 D Personally, everything is for good. The first item of business this morning is consideration of business motion 10770 in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau to set out a revised business programme. I am sure that members will understand that there is a revised business programme today. Does anyone object to the revised business programme? Please say so now. In that case, could I ask Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion 10770? Fongly moved. Thank you very much. No member has asked to speak against the motion, therefore the question is that we We agree motion 10770. Are we all agreed? We all agreed. Thank you very much, Mr Fitzpatrick. The first item of business is general questions, and we start with number one from Liam Kerr. To ask the Scottish Government what measures it is taking to recruit additional staff into early learning and childcare. Minister Murritodd, we are taking forward a programme of actions to assist and support delivery partners in the recruitment and training of high quality diverse workforce to meet the needs of early learning and childcare expansion. To support the first phase of the workforce expansion in 2017-18, we provided local authorities with 21 million additional revenue funding, boosted ELC capacity in colleges and universities, and increased ELC modern apprenticeship starts by 10 per cent. We will build on all of this this year, in 2018-19, with an additional 52 million for local authorities for workforce expansion, providing 1,700 additional HNC and over 400 additional graduate places and a further 10 per cent increase in ELC modern apprenticeship starts. In order to raise awareness, we launched the first phase of our national recruitment marketing campaign aimed at school leavers in October, and the next phase will follow soon, focusing on anoddience of career changers and parents. Fair pay is absolutely at the heart of our plans, and we will provide additional funding to enable payment of the living wage to all childcare staff delivering the funded entitlement by 2020. Liam Kerr. I thank the minister for the answer. The Scottish Government maintains that it can deliver expanded free childcare by 2020. Audit Scotland's report last week said that councils need 12,000 more staff. The Scottish Government has plans to recruit 8,000. Will the minister give a personal guarantee that by 2020, local authorities will not find themselves 4,000 staff short? Minister. I will absolutely give a guarantee that we will find ourselves with enough staff by 2020. We have already increased capacity to support the first phase of workforce expansion, as I said. We are working with the Scottish Funding Council to offer more than 1,500 additional places on a one-year HNC course next year. Over 400 additional graduate places, Skills Development Scotland, have also committed to increasing the number of modern apprentices by 10 per cent year on year. Local authorities engage directly with training providers in the private and third sectors, and many have already begun to expand their in-house training routes. The Scottish Government provides additional resource funding to cover the cost of this on-the-job training. The private training sector has also been engaged during development of the Skills Investment Plan, and we are communicating directly with it via SDS colleagues to ensure that they are aware of the scale of increase in training required. The private training sector has indicated that it has the capacity to respond to an increase in demand for provision. We are also working with colleges and independent training providers, including the open university, to ensure that flexible and accessible training options are available for childminders to become qualified to practitioner level. That will include recognition of prior learning for those who have been working in the sector for many years. Clare Haughey To ask the Scottish Government how many modern apprenticeships it has supported in early learning and childcare. The number of modern apprentice starts in ELC-related frameworks has increased in recent years. In 2016-17, there were 1,400 starts, up by 10 per cent, from 1273 starts in 2014-15. That represents 5 per cent of the 26,262 starts across all MA frameworks in 2016-17. We are increasing the number of modern apprenticeships, as I have said, available in the sector by 10 per cent, year on year, right up to 2020. Furthermore, the financial contribution rates across all ELC frameworks have risen by £1,000, making those even more attractive for employers. Annie Wells To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to improve the availability of more flexible hours in local authority nurseries. As part of the expansion to 600 hours from 2014, we will provide local authorities with additional funding to support an increase in flexibility. As a result, we have seen flexibility increase with more providers offering a choice of provision, increased opening hours and more settings open all year round. We are absolutely committed to further improving flexibility as part of the expansion in the funded early learning and childcare entitlement to 1140 hours by 2020. However, that must be done in a way that ensures a very high-quality provision. Although the benefits to parents are very important, the expansion is fundamentally about improving the early years' experience of our youngest children. We will shortly launch a consultation to ensure that the existing provisions on flexibility, including requirements for local authorities to consult with parents every two years, are appropriate for the introduction of the expanded entitlement. Annie Wells I thank the minister for that reply, because it is not just staffing. A report last week from Fair Funding for our Kids found that right now just one in 10 local authority nurseries cover full-time hours and 19 councils have not a single nursery open full-time. Can the minister give a personal guarantee that by 2020, every local authority nursery will offer the full flexibility that parents need? Ruth Davidson High-quality learning, as I said, is absolutely at the heart of our plans, but we know that flexibility is really important for many families. We believe therefore that the expansion to 1140 funded hours will allow for greater flexibility for parents. That is why we are doing it. From 2020, we will introduce a funding follows the child approach. That will ensure that parents have a far greater choice of providers from which they can access their funded entitlement, while safeguarding high-quality provision. There is a duty on local authorities to consult with parents and carers, as I said, at least every two years to ensure that provision reflects local needs, including on flexibility. As authorities are consulting with families and increasing flexibility and choice, we know that some places offered to parents are not where and when they need them. Local authorities deliver early learning and childcare and can do that through their own provision or through their respective partnership arrangements with the private and third sector providers. We want to encourage that and look at a more holistic approach, which puts maximum flexibility for parents' childcare needs front and centre of the expansion programme. That means that parents can and can access funded places in a range of settings that are open between 8 and 6. Some families, for example, are already benefiting from personal participation in our expansion trials, and some families are also benefiting from councils' early phasing of the expanded entitlement. We have asked authorities to prioritise phasing for deprived areas, so that the children and families who will benefit most from the expansion will also benefit first. Angus MacDonald. Can the minister confirm that local authorities should be consulting with families around flexibility and that they are able to provide access to funding places in a range of settings that are open between 8 am and 6 pm? Can she also confirm that the care inspector has recently found that there has been a significant improvement in flexibility? I can, absolutely. We will shortly launch a consultation with parents and stakeholders to ensure that existing provisions on flexibility, including the requirement for local authorities to consult with parents every two years, are appropriate for the expanded entitlement. I mentioned already the increased provision between 8 am and 6 pm. We are going to work closely with providers across all sectors and parents to develop the best practice guidance on implementing flexibility in ELC settings. The Care Inspectorate report that was published on 19 September last year shows that flexibility is improving, and more than half of the providers, 51.4 per cent, are now offering a choice of provision. There has been a trend of increased flexibility in opening hours during the day, and the proportion of council settings providing funded ELC before, during and after school has increased from 19 per cent in 2013 to 30 per cent in 2016. That also extends to the proportion of council settings operating during school holidays, which has increased from 18 per cent in 2013 to 23 per cent in 2016. Peter Chapman, I ask the Scottish Government how it ensures early learning and childcare providers deliver a high-quality service. The quality of early learning and childcare provision is already high. The Care Inspectorate data shows that, in 2016, 91.5 per cent of settings provided funded ELC, which provided funded ELC achieved care inspectorate grades of good or better on all four themes. However, we want to see quality enhanced further still. Our quality action plan, which contains 15 actions on which we will further embed and strengthen quality in early learning and childcare ELC builds on that. The plan was developed in close consultation with a quality reference group, made up of key stakeholders who best understand what drives high quality provision. Our new funding follows the child approach, which, due for introduction in August 2020, will further prioritise and safeguard high-quality provision across all sectors. That will be underpinned by a national standard, which will include quality criteria that all providers will be required to meet in order to deliver the funded entitlement. Peter Chapman, I thank the minister for that reply. However, I disagree with her response there, because Care Inspectorate data shows that the quality of early years provider has steadily fallen, and the percentage of providers rated good or better is at its lowest point for half a decade. Expansion will put that under more pressure, so can the minister give a personal guarantee that, by 2020, the quality of childcare will not decrease? Absolutely. The quality of ELC provision is already high, and the ELC quality action plan that was published in October sets out 15 actions that we will be taking before August 2020 to further enhance quality, so that we offer our children the best possible start in life. The action plan recognises that, and in order to protect that high quality as we build towards delivering 1140 hours of funded provision, support to the sector will have to increase. The quality action plan makes clear that the most important driver of quality of a child's ELC experience is a high-quality workforce. The action set out in that plan demonstrates our strong commitment to investing in the professional development of that workforce. The actions include preparing a national induction resource for all staff who are new to delivering ELC, creating and delivering an online national programme of continuous professional learning for the sector and refreshing national practice guidance. We are working in partnership with local authorities and COSLA to develop the details of the new funding follows the child model, as I said, to produce and support the national standard. All settings delivering the funded entitlement from 2020 will have to meet this national standard at the heart of which will be a range of quality criteria. To help to close the poverty-related gap in children's outcomes, we are also ensuring that children who need it the most benefit from an enhanced ELC offer. Our commitment is to ensure that, by August this year, nurseries across Scotland's 20 per cent of most deprived areas benefit from an additional graduate who will enhance access to our most qualified ELC staff. Earlier entitlement to ELC for eligible two-year-olds will also help to give children who stand to benefit the most an extra head start. Question 4, Dean Lockhart. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that Scotland's productivity has dropped to its lowest level in more than eight years. The recent dip in Scotland's productivity is disappointing, however, over the longer term productivity has improved. In the latest 12 months productivity in Scotland was 5.4 per cent higher than in 2007 compared to only 1.4 per cent higher in the UK as a whole. It is also encouraging that the productivity statistics show a strong increase in the number of hours worked in recent quarters underlining the strength of the labour market. We are taking a range of measures to drive productivity growth, including an investment of almost £2.4 billion in enterprise and skills, and the most attractive package of non-domestic rates reliefs available anywhere in the UK. Thank you for that response. As the cabinet secretary will be aware, the Scottish National Party's target for productivity to reach the first quartile of OECD countries has been missed by some 25 per cent. In fact, figures released this morning show that Scotland has dropped from being in the second quartile to the third quartile for productivity. The cabinet secretary cannot blame Brexit for the on-going decline in Scotland's productivity, because for the rest of the UK productivity is increasing at the fastest rate in a decade. As the cabinet secretary said, the Scottish National Party has controlled over the policy levers that drive productivity, and his Government spends £2.4 billion a year on skills and economic development. My question to the cabinet secretary is this. Does he accept responsibility for the on-going decline in Scotland's productivity, and what plans does he have to reverse that decline? I have already laid out in response to the member's first question some of the plans that we have. I would add to that, of course, the announcement this week by the First Minister of the Implementation Plan for a Scottish National Investment Bank. However, the member asked about responsibility, and the Scottish Government has a clear responsibility in relation to that. I readily acknowledge that. Let's look at some of the causes. One of the causes, of course, is business investment. The Sunday Times says that business spent as much as £7.7 billion less on new factories and equipment in the year after the EU referendum because of Brexit uncertainty, according to analysis by the Bank of England. It also says that lack of investment has often been identified as essential to the UK's lack of productivity growth. What are we seeing? Are companies taking export windfalls from the currency fluctuations and banking the profits and not making the investment a direct consequence of Brexit? He has tried to say in his question that this has nothing to do with Brexit or the UK Government. I would ask him to look at today's daily record leader column that says, and this is a quote from the daily record—this is not me, so I would never say something like that. Britain is governed by a bunch of deluded clowns who can't negotiate a good deal on a home broadband. Perhaps if the Tory party and its spokesperson weren't on the cleft stick of trying to talk about economics at the same time as denying A, the UK Government's involvement in the Scottish economy and B, the impact of Brexit, it might be taken a bit more seriously. Jackie Baillie Does the cabinet secretary accept that comparisons that show improvement in Scotland's position actually have more to do with the decline in UK productivity and that he needs to be more ambitious for Scotland's economy? I would certainly agree with Jackie Baillie that we cannot use the performance of the UK as a limit of our ambitions. Of course, we want to improve things even further. Very essential is business involvement, but it is also true to say that population growth is absolutely essential to productivity figures. Whilst we have Brexit, while we are seeing people deciding to leave this country, including people in very important sectors, of course that is going to have an impact on Brexit, and that is why this Government will continue to assert Scotland's need to have a place in both the customs union and the single market. That concludes general questions. Before we move on to First Minister's questions, I am sure that members would wish to join me in welcoming to our gallery today His Excellency Alexander Faisal, the ambassador of Switzerland.