 Gwbod wedi bod yn gweithio i ddefnyddio i ddechrau ar 30 o buswy yng Nghymru ac i ddiwylliant Sgrjutnydig Cymru a'r seudddau yn 2018? Felly ddim i sgwrdd youronol o'r mynnag oedd oes y cyflwyno cymaint oherwydd ddim yn i gwybod fel digwydd o ein ffosu ar gyfer y Cymru. 1. Gweithio i ddechrau ar gyfer y cyffiker i ddefnyddio, dwi'n meddwl i gyff境 i ddefnyddio sgwrdd i ddechrau i ddechrau i ddefnyddio i ddefnyddio? Mynd i ddechrau ar gyfer. Item number two is early learning and childcare, and I'd like to welcome our witnesses this morning, Paul Johnson, director general, education communities and justice, Joe Griffin, director for early learning and childcare, Alison Cumming, programme lead early learning and childcare from the Scottish Government, Vicky Bibby, chief officer for finance and Jane O'Donnell, chief officer for children and young people from COSLA. Before we take evidence this morning, I'd like to place on record that I know Vicky Bibby in a personal capacity. I understand that both the Scottish Government and COSLA wish to make short opening statements and I'll invite Mr Johnson to begin. Good morning, convener and committee, and thank you for the opportunity to give evidence this morning. The expansion of early learning and childcare is one of the most significant investments that the Scottish Government will make in the current parliamentary term, both in terms of the financial sums involved and in terms of the transformative potential. Our leadership and management of this programme will only be strengthened by the scrutiny and support that we receive from Audit Scotland and from the Parliament. The expansion of entitlement to funded early learning and childcare to 1,140 hours for eligible two-year-olds and for all three and four-year-olds is central to the Government's mission to give all of our children the best start in life and to close the poverty-related attainment gap. The Scottish Government and local government have worked hard to implement 600 hours of funded early learning and childcare. We're proud of what has already been achieved, though we recognise that there are always improvements that can be made. We're applying the learning to the implementation of 1,140 hours, particularly in more clearly specifying and measuring the outcomes of expansion from the outset. Our plans for 1,140 hours are progressing well and we remain on track. That is not to say that there are not challenges ahead of us, particularly in ensuring that we recruit and train the required numbers of new entrants to the workforce. I'm confident that we have robust programme management systems in place, which will help us to identify and manage the risks that are ahead of us over the next two years. The agreement of a funding package with COSLA at the end of April allows local authorities to progress their local expansion plans without delay. It also demonstrates exemplary collective leadership, which has been a real and very encouraging feature of our work in this area. Within the Scottish Government, I have recently strengthened the senior leadership of the Early Learning and Child Care programme by the appointment of a director-level lead, Joe Griffin, who sits alongside me. Joe is supported by a team of around 30 colleagues from the civil service and other agencies, and I'm grateful to them for their focus, which is very firmly on delivering and on realising the benefits of this expansion programme. We can only implement this expansion through positive collaboration with our partners, not only in local authorities but also providers in the private and third sector and the many bodies that are supporting the training and development of the workforce. The expansion requires an enormous collective endeavour. It is challenging, but let us welcome the ambition and commitment to deliver improved outcomes for all of Scotland's children. Thank you, Mr Johnson. Jeane O'Donnell. Thank you, convener. COSLA officers wish to extend our thanks to the committee for the opportunity to provide information to you in relation to the recent Audit Scotland report on Early Learning and Child Care. COSLA has a children and young people's board, which comprises elected members from all 32 local authorities. They, alongside our COSLA leaders forum, have undertaken oversight of the policy work surrounding the Early Learning and Child Care services that are delivered by local authorities and their partners across Scotland. I am the lead officer for the policy side in COSLA, and my colleague Vippy Bibby to my left is the lead officer for the local government finance. COSLA is clear that our focus in all areas of delivery in children's services remains on the principles of getting it right for every child, and to embody the Christie Commission vision of a whole system working together on early intervention and prevention strategies via the provision of high quality public services. The report from Audit Scotland offered an important opportunity to reflect so far on the work done in partnership between Scottish Government, local government and other partners, as well as identifying some useful points for the expansion. The report showed that councils remain by far the guarantors of quality of learning, and the report recognised that we have been expanding our provision in terms of flexibility since the implementation of a 600 hours date of August 2014. That is testament to the efforts by councillors and local government officers to keep children to centre of all our decision making. Following the successful delivery of the 600 hours policy, the care inspector have reported that over 95 per cent of local authorities' establishments receive good or better inspection reviews. In addition, many councils have been increasing the offer to children and young people with additional hours and flexibility offered on a locality basis. The expansion of early learning childcare to 1140 hours by 2020 is no doubt a significant and challenging area of work. However, that is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make a difference to the lives of our youngest children, and COSLA has supported the Scottish Government's policy intentions here since the publication of the blueprint in March 2017. Scotland's councils are now facing an ambitious expansion programme, but we are confident that we can deliver it in partnership with government and with our other partners. Thank you very much, Jane O'Donnell. I am going to ask Colin Beattie to open questioning for the committee. I would like to explore some issues around workforce planning, but first, I believe that there are certain elements in the order of general's report that are worth looking at and which I would like some comments from. I will just take them one by one and ask you to comment on paragraph 26 of the order of general's report. The very final sentence says that there is no available information on children's attendance or the number of hours of funded ELC they receive. Is it not a big gap in the figures that you should be looking at in order to project workforce? It is absolutely an area that we are addressing at present, and I am going to invite my colleague Alison to see if she would like to say more about the work that is underway to do just that. I think that this statement is referring to the national statistics that we collect each year, which are on child registrations rather than at the moment the registrations with the service. We have a data transformation project, which is well under way, which will see us move to child-level collection of data with an anticipated full start date of May 2021, although we have started the trialling of that approach at the moment. In terms of attendance, it would not necessarily be for national statistics to collect very detailed information about individual children's attendance at individual ELC settings, but we do recognise the need, and in moving to child-level collection, we will be able to gain a lot more information about the patterns of provision that children are receiving through their funded ELC, and whether it is split between more than one provider. In terms of the assumptions that we have made in terms of uptake, a lot of that has been carried out at local authority level through the work on the expansion plans, and there has been a very thorough supply and demand analysis that we might term it as in each local authority as they prepare their expansion plans based on their knowledge of their local communities and their local families, as to what their likely uptake is to be. In general terms, we have near universal uptake in terms of registrations for three and four year olds at present, and the prevailing assumption is that that will continue into 1140 hours. At the present, you have a programme under way in which you are going to capture this information. The information is available at council level, is that correct? There will be information available at council level. We have national statistics on registrations with services, and councils will have more detailed information that they use for local planning. It seems odd to me that the national statistics, which must be fed by the councils according to their figures, because there is no other way to do it, should be highlighting this issue if the councils are collecting that data. The councils will have data that they collect through their own systems. We do not have national information on children's attendance. We have the national census that is carried out as part of the school statistics each year, which looks at a range of measures, but at the moment it does not, and we do not have any plans to look specifically at attendance in terms of attendance of the number of sessions that children report for. It does not feel like that. It is something that we would consider at the moment that would be appropriate for collection at national level. If you are working out workforce, the workforce that you are going to need to cope with this, surely you have to know how many children are attending and what sessions are doing. We know how many children are attending in terms of their registrations with services. It is the registrations with services that determine the capacity that we need to plan for in terms of the expansion. If a child does not attend for a specific session, we would not necessarily take that into account in service planning, because we have to have the places that are available for all the children who would register. Donald, do you want to add to that? To support what Alison said to Mr Beattie, at council and individual setting level, we are monitoring presentation and absent rates for young children. We do not feed that in, but there is definitely potential to do so in the future. As Alison rightly said, we have planned the expansion based on all our registrations attending and making sure that the staff are there to support the children. Just a couple of other items. Look at paragraph 29, bullet point 1. It says that some children receive funded ELC from child registration. It says that some children receive funded ELC from child registration. It says that some children receive funded ELC from childminders, but registration figures do not count those children. Surely this is part of the picture that should be being factored in. It is a variable. It absolutely is, and it is something that we will be looking at in terms of the data transformation project to ensure that the statistics going forward include all types of service that children access their funded ELC through and from. It is worth noting that the number of childminders involved in delivering funded early learning and childcare at the moment is relatively low. That is something that through moving to funding follows the child that we would expect to see increasing. We are removing some of the barriers potentially to being able to access funded entitlement through childminders. With that in mind we are developing our data collection to ensure that we have the information on services provided by childminders as well. Do you have any statistics on the sort of proportion childminders would be? I do not have statistics to hand. I know that it is a very low number and we can certainly provide the number to the committee. Jeane O'Donnell, do you have that number? I was going to make it the same offer, which was between us, we can get that information to the committee. What I would say is that we can see from local authority expansion plans that almost all local authorities intend to use childminders as part of their funded entitlement provision going forward, so we would expect that to be monitored carefully going forward. Colin Beattie. Blowpoint 2 in the same paragraph starts with councils do not have a statutory duty to identify eligible two-year-olds and their parents. How is that being handled? I can pick that one up. We need to remember that clearly it is not mandatory for any two-year-olds to attend early learning and childcare provision. What we have made available is the possibility of eligible two-year-olds attending early learning and childcare. What we are seeking to do is ensure that those who are eligible are made aware of their eligibility and are given every opportunity to attend. That requires a wide range of local activity. We can see some very successful local initiatives taking place to try to highlight the availability of early learning and childcare for eligible two-year-olds. However, as the report identifies and has been set out previously in Parliament, there are further improvements that could be made in relation to data sharing, particularly information from HMRC and DWP. The Minister for childcare has written to UK Government ministers making clear our need to see some of the legal gateways established at a UK level so that better sharing of information can take place. Despite the councils not having that statutory duty, they will in fact, as part of this programme, be endeavouring to contact or make known the service to all the eligible mothers and so on. We see evidence of that happening already, but Jane May wishes to say more about it. Absolutely, thank you. Just to confirm that yes, that is our intention, we recognise that there are two elements here that we need to improve our information to parents of two-year-olds and carers of two-year-olds so that they know they have an entitlement. We all recognise that there is a barrier in relation to the information that is available to local authorities from DWP and HMRC, and we want to reach out to families that we do not have a connection with yet to make sure that they are aware of their entitlement. That is an important barrier that we are all looking to overcome. Colin Smyth. Just coming to paragraph 32, in the middle of that, it emphasises that research highlighted that councils not knowing the details of exactly who is eligible is a major barrier. That comes back to what you were saying about DWP and HMRC. Clearly that is going to be a key element to enable you to do that. What if you cannot get the information? What if they refuse? Frankly, I see no reason for them to refuse because my understanding is that similar data sharing arrangements are in place in other parts of the United Kingdom. Our strong expectation is that the requisite data sharing arrangements will be made available and ought to be put in place as quickly as possible. We as officials and ministers will be making that case and it may be that the Parliament would wish to consider what representations it might wish to make. Again, we are working. Why are those arrangements not already in place if the data sharing arrangements are in place in other parts of the UK? There is a gap in relation to Scotland and we have identified the secondary legislation that would require to be made at a UK level in order to put the arrangements in place. That secondary legislation has not yet been enacted. We will certainly look at that. Colin Beattie. Having looked at those individual issues, which clearly are fairly important, originally the councils estimated that they needed 12,000 WTE staff, whereas the Scottish Government estimated between six and eight thousand, which is a huge difference. Has that gap been closed? Has the recent settlement satisfied concerns over headcount? I am pleased to say that we are now in the same place in relation to numbers. Perhaps Alison could say a little bit about where we are at in terms of the UK Government's figures and then hand over to Jane for the confirmation. Sorry, the Scottish Government. Sorry, Alison will confirm the situation in relation to Scottish Government figures. Thank you. Effectively we have moved now to one single set of workforce estimates and that was the product of the negotiation and engagement around reaching the multi-year funding agreement. We have consensus on the revenue funding requirements and, by definition, the workforce drivers of that, in terms of the numbers and the composition of the workforce. The local authority estimates reduced between the initial estimates in the September finance templates that were reported by Audit Scotland and the March estimates were sitting at around nine thousand full-time equivalents. There is likely to be some further refinement to that figure because we jointly agreed an adjustment to revenue funding in terms of population, which will mean that some authorities' assumptions, which means that some authorities will be revisiting their workforce requirements. Sorry, can I just clarify one thing there, that nine thousand? Are those additional to what we have at the moment, or does it include existing staff? It's additional to the workforce that's in place at the moment, delivering funding. How do you want to recruit nine thousand? We have a range, a programme of actions in place at national and local level, at Scottish Government level. We are seeking to create additional training capacity in terms of college and university places. We are funding a 10 per cent year-on-year increase in modern apprenticeship starts, and we've increased the financial contribution rate for ELC apprenticeships to make them more attractive to employers. We are also delivering a national recruitment campaign, phase 1, launched in October, targeted at school leavers, phase 2. Have you got anything else to add to that? Sorry, we're just quite short of time coming. Everything is summarised in our workforce delivery plan that we're currently engaging with. I'm going to bring Jane O'Donnell in on that as well, but Ian Gray has a supplementary on this point. I just wanted to follow up on the recruitment efforts, because the measures that have just been elaborated were acknowledged in the Audit Scotland report, the 10 per cent increase in apprenticeships, the SFC fund and the additional graduate places. The Auditor General was very clear that she believed that it would be extremely difficult to achieve the necessary levels of recruitment. In fact, she says that the Scottish Government councils and training providers urgently need to do more. My question to you is now that there's consensus, which is very welcome around the numbers that we need to see over and above the programme that has been elaborated here. What additional measures are the Government and local authorities planning to actually get to 11,000? Gryffin, do you want to speak? I think that the demand side of things is a matter of co-operation between the different agencies, the funding, to make sure that the places are in place as Alison Cumming was describing, and then the focus is really on the supply. How do we get out there and persuade people to join the profession? The Auditor General is saying that, even if you fill all the training places on offer, that's not going to deliver the necessary workforce. I'm asking what additional measures are planned. I'm not sure that that is quite what the Auditor General is saying. She says that we urgently need to do more. I understand what she means by that. I don't think that she's questioning that the number of training places that have been created are inadequate to the task in hand. I think that relates back to the discrepancy that existed between councils' estimates on our own, which has now been narrowed. Now there's a single figure. We're in the process of assuring ourselves that the numbers of places that need to be created are being created, and then there's a focus on the supply side, which is reaching out to people through the recruitment campaigns, through making the profession a more attractive destination. Ian Gray, do you want to? I think that, without asking the Auditor General what she meant in her report, it was quite difficult to come back. She says that, in regard to the measures elaborated, this will only provide a very small number of the additional staff that need to be trained. There's clearly a difference for you there. Perhaps Jane O'Donnell, you can tell us, is the 9,000 recruitment figure realistic by the target date? To confirm it, it is a joint figure from the Scottish Government and local government, and we are confident that that is a robust figure and that it can be achieved. In addition to the national work that has been done, there is a lot of local work being done. We are retraining our existing staff, taking cognisance of the changes in our services that may be required over the next few years, and making sure that those staff have an action plan to move into ELC and to make sure that those are the right individuals to deliver quality ELC. We are not just looking at people coming through colleges, we are looking at existing staff. We are also, luckily, because we are the education authority. We have access to our young people and we are able to, at local level, explain just how valuable this role is and the career opportunities that are afforded to our young people in this area. We are doing a lot on a local level for school leavers to move into that area as well, and I would emphasise the DUIW, developing young workforce modern apprenticeships route as well. Also, in relation to that, local campaigns will reflect local demographics, so that will look different in Glasgow than it does in Highland, as you would expect. We are also developing links between the local government, online recruitment website and the national website, so we are doing an awful lot in addition to the national stuff. You are more confident than the Auditor General that you will be able to recruit all those people by the target date. I cannot give a confirmation that we will, but I am confident that everything is in place for us to do as much as we can around that. Paul Johnson, do you think that that will be achieved? What I wanted to give the committee an assurance is that we are absolutely not complacent about this. What I hope that you have heard about is a massive amount of collective work being done to ensure that we have got the workforce, not just in the right numbers, but with the right mix of skills and diversity. What I would also wish to emphasise is that this is something that we will be actively tracking and monitoring and reporting on over the next couple of years and is therefore something that we can continue to engage with this committee and the Parliament on. Thank you. Liam Kerr. Thank you, convener. Good morning. The initial increase to 600 hours was aimed at improving child outcomes and helping women predominantly back into the labour market. £650 million of public money was provided to deliver this, but a key message that comes out of the report was that there were no measures of success, there was no baseline data and crucially, and I quote, the increase to 600 hours is not expected to lead to a measurable change in children's outcomes. Some might say that there was a fundamental lack of a business case and planning. Would that be fair? If so, who missed that requirement? I hope to address that point. The starting point for me would be that this expansion to 600 hours is an expansion that was supported by this Parliament in the Children and Young People's Scotland Act 2014. That is the legislative underpinning for 600 hours. As you will appreciate, the Parliament received and approved detailed financial information around the time of expansion and we have two financial memoranda that underpin the bill that was approved by the Parliament. The expenditure is taking place clearly with the full authority of the Parliament, both in terms of that underpinning legislation and then in terms of the annual budget process. In terms of the outcomes that are being delivered, I think that it is important to be quite clear and specific about this point. We are monitoring the outcomes, both short term and longer term. The quote that you have referred to, Mr Kerr, is with reference to the longer term outcomes and that material is set out in a Scottish Government report from the end of 2017. It is important to look at the extent to which short term outcomes were identified and have been delivered. They are set out in detail in the report. They relate to factors such as quality, such as flexibility and crucially availability of the 600 hours. What the report does then go on to identify is that it is too early to identify the extent to which those long term outcomes are being achieved. Johnston, can I cut across just because we are short of time? I appreciate the answer that you were giving. Have we got value for money for the £650 million? How do you know? I think that we can point to the delivery of those short term outcomes that I have referred to. In terms of quality, flexibility and provision, we can point to the levels of parental satisfaction, which are helpfully illustrated throughout the Audit Scotland report. We can see that this is a policy that has not only been supported by Parliament, but has been supported by parents and we can see the range of evidence that is emerging from parents around the impact that 600 hours is having on the development of their children. Has it closed the attainment gap? Of course it was one of the requirements of the increase. As our evaluation sets out, it is too early to say that the investment into 600 hours has had that impact on closing the attainment gap. Two very brief points on that. One, our evidence makes clear that what is crucial to look at is the extent to which 600 is, as it were, a stepping stone towards 1140. We can be much more confident that the significant increase to 1140 will have a greater impact on children's outcomes. We also need to look at the policy alongside the range of other Government and local Government interventions at present that are designed to support better outcomes than closing the attainment gap. Willie Coffey. It is a supplementary on Liam Kerr's question. In your opening remarks, you told us that there was a 95 per cent or better inspection reviews after the 600 hours were delivered. Can you tell us a wee bit about the scope of the review? What areas did they cover to get such a high satisfaction rate? Happy to, Mr Coffey. I was referring to the Care Inspectorate report, which was published last year. We said that local authorities in the year 2016 on average performed better than other nursery sectors. It is 94 per cent, my apologies. 94 per cent could be good or better on our four quality themes. That was the report that I am referring to. To support what Mr Johnson said, the parental survey that was undertaken by the Scottish Government, the vast majority of parents said that not only did they find the quality of the LC high quality but they found the benefits of their children and they could see that happening. Between those two aspects, we would say that local authorities have delivered the 600 hours in every single area of Scotland that we are building on the flexibility, which was always the plan, that we would get 600 in and then extend the flexibility and that what has been delivered is of high quality and has apparent satisfaction. Thank you. Just very briefly, if I might take you back to a line Colin Beattie pursued about the area of report that says that there is no available information on whether children actually attend the places. How do we assess the outcomes for the children if we have no idea if they are actually attending? Well, as I think my colleague Alison has made clear, we are primarily looking at the data that we have at present is primarily registration data, but we recognise the need to develop and improve that overall data set. Alison, do you wish to add anything to what you said already? I think we just need to reinforce Jane O'Donnell's point that we are not collecting the level of that information in national statistics, but local authorities and individual settings are actively using that information in terms of how they run their services and most significantly in terms of how they support children and their families who are registered with those services. So that the data is in place at local level is just not something that we are presently collecting at national level. Paul Johnson, given the huge investment in this policy, you're not concerned about the lack of data and the lack of evidence around this? Well, I've pointed to the short-term evidence that we already have, which I think is compelling and should not be overlooked. I'm also clear about the work that is under way to demonstrate the long-term impacts of this policy. I would also point to the significant amount of work that is under way at present to ensure that we have very clear baselines and very clear measurements so that we can point to you in future to very clear evidence around the impact of the expansion. So you're committed to getting better evidence? We're absolutely committed to the fact that, as with the transformational scale of the expansion, so the evidence must develop and grow and come into it with that expansion. Iain Gray. Mr Johnson, you said a minute ago that you were confident that the expansion of ours will have a greater impact on children's outcomes. The Government, I think, has been very clear that the expansion of ours, the primary purpose is to improve outcomes for children. The Auditor General says that there is limited research examining the impact of increasing the number of hours of funded early learning childcare per year for children who already receive it. So I just wonder if you could point us to the evidence that the Government has that expanding ours will achieve that objective. Absolutely. There is a strong body of evidence that has existed for some time and that is being developed further around the importance of high quality. I'll maybe pass over to my colleague Joe to go through some of the detail there and, if helpful, we can absolutely follow up with further. The evidence on the benefits of early learning in childcare generally is very strong, summarised by the OECD in a series of reports, most recently, 2017, saying that giving all children access to high quality early education and care will allow the foundations for future skills development, boost social mobility and support. I'm sorry, Mr Griffin, but that's evidence about making early learning childcare available to more children. I'm asking where the evidence is about expanding the ours for those already in childcare. So there's a study, a longitudinal study of 3,000 children from 1907 to 2003 called the effective provision of preschool education, which largely took place in an English setting, that does show that the duration of attendance is important, particularly with an earlier start date under three years of age which relates to better intellectual development. Jeane O'Donnell. Just to support that, I think that local authorities would say that it's not simply the extension of the hours, but it's the quality of the early learning that's provided within those hours. I would note that curriculum for excellence does start at age three. We talk about an early stage and actually that encompasses our three- and four-year-olds. So we would expect quality early learning, more of that would help to support our youngest children from the transition from nursery early learning into primary school. To follow that up. Are you arguing then that the expansion of hours will also lead to commensurate increase in quality? I mean that would be a very good thing. Because of the focus on the quality of early learning. I think that that was an important thing that we achieved together with the Scottish Government and the local government. It isn't just simply an extension of hours, it's not just childcare. The priority is early learning and that is how local authorities have developed their expansion plans. Is that a change then? I think that it was unclear at the point where before the policy was developed fully in the blueprint, there was a number of possible options. I think that a number of the committee members have mentioned there was a discussion about whether this was about getting parents into work and that's a laudable intention, it's important for economic benefits for families but we have clarified that the primary policy intention is early learning, quality early learning and that will support the reducing the attainment gap. That's good that local authorities are clear on that because that was something that Auditor General identified as unclear at the outset. Liam Kerr. Sticking with that point that's been made by Ian Gray there, so what other options, we're looking at an increase from 600 hours to 1140 hours but what other options have been sculpted out and costed which would achieve the same outcomes? I think that it would be fair to say that what we have is a government commitment to move to 1140 hours. I understand that but what other options were thought about that might have delivered better value for money, for example? The reality is that the commitment was there to go for 1140 hours underpinned by evidence as to the benefit of that approach so we could have spent potentially years looking at a wide range of other options but what we have taken, what ministers have done is recognised the evidence around the benefits of adopting this transformational, very significant expansion and making it universally available at ages 3 and 4 and have gone for that option clearly with the support of Parliament. I don't know if my colleagues wish to say anything else about... The evidence being the study that Joe Griffin referenced in England? Certainly that study among a body of other evidence that would support our approach around high quality and the provision of increased hours. Just for the avoidance of doubt, when you say that they went for that option there were no other options scoped out and costed were there? We have not scoped out and costed other options. Has the Scottish Government done any economic modelling on the increase to the 1140 hours of funded ELC and the outcomes to be expected and measured? The detailed outcomes frameworks are what I have referred to as work that is very much in development. We have clarified the overall purpose, as has been stated, around the high quality provision and the primary focus on supporting children and young people and closing the attainment gap. We also recognise, though, the need to be working on delivering that economic benefit and ensuring that this policy allows parents to access work and the ways in which we track and measure that will be subject to further development. Do you have a model in place already? Jane O'Donnell, you were talking about the quality that is clearly there already. Is there a model? If we increase the hours and we increase the staff and we increase the assets and whatever it might be where is the model that shows the impact of that on quality? Is there one? I do not think that I can say that there is a precise model at this point in time, but that is what requires— Does that not concern you, Mr Johnson? What we have is evidence around the benefit of expansion. What we have is wide support from the Parliament and from wider partners. Not evidence on the impact on the quality that is going to be delivered? I think that there is evidence around the importance of high quality provision in improving children's outcomes. If what you are requesting is a very detailed logic model that works through all of the inputs and outputs that are likely to accrue, that is in the territory of work that is under development. Jane O'Donnell, are you comfortable with that? I have signed up to a joint consultation work with the Scottish Government around the standards that will be put in place around that. That piece of work, which is obviously in its infancy and has yet to be developed, will allow local authorities and their partners and the Scottish Government and other colleagues who are scrutinising this service to ensure that we are delivering a high quality of service. Our colleagues in the Queen Inspectorate in Education Scotland are developing a joint framework where they will be using that in our new settings to make sure that the expansion is delivering quality. I would mention the curriculum for excellence, the national improvement framework and the work that we are doing to address the attainment gap. We expect that, with that high quality early learning and the support from other agencies, we should be able to see a difference in all those areas. That would allow some monitoring. Alex Neil. Just following up on that conversation, it will be 15 to 20 years before we get a full impact assessment of all the services that are being provided, including the impact of the expansion. I appreciate, obviously, that we cannot get a full impact assessment until we see how the life chances when it comes to primary, secondary education, further higher education, employment opportunities and all the rest of it. Clearly, we have an increasing problem throughout the United Kingdom, including in Scotland, of child poverty. Child poverty is a major contributing factor to the educational attainment gap. It is the major contributing factor. Is there any evidence or are you assessing what impact those measures are having on reducing or containing the increase in the levels of child poverty in Scotland? If I could reply, I think that that is an important point. I can give the committee an assurance that colleagues in my area who have worked on the child poverty delivery plan have been working closely in partnership with colleagues working on the early learning and childcare increase so that we can ensure that those two policies are proceeding hand in hand and that the upscaling of provision around early learning and childcare, particularly starting with those eligible two-year-olds, will have a positive benefit on child poverty. In addition, there are specific measures set out in the child poverty action plan to spend some of the available resources that have been identified to focus in on those children who are experiencing the greatest level of poverty at present and to try to ensure that a specific offer is given there that will have a beneficial impact there. It is work that must proceed hand in hand. Can I bring Alex Neil back to the question? Just to ask the question, I accept all of that to Paul, but are you measuring as part of the... I mean, I'm expecting that this is fairly early years for this expansion, but are you measuring the impact of the additional provision on levels of child poverty? I think that that's an important point. It's a challenge that I take away to ensure that the measurement... It's not an important point, but can you answer the question? Are you measuring it? Are you not measuring it? We're talking about provision that's still to come in. We're talking about a commitment that has just been set out in the child poverty delivery plan that was published, I think, at the end of March, to make that additional investment for the children who are experiencing the greatest levels of child poverty. What I'm saying is that we need to ensure that our measurement frameworks across both of those policy areas are clear and consistent, and that is something that I will take away from today. So, very specifically, in terms of our approach to outcomes for 1140, the measures that we'll start to collate from this summer for two-year-olds will deal with aspects related to potentially child poverty. So, in terms of child development, similar to what we do in growing up in Scotland, we'll be taking measurements of social and behavioural measures, physical measures and cognitive assessments, and we'll also be taking measures of outcomes for parents around the home learning environment, parents' mental health and wellbeing, also alongside their employment activity. So, to some extent, we'll be measuring the mitigation, the beneficial impacts of the ELC provision for children going through that system and then taking follow-up measures in 2023 after five years of operation. There's also the point about the material improvement in family circumstances from being able to access early learning in childcare that previously they may have had to pay for. We don't have any plans for that at present that I'm aware of, but, as Paul says, I think that's something that we can take away and certainly not later at all to introduce into our modelling and into our measurement. That's quite reassuring. Can I move to a more practical day-to-day issue? To meet that policy work, clearly, how each local authority distributes and spends the budget is getting very substantial budget. We're talking about £1 billion a year in the foreseeable future. How those resources are allocated internally within a local authority and use is very important. I have a concern, for example, in the area that I represent in North Lanarkshire, where there's apparently been a very deliberate policy of squeezing the resources for the partnership necessaries, the non-local authority providers to the point where some of those providers who have excellent track records in this area are saying that, if that continues, they could be forced in the worst-case scenario within the next two or three years to actually close the doors. Clearly, that is unacceptable. What is COSLA and the Scottish Government doing about people like North Lanarkshire Council? Bibi, can you answer that question on the finance, or do you know Donald? Yes, happy to. I think that the role of COSLA largely is to distribute, allocate and come to an agreement on funding across the local authorities. How that is distributed within the local authority is the role for the local authority and COSLA doesn't get involved in that detail. What I would add, however, and I don't know the specifics of that case that you're referring to, but what I would add, where we're going to with the 1140 hours, is the funding following the child. If any provider meets the standard, the parent can decide where their child gets that provision if that provider meets the standard. That's a key aspect of a change from moving to the 1140 hours. As long as that provider can meet the standard, the parent will be able to place their child. Thank you. Are you monitoring the situation? I know that some ministers have expressed concern privately about what some of the practices are in North Lanarkshire in relation to this. There may be other local authorities. There may not be the only one doing this, but it seems to me that you need to track the money and to make sure that children who are in the non-local authority nurseries are not, for whatever reason, going to get any less resource and less attention than those in local authority nurseries. Our approach to funding follows the child as a critical safeguard there. It may be that my colleague Alison wishes to add something. Add two specific points. The first is that in relation to the funding agreement that was reached in April, that reflects for each local authority what we would term a sustainable hourly rate for partner providers. There is a collective expectation that the average hourly rate paid to funded providers will increase and that there are funds to support that through the funding deal. The point that is being made by the partner providers is that that is not being passed on. Are you going to ensure that local authorities pass it on as you intend them to do? We have a joint commitment and what will be key to ensuring sustainable funding is the commitment around payment of the living wage and providing sufficient funding to enable providers across all sectors to pay the living wage. That is a core element of the national standard that is out for consultation. That is a joint consultation between Scottish Government and COSLA, which will require all providers in any sector that wish to deliver the funded entitlement will need to meet those criteria. There is an expectation that in return there is a partnership arrangement with local authorities and local authorities and that is not answering the question. Those partnership nurseries already pay the living wage. That is not the issue here. The issue here is that there is an unfair allocation being made in respect of the non-local authority partner nurseries. This is Scottish Government money and those children and the non-local authority ones are effectively getting punished in terms of less resource for whatever reason and you are going to do something about that? I would say that there would be a minority of nurseries in the private sector and the third sector at the moment that are paying their practitioners above the Scottish living wage that they will all be receiving the statutory living wage. There is additional funding going in to support that element. There is a clear undertaking for sustainable funding across the piece. You are not going to answer the question and you are going to make sure that the non-local authority nurseries get a fair allocation of the money that each local authority gets. Yes or no? Yes, we will be in over arrangements in place to the annual financial review. Thank you, Ms Cummings. Who would like to answer that? Just to add for reassurance, the local delivery plans require the private and third sector to help in the delivery. Delivery is not going to be completely from within local authority areas. It will be incumbent upon local authorities to be able to deliver this policy to come to agreements with the private and third sectors and come to a sustainable rate. That is what the delivery plans will set out in a local area. That is not happening in North Lanarkshire. I am not aware of the specifics of North Lanarkshire, but I do not think that there are any plans particularly in the mainland that would result in complete local authority in-house delivery. Local authorities will want to work with partner providers to ensure delivery of the policy. It is not happening in North Lanarkshire. I think that we need to ensure that it does happen everywhere. It is happening in East Ayrshire. There are some good news stories to tell from there, but I really wanted to ask our COSLA colleagues just for a little perspective of how you see it in the local authorities at the moment in terms of their preparedness for premises in particular. The issue was mentioned earlier about staffing and I do know that East Ayrshire are doing what Jane and Donald had described earlier. They are challenging students from the colleges and to apprenticeships and they are also offering existing staff some retraining opportunities as well but do you think that you can give us a little flavour of what your perspective is at the moment in terms of local authorities and their preparedness for premises and so on and so forth? Absolutely. I will speak from a policy perspective on the financial planning. We liaise regularly with our colleagues and directors of education and children services so we are aware of the state of readiness and it is fair to say that local authorities have been championing at the bit to get on with what they have to deliver that expansion. The key date for us was to have the finance in place by the end of April and we successfully managed to do so and it was a very positive and significant amount of money that's gone in so in terms of the robustness of the expansion planning as a coslau officer I'm content that that is robust and fit for purpose and I know that my colleagues and local authorities have the determination and the will to get this done so in terms of an overall policy perspective that is challenging but doable and we know that the will and the determination is in place to do so. Maybe just to add to that the level of work that has gone into the detail of the delivery plans and particularly with reference to your question the capital requirements has been considerable and that was why it was absolutely key to not just get one-year funding on an annual basis it was to get the multi-year funding which we've secured is over a number of years that there was agreement around that and we've got that now plans can now be committed in terms of the capital delivery which I think has mitigated a significant risk that was in place last time we took evidence but we're in a much better place now It's good to hear that where are we on the flexibility issue that many parents raised about taking different children to different locations more flexibility with this perhaps Ball could answer that perhaps Jane as well Certainly, clearly with the expansion to 1140 hours that helps with flexibility simply because there's such a there's a much bigger range of hours on offer and flexibility remains one of the aims of the programme and it may be that my colleague Alison would wish to add some more specifics around how we will seek to secure that there's evidence and Jane will want to talk more about this around increasing flexibility in local authority provision in recent years there's also a point on flexibility that the Government's position is that flexibility is best defined through consultation and engagement with local communities that local communities are best placed to define those flexibility arrangements and we know that the expansion plans have been informed by engagement with local communities so the local authority services who are being designed will reflect those parental wishes and they'll be bringing in recognising the flexibility that can be brought from partners in the private and third sectors and childminders to add to that Thanks Alison just to support that local authorities have been actively increasing the flexibility provision ever since 2014 and I think the Audit Scotland report points out some important examples of how that's happened the expansion offers the opportunity to provide a scale in terms of flexibility and it will be based, as Alison said, on parental expectations and what is appropriate locally so we know that our colleagues in Highland and the islands have maybe a different model of flexibility than is required in a city centre and you'd expect us to take that into account the robustness of the expansion plans is key here that we've been able to ensure that there will be a variety of offers to parents in a local authority area and the parent will then be able to choose as long as they meet the standard that's available to them so we're very confident that that will be a big success of the expansion Caroline Gardner, the Auditor General gave us evidence on her report just a few weeks ago and she said that Audit Scotland were not able to identify one council that was doing everything well Jane O'Donnell, what's your response to that? I think that the Audit Scotland report identified a number of local authorities who were specialising or leading in certain areas and what I would say is that no local authority is operating in isolation here, not only do we have excellent support and collective leadership across local government and Scottish government but within local government itself we are speaking to each other so those that led in terms of flexibility or in terms of a multi-agency approach around vulnerable children and families they have been sharing that information and I think that if you look across a 32 expansion plan you'll see a sense of consistency where we've identified best practice and tried to implement that across the country This is a huge investment but it's also a huge target this expansion of ours Is it affordable? Do local authorities have the money to cover this? We are content with the funding that's been agreed I would have to add from a causal perspective that funding is ring-fenced and as we make comments throughout the whole of our budget process whilst we're confident that funding is available for this additional early years we cannot ignore on-going funding spending review discussions about core services for local government so whilst there's specific ring-fenced funding for this we cannot forget the links that it has with the core local government funding and of course we'll be engaging in that and link to make Bill Bowman If I can just pick up on a couple of things said General Donald used the term absenteeism and reducing absenteeism Do you have some thoughts of penalising parents who children don't attend? Thank you If we have children who are not attending early years for any reason there may be a myriad of reasons that family are struggling to cope and what we'd want to do is put a range of support around the children and the families rather than any sort of penalisation and actual fact we're trying to empower parents and children and get them into a much better place of penalising would seem contrary to that aim You also used the term once in a lifetime opportunity which if you miss you've lost I guess so would your support and information veer towards coercing? No, again we know from working with families who may be experiencing a wide range of challenges that actually a more supportive mechanism works much better for the families and the children and leads to better outcomes so we would never be looking for some sort of penalisation or difficulty there You also used the phrase access to our young people that concerns me slightly in that are you suggesting that you would say to the teachers that you would direct people into social care or childcare? So happy to clarify, no I suppose what I was saying was as education authorities our young people are within our schools and are actively asking for careers advice and guidance and what we can do is say to a young person who might say I'm quite interested in early years that looks like a good thing for me we can say well actually we can help you move from school into an apprenticeship programme, it's quite a unique role local authority has here and it's a benefit for our young people But you need to keep a balance between other potential careers Indeed and actually we want to see a diverse work force I think my colleagues have mentioned so while we actively want to ensure that we're supporting young people into employment and this is a great opportunity and a hugely valuable role in society we also want to see a wider variety of people coming into the workforce Okay thank you for your clarification Liam Kerr I've turned to a couple of the points that Mr Neil and Ms Marra have put forward I have a report which to be fair is a year old which says that 85 per cent of nurseries say that local authority funding for free hours doesn't cover their costs and over half say that they expect to break even or make a loss and as a result three quarters of them plan to increase their fees to parents Now if that comes to pass isn't there a danger that we end up pricing people out and achieving negative outcomes to both attainment and work Who wants to answer that? By making clear that that I don't have the specifics of the report in front of me but that report as I understand is commenting on the existing situation and what my colleagues have pointed to is the range of work that is under way now to ensure that there is sustainable funding for the whole sector and the work that will be undertaken that clearly this Parliament will be examining over the next two years to ensure that that is taken forward in a spirit of real partnership with all providers because it's very clear that although we are here from Scottish Government and local government this is not something that we are simply doing ourselves and I can point to other governance arrangements which we have in place that are seeking to take a really inclusive approach to the work that we're taking forward over the next two years that will be alongside private providers, childminders and others to try and ensure that collectively we make this a success I don't know how Alison may wish to add something Do you have anything new to add to that? Just very briefly, I understand that's probably the NDNA survey which predates the blueprint response in March 2017 so the commitment to sustainable funding was not as explicit then as it is now we now have a funding agreement that makes the sustainable funding for all providers including payment of living wage the second point is in terms of that sustainable funding is also sufficient to ensure that parents don't have to pay any charges towards their funded entitlement and that is explicit in the national standard that we're consulting on with COSLA at present Alison picked up the point that was going to make on the standard but probably just to add to the successful delivery is partner providers and the provision local authorities will not price partner providers out because the success of this is to have partner providers with that and they've been working very closely with partner providers Ian Gray That's just a point of clarification it's slow in finding my own notes but when we spoke about workforce, the increased workforce there's a very welcome agreement across COSLA and the Scottish Government I think the figure that was given was 9,000 additional full-time equivalents but the minister in her statement on the agreement with COSLA used the figure 11,000 I just wonder It's a difference between full-time equivalent and head count so the 11,000 figure is the head count number, a large proportion of the workforce work below part-time hours or work flexible patterns so that's the explanation Willie Coffey I meant to ask this question earlier I know that East Ayrshire have already ran a successful pilot of the 1140 at the Newport Rigs primary in Kilmarnock Has any other authorities tried the 1140 so far and what have the results been? I'll take that answer A number of local authorities have run the 1140 and also in different offers so they've run the 1140 blended approach between childminders and nurseries across partner providers so we've learned from all those trials and all those early work you'll be able to see across our 32 expansion plans that all local authorities have tried a little bit of expansion and those who have done the full 1140 have shared their findings Thank you all very much indeed for your evidence this morning I now close the committee's public session Thank you