additional support needs, but there are some of the similar gaps that apply for the data provision as a whole. I think that our view would be that this ought to be a priority group. If anybody was missing out on the offer of childcare and early learning, it should not be this group that is missing out on it. You have spoken quite a lot about the surveys, and we get the importance of surveys in helping to inform policy, but it is really the raw data that ought to lead the policy. It is the evidence and where there is demand, whether it has been met and where there are target groups and are they accessing the promise that has been given to them that they should be accessing. The committee's view is likely to be that customer surveys and that sampling exercise are useful, but it is this hard data that we are interested in and asking why you are not capturing that. That is a really important point. We are not capturing hard data, that is in the— Is it the right hard data? Yes. We have the information that shows that 99 per cent of eligible children are receiving funded early learning and childcare and of those children, 18 per cent, have additional support needs. We know for three and four-year-olds that those children are receiving funded early learning and childcare. That is hard data that is shown for each local authority area that we publish each December in the early learning and childcare census. That hard data is available. Clearly, we would like further data in terms of more information. We know that a number of families say that, while they ultimately access services that they are happy with, it is the report finding it harder to access those services than other parents. We obviously want to know further information about ensuring that families are happy with the quality of support that they are receiving. That is reflecting the particular needs of their children. Again, in the annual census, we record information on the different types of additional support needs that children have and how those are being reflected. We have hard data, but it refers back to the point that Mr Coffey was making earlier on. We would always want more information to understand more about what the needs of parents are and try to reflect that. However, I am personally reassured that the families of disabled children are accessing that funded early learning and childcare for three and four-year-olds in the same way that other parents are. I will add that local authorities take their responsibilities around additional support needs. They have that duty. The question about data is different from what is delivered, and what is captured are two slightly different things. Obviously, there is a huge amount of work that goes on from local authorities to support children and young people with additional support needs. It is also important that we look across to the work that exists in terms of Angela Morgan's report and the work that is followed out in terms of the joint project board that exists between the Scottish Government and COSLA, which is looking at additional support needs in the round. What more we can do, that is not just in early learning and childcare but also in schools. It is really important that there is a lot of challenging things. We have seen changes in demand in terms of increases in numbers of additional support needs in the past 10 years or so. How do we work to improve those services? Is that a really active process that local authorities are working on just now? In one other area, we are very concerned about those children with particular needs and disabilities and the specific work that is done around those with higher-level needs. There was a report earlier this year from the Scottish Centre on an SEC amount. I forgot the acronym, which is terrible. It produced a report looking at the needs of children with very acute needs, which is a proportion, a relatively small number of children across Scotland with very acute needs. We have looked carefully at the findings from that report. The minister chaired a working group over the summer. We are working with them on the actions that were set out in that. It is not just about the data that is what action we are taking, so we are looking carefully at what further might be required for those children where local authorities have a relatively small number, but their needs are particularly high. I am not sure that we accept that data and delivery are two entirely separate entities. I think that there is an extremely strong relationship between the two. Willie Coffey has some questions to put to you. Thanks again, convener. I just wanted to nip back to infrastructure for a moment. If I may, it was raised earlier on in the discussion with the convener, but my focus is to ask you about how well we are set up to achieve our net zero targets with the existing infrastructure that we use. I would imagine that most of the early learning facilities that we have may not be net zero compliant at the moment, so is the Government thinking about the extent of that issue and how we will achieve that going forward? Thank you. It is an incredibly important issue across all of our capital projects and responsibilities. As Eleanor mentioned earlier on, the vast majority of the infrastructure projects specifically related to this programme in terms of early learning and childcare were refurbishments, so they were refurbishments of existing facilities, so that was 82 per cent of the capital projects were not new builds, and clearly that is part of our net zero is reusing existing buildings rather than the new build. The Scottish Futures Trust has published a suite of guidance for public sector construction projects specifically on net zero building standards and how to ensure that we are building net zero into that, and early learning and childcare settings, where some of the specific pathfinder projects that were included in there, both in terms of standalone facilities and facilities within primary schools. However, we would always like to go further and do more in terms of the next phase, ensuring that we are building in net zero into any infrastructure projects that will be a key part of the next stage. What about the retrofitting side of this, though? I am scared to ask if there is any data that would tell us what the estimated cost of that could be. Unless colleagues are aware, that is one that I would have to come back on. I know that the Scottish Futures Trust is doing a lot of work both looking at what we have already done in terms of this area, but more broadly, what the costs are for the public sector in terms of driving forward with net zero, but that is not something that I have got immediately to hand. I am not sure that the committee might be interested in that and have fallen through with that, if we may. I have just another question. There was a little quibble in the paper describing a £9.1 million less allocation to fund early learning childcare. It is in the Auditor General's report and there was a little issue between the Scottish Government about whether that was fair and so on, but there is an explanation in paragraph 64 about the reasons for that. I wonder if you could expand and explain what the reason for that £9.1 million shortfall is. It was always intended that this was a multi-year programme with multi-year commitments in terms of funding that was based on the data in terms of the numbers of children and young people at the time. We recognised the impact that Covid had on local authorities, so we allowed flexibility in terms of the use of that money in 2020-21. Obviously, 2021-22 with the implementation was the first year that we were getting information on what the full costs for local authorities were, taking account of the fact that that was partway through the year. What that indicated was that the number of eligible children that were in place at that time were lower than the projections that we made at the beginning of the programme and an adjustment was made to the budget in subsequent years to reflect our assessment of that lower level of demand. That was discussed with COSLA through the joint working arrangements that we have. There will always be discussion and debate about what the right level of funding was, but we were confident that that was the right level of funding in terms of being able to deliver the 1140 commitment. However, it is absolutely vital that we continue to engage with COSLA and agree that the resources are in place both for what is currently being delivered and for the next phase of work, and that will absolutely be reflected in the future work. It was cosily happy with that explanation. As the report sets out, it is one of the few areas where there is a difference of opinion. I think that it is about the impact that the reducing population has. I think that the COSLA leaders have always been very clear that the reducing population does not directly translate into a reduction in savings, largely due to the fixed costs that will be there regardless of rent, utilities and settings. It is an area of joint discussion, the quantum, for delivering ELC as something that we will continue to engage with the Scottish Government on, and through the finance working group arrangements it is well set up for that joint discussion. It is a billion-pound programme that the principal aims behind it are to reduce child poverty and to help to support economic transformation. In the opening of March, Neil reminded us that it has been running for two years now in all 32 councils that are delivering in the 1140. Back to data again, how successful is the programme and the Government's view at this moment in time? I know that the general will look at it, but with two years' worth of experience in service delivery and the response from parents and so on, what is the Government's view on how successful these principal aims have been and whether they have been met so far? In terms of the data that we have available just now in terms of take-up and parents' views, as the convener said, it always has to be a combination of the hard data in terms of pure numbers and the views of parents and ultimately children as well. From a personal point of view, looking at the analysis of what we see, effectively universally for three and four-year-olds, children are taking up funded early learning and childcare places, the vast majority of those at the full 1140 hours. In terms of the parent survey, 88 per cent of parents are satisfied that the services meeting their needs, so it is matching with what they are needing in terms of the different demands on their time. 97 per cent are happy with the quality of their provider and 97 per cent are happy that it is accessible in terms of travelling to it. In terms of delivering the number of hours and families being satisfied with what they are getting, the Care Commission confirms that the vast majority of providers are operating with a good quality. Those feel like good indicators that the programme is delivering, but we were always clear that it needed to continue being reviewed and that we needed a fuller evaluation, not just of what is being delivered but the impact of that. The evaluation framework that we published last year specifically set out a set of areas in which we would draw information together, not just about take-up, quality and flexibility but also about the financial impact in terms of the wider economy, accessing work etc. It is that evaluation, an interim evaluation report that will be published next year and then the final report is due to be published in 2025. That will give us the fuller picture in terms of what the programme has delivered. However, in terms of the immediate data that we have available, all the indicators are positive and reflect well on the work that local authorities and private sector providers have done. That was a long answer to that. At the moment, we do not have data that tells us whether we have managed to reduce child poverty. We do not have that because the programme has been running for two years. We do not have any data that supports the principal aim behind the policy. Specific to that is not in that. Obviously, we have wider data in terms of the movements in child poverty. What we do know is that, when parents are asked what is the main reason for which they use the additional hours of early learning in childcare, they say that it is for being able to work, search for work or plan for the future. That would give me an indication that parents are using it for that. There is strong international evidence based at high quality early learning in childcare for the age cohort that the programme targets to deliver significant difference to children's lives over the life course. That is the evidence based approach that we have taken. In terms of the quality that has been at the heart of the expansion, we are encouraged that 89 per cent of services are rated at a high quality across those four domains that the care inspector inspects on. We absolutely expect that to deliver in terms of that particular domain and in terms of parent satisfaction. In terms of child poverty, what is obviously critical is parental employment, and that is again one of the three outcomes that we are seeking to deliver. We have some early data on that. I think that 74 per cent of parents report that the expansion has supported them to work or to find work, which is positive, but the full evaluation is required. You would expect us to be carrying out a robust economic evaluation to understand what the direct impact has been in terms of wider economic impacts. That work is under way. I look forward to seeing more of that data as that merges itself. Thank you very much for answering those questions. Thank you. I hope that one of the outcomes that is measured is not just economistic, but it is also about the flowering of the human spirit and how it will help those young people, children going through this, to prosper in the future, not just as an economic unit but as a human being. Thank you. That is a really important point, convener. The three elements that we are looking at as part of the evaluation is what is the impact for the children and young people themselves, what experience have they gained from the expansion of early learning in childcare? That is very much based on pedagogy in terms of what is good for children and young people in terms of play and learning. What impact has it had for families in terms of the benefits for them, not just in economic terms but more generally, and then that economic analysis? You are absolutely right that it has to have all those elements to analyse whether it has been a successfully delivered programme. Graeme Simpson wants to ask some questions. Graeme? Thanks again, convener. It just follows up on the questions around funding. Hopefully, all of you will have seen the reports based on a survey from the National Day Nurseries Association. That was reported yesterday. Members have got real concerns about funding. I think that these questions are probably directed at COSLA rather than the Scottish Government. Obviously, Mr Rennie can come in if he wants. They are saying that childcare businesses in around a third of councils have started the academic year without knowing how much they are being paid for funded places. Would you accept that? I would not know the detail of that. I have not seen the detail of that survey fully. What I would say is that there are often different approaches that are taken to when councils set up their contracting arrangements, which will mean that there are different times when funding rates are confirmed. Often, I know what has happened in the past, is that if there has not been a decision taking on the uplift at that stage, when a decision is taken, it is then back-dated. You do not have the details. Let me quote what the study says. 56 per cent—18 councils—were committed to increasing their funding rates. That range from 1.35 per cent uplift in Falkirk to 15.48 per cent in the Shetland Islands. The average increase in our lew rates is just 36 pence an hour for children over three. That is putting their members in a pretty perilous position. Their members in quite a good number of council areas do not know what they are going to get. I might be helpful to go into the guidance and approach that has been agreed between the Scottish Government and COSLA around the setting of sustainable rates. Under the funding follows the child approach, there was a clear sort of guideline set out and that was followed by a first set of guidance in 2019 and then further guidance and term guidance issued last year. That sets out the detailed step-by-step process that councils have to follow in terms of how they set the rates, what are the costs of delivery, what are the costs at the moment of the real living wage commitment that comes as part of that and how do they engage with providers as part of that process. I think that there are differences in different approaches in terms of what costs to deliver childcare in different parts of the country. I think that that reflects in some of the variance, but what we have seen is that over time the variance between the highest and lowest rates across the country has come down by about 20 per cent since 2017. At the same time, we have seen the amount provided through rates raised by an average of 50 per cent by around 2017. What we are seeing is that we are moving towards an increase in rates generally and what we are seeing is more coherence about how that is undertaken. There has been a range of work that has been undertaken by the Scottish Government and the Improvement Service around improving the quality of data, because one of the real challenges that has come back from providers and local authorities is about making decisions that really require good quality data, and that can be hard to get. What we have done is undertaken a national cost collection exercise by an external party, and that was then provided to councils to allow them to make those decisions based on that data. The last thing is that there is the rates review, which will be undertaken between the Scottish Government and COSLA, which is considering those issues in the round and what more we can do to improve rates-setting processes. As I mentioned in the opening statement, the impact of the Scottish Government's decision to move towards £12 an hour for childcare staff delivering funding entitlement will mean a change again in terms of that rate process. Let me quote Jonathan Broadbury, who is the NDNA's director of policy and communications. Our members are telling us that they have serious concerns about their sustainability and their ability to continue delivering funded early learning and childcare places. Our research into funding rates that providers are receiving from their local authority is not encouraging. Only three have increased their funding rates sufficiently to allow nurseries to be able to pay their delivery costs, and we need to see the differential funding rates between council and partner providers addressed. If that is not addressed, we could see nurseries closing, would we not? I think that councils really value their private and voluntary providers and all providers, and working together is a key part of what we spoken about before about providing that offer of childcare locally that matches the needs of parents. I think that in terms of the specific point that I think is raised in that work, I think that through the Scottish Government's financial health check, we have not seen the sort of some of the predicted changes that there would be a great drop off in the current places. Indeed, I think that the number of private places is essentially stable since the introduction of the policy. So far, it does not feel like some of those concerns have come to fruition so far. However, through the rates review and the work that has been on-going, we are really committed to trying to make sure that we can do work to create that sense of sector sustainability, because it is in the interests of councils to be able to provide the offers to children and families. The private sector and the third sector chairmeners are going to be a very important part of that offer. It might have been stable up to now, but clearly there is a warning that it might not be stable in the future and that nurseries could close. I just wanted to come in, so I had a chance to look at the data that was published. I think that it was based on an FOI return from August. We are three months on from that, and I would expect that a number of councils, as the usual process, will have set their rates by that point. The Scottish Government publishes rates data. We collect that from all local authorities every year. For 2022-23, that information was published last December and showed a 6 per cent rise from the previous year. As Matthew indicated, since the expansion, that has been a 57 per cent increase. Indeed, for three to five-year-olds, rates paid in Scotland were the highest in the UK. We absolutely appreciate that. The reason we carried out the rates review is that we recognise that there are issues that we wanted to explore, including around the timing, recognising that in many areas councils work on a term-time basis, but that is not always aligned with how businesses operate. That is something that we are considering carefully as part of those findings. As Matthew alluded to, we keep a very careful eye on the care inspectorate data around capacity, cancellation rates and the number of registrations. We recognise and engage closely with providers around some of the challenges that they are experiencing, particularly around workforce issues and costs. As Matthew suggested, capacity has remained stable, cancellation rates have not spiked over the past three years, and I should emphasise that cancellation rates do not suggest that providers are necessarily closing. They also relate to turnover, change of premises, etc., but it is something that we review very carefully and engage closely with our partners in the sector in terms of what response we have set out. Thank you. I am going to go swiftly to the deputy convener, Sharon Dowey, who has got some questions for you, which follow up the theme. The joint report highlighted that, although councils recruited the staff they needed to deliver the expansion, risks relating to recruitment and retaining enough staff remained. The Scottish Government was developing a strategic framework for ELC in school-age childcare workforce, along with an action plan. Can I ask whether the workforce issues set out in the report include recruitment challenges, difficulties quantifying the extent of workforce movement between sectors, falls in the number of childminders and a lack of long-term workforce plans will be covered by the actions in the strategic framework? There are a number of different elements in that. We are responding to them in a number of different ways in terms of the workforce movements. The triple SC published some data earlier in the summer just to provide us with that information about those movements, particularly movements between different sectors in terms of the public sector, the private sector and the voluntary sector, to give us that data. That was clearly one of the recommendations from the Audit Scotland report that we have now been able to deliver on in terms of having that information. What that showed was that the majority of people who move out of roles within the private sector go to other roles within the private sector as well. Those who go to the public sector are roughly proportionate with the scale of the public sector within the system. The one issue that it did highlight was that very few people move out of the public sector into the private and voluntary sector, so there is clearly something in there in terms of the positives in terms of people working within the public sector. However, in terms of movement, there was no indication that the scale of movement was different from the proportions within the overall system. On childminders, we know that the number of childminders has reduced since the policy was introduced. As you will be aware, the Government committed in the programme for government to expand on some pathfinder work that we have been doing to increase the number of childminders by 1,000 by 2026. The other issue links back to the sustainability issues that we were discussing. We know that sustainability in the private sector links with access to workforce and issues such as paying the real living wage. The programme for government ministers committed to providing funding that is sufficient to pay £12 an hour for relevant staff who are delivering funded early learning and childcare services. There are a number of different responses to the elements that are picked up in the Audit Scotland report. I should have asked at the beginning. Has the strategic framework been published? It was due at the end of the summer, I think. It has not been published yet. Work has been progressing on it between COSLA and the Government. We are obviously looking at the implications of the announcements within the programme for government and then also some of the other work that we have been doing in terms of that workforce movement and to see what implications that has, but the intention is to publish the output from that this year. I think that that is right. I think that we have been carrying out the actions that were agreed through the working group that includes COSLA colleagues and the unions. For example, we announced a waiver of PVG fees. We have been consolidating and simplifying access to continuous professional learning. As Neil said, we want to think carefully about quite a different approach that was announced in the PFG in terms of early adopters that will consider what child care looks like from nine months to the end of primary. That might look quite different in terms of both the regulatory requirements and the workforce requirements. We want to take a bit more time to examine that fully with Care Inspectorate, with SSC, with SSC. It might take a bit longer to do that piece of work properly with those agencies and engaging carefully with COSLA around that. We anticipate that it might be next year before we set out more detail on that. As I said, we are cracking on with the actions that we agreed already as part of it with colleagues who sit on that working group. So it was originally the summer. You are changing the way that you are doing it. It is not going to be this year, it will be next year. But you are doing some announcements as we go along, is that what you are saying? I suppose that some of the things that are sensible and agreed and that we need to get on and do what we are doing. We have got agreement to do that, where we think that we need to take a bit more time to think about the implications of a different approach to delivery, which we are trialling in six local authority areas. Those are in the communities that are experiencing the most deprivation. Where we have got some findings from where school aged child care have been developing that work, we want to take the time to reflect on that. That might mean, for example, looking at models of family support, which are different from traditional ELC delivered in ratio in a setting. That might look different in terms of the workforce that you want to recruit. We want to have the time to do that thinking, but it does not mean that we will pause on the work that is necessary to address some of the recruitment and retention issues facing the sector and to do the planning necessary for the due road expansion. That is where we want to make sure that we are taking the learning from those early adopters and taking the time to consider with partners what might look different as a result of that approach. Do you have a list of all the things that you have already implemented? I spoke about the PVG fees. That is one area. We are looking at triple SE fees. We have published and we have worked with triple SE around the staff movement data and understanding those implications. We have started work around workforce planning and development. We have also mentioned the simplification of access to continuous professional learning and working to ensure that young people understand what sources of funding are already available for them in their training and development. Those are some examples of those actions that we have agreed with colleagues that we need to crack on and do and we are doing. I do not know when we are going to say it, so I was going to ask whether the strategic framework includes details on the affordability and funding for all the actions? Certainly any actions will be built into our overall investment plan. The biggest of those is in terms of the commitment around £12 an hour. That will be factored into the budget for £24.25. You mentioned earlier on about the Scottish Social Services Council, or triple SE, as you said. You have published new data on the data gap that was highlighted in the audit. Does the new triple SE data and workforce movement fill the data gap that was highlighted in the report around the movement of ELC workers between sectors? Yes. It has very rich data around the movements between different sectors and within sectors. What impact has the new data and workforce movement had on planned actions to mitigate workforce risks? It is obvious that all that data is feeding in. As I said, the data indicated that the movements from the private voluntary sector into other areas were broadly proportionate with what you would expect in terms of the scale of the sectors. It was not indicating that there was a disproportionate movement in particular directions other than that one issue that I mentioned, which was that there tended to be far fewer people moving out of the public sector. We are factoring that in, but the clue is that it has to fit within the wider programme of work in terms of retention and remuneration in the early learning and childcare sector, particularly within the private and voluntary sector. That was a huge concern with the private early learning fund providers and staff moving from there to the public sector. Has any action been taken at that point? As I said, the data did not particularly suggest that the numbers were disproportionate compared with what you would expect. As I said, the majority of people who move out of the private sector move into other private sector roles, but it is clearly something that we need to keep a watch on in terms of what those movements are and whether they are an indicator of movement. The last thing that I would want to say is that, as Eleanor mentioned earlier, on the care inspector assessment of the quality being delivered across the board in terms of early learning and childcare, it is very high, and that has to be the credit to staff across all sectors. Okay, thanks. Just a final quick question from me, and you mentioned a couple of times about the real living wage being paid, and that has been announced as an upgrade to £12 an hour. I think that it is at least £12 an hour is what we spoke about here. I mean, and you said that this would be funded by the Scottish Government. I mean, do you know for sure that all employers, voluntary sector, private sector, public sector are all paying their staff this real living wage figure, and do you monitor that? How do you know that? We do have some data that was collected this summer that showed that 84 per cent of private and voluntary sector providers were paying the real living wage, either to all their staff or to those staff who were delivering funded early learning and childcare, including the commitment in terms of £12 an hour. We will then move that to all staff, and we will have in place arrangements to monitor that. So what do you do about the 16 per cent? As I say, the £12 an hour commitment will respond to that. Sorry, but what I am asking Mr Renwick is that you said that 84 per cent of providers met the criteria of paying their staff at least the living wage, meaning that 14 per cent didn't. 84 per cent? 16 per cent didn't. What leverage have you got over that 16 per cent? So the commitment that we have now given is to making that available and part of the work that we are doing around that is ensuring that that feeds through to the staff. I wonder if the colleagues wanted to say in terms of contractual obligations through the national standard that there is a mechanism there for ensuring that those that are funded are implementing them. I do not say anything. No, I think that you have made the point there absolutely. The national standard, which was part of the foundation I suppose about how that works, requires all providers if they wish to deliver funded hours to be able to evidence their ability to meet those criteria. Many of them are things that we have discussed already around the quality under the care inspectorate, but there is a specific item, a specific standard, around fair work. That is not just around living wage but also around the range of other commitments that you require to be a good employer. That is something that councils will be examining through the process that they have through the contractual arrangements process that they have with providers. I suppose that the other thing that we have is the ELC fair work and the living wage group, which is considering the issue and what more we can do because we do recognise that there is more that we could be doing. That is as we reflected in the last evidence session that we had with the Auditor General. That is an implementation group. That is its title, is not it? It is the ELC living wage and fair work implementation group. What is its role in ensuring that fair work and living wage conditions are implemented? Matthew Swinney, I do not know whether you can answer that. I do not know whether you are on that group, but I understand that the remit is primarily looking at what approaches have been taken in different areas. How can we share best practice and understand how we are able to do that? There will also be a role in considering, as Neil says, as we move towards a new commitment from the Scottish Government. What does that mean for this implementation approach? There is probably also something for us to think about in that group to think about what are the cross-sectoral issues, because that is not just an issue. I would imagine in the ELC that there will be a range of areas where we will need to think about the power and ability to influence the passing on of those commitments. Thank you very much indeed. That has been a useful session for us. I thank director-general Neil Renwick for coming along and leading on this evidence-cell and a pass more for your input. Matthew Swinney and Joanna Anderson from COSO, thank you very much indeed for answering our questions and taking part in this morning's discussion. I will now move the committee into private session.