Early learning and childcare: national induction resource

Our Investment in Early Learning and Childcare

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC) form the basis of our national approach to supporting children and are critical to our commitment to Keep the Promise. We remain committed to Scotland being the first UK nation to incorporate the UNCRC into domestic law, ensuring we are a country that respects, protects and fulfils children’s rights; and helps provide every child with a good start in life and a safe, healthy and happy childhood. You can find out more about this on the Children’s Rights page of the Scottish Government website. Alongside this we have provided record levels of investment to Tackling child poverty- a national mission for Scotland^[6]. Research also shows that affordable, flexible and high quality ELC also supports parents to increase their earned incomes by facilitating access to training, learning and paid employment, which further supports our ambition to give all of our children the best start in life.

Funding Follows the Child (FFtC) is the policy framework that supports the delivery of ELC and ensures that the funded ELC entitlement is delivered in high quality settings. It is a ‘provider neutral’ approach, underpinned by a National Standard that all services must meet in order to be able to offer the funded entitlement. For families this means that they will be able to access high quality funded ELC with the provider of their choice, subject to availability. The criteria of the National Standard focuses on what children and their families should expect from their funded entitlement experience and ensures that a high quality service will be delivered. In recognition of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, FFtC and the National Standard is subject to Interim Guidance^[7], which allows local authorities to apply flexibilities to a small number of criteria.

Further Investments

Building on our targeted offer for eligible two year olds^[8], we have now set out our ambition to provide funded provision to all one and two year olds, starting in the course of this Parliament with those children and families who will benefit most. We are also committed to building a system of school age childcare, offering care before and after school and in the holidays, and supporting parents – particularly on low incomes – to have secure and stable employment. This offer will also reduce inequalities in children’s access to play and activities round about the school day. We will work with families, the early learning sector, and academic experts to understand the individual needs or these children and their families, and ensure families’ lived experience is reflected in the offer. We also want to learn from the implementation of 1140 and hear from stakeholders about opportunities and challenges around the new offer.

In the meantime we continue to work with partners and professionals to deliver actions developed as part of the ‘Strategic Framework for Scotland's Early Learning and Childcare and School Age Childcare Profession’, which includes our collective aims, vision and values through a set of actions to support a sustainable, thriving profession.