National Childcare Providers Forum minutes: May 2025

Attendees and apologies

• Scottish Government Officials
• Almond Park
• Little Flyers Childcare
• Aberdeen City Council
• Childminders
• Flexible Childcare Services Scotland 
• Klascare
• Scottish Social Services Council
• People Partner Scotland 
• Tarbert After School Care
• Stepping Stones for Families
• Wellside Kindergarten
• Unite Childminding 
• Scottish Outdoor Learning Assosciation 
• The Saturday Cafe 

Apologies

• Indigo Childcare

Items and actions

Welcome 

The Chair welcomed the group and noted formal apologies. 

Actions and minutes from previous meetings 

Members agreed the minute of the last meeting. No comments or amendments were made. 

Scottish Government updates  

The Chair provided an update on the Programme for Government 2025-2026 noting the following: 

• continued investment to pay staff delivering funded ELC in the private and third sector the Real Living Wage
• continued commitment to the SCMA Programme for Scotland’s Childminding Future to support childminder recruitment and retention
• working with the Early Adopter Communities to deliver affordable and accessible childcare
• expansion of the SFA Extra Time Programme to 53 clubs to provide before and after school provision as well as holiday provision for primary school children

The Chair also highlighted some new commitments within the Programme for Government noting the following: 

• investment in work to support early intervention in speech and language. The Scottish Government will publish an Early Years Speech and Language Action Plan for Scotland in Autumn 2025
• investment to support holiday playschemes and activities provision for children with a disability

The Chair provided an update on the National Standard. The Scottish Government (SG) are working closely with inspectorates to update the National Standard to reflect the new shared quality framework. The updated National Standard will be available in Summer 2025.  

The Chair updated on the ELC Cost Collection Exercise. The Diffley Partnership are preparing for the launch of the survey at the end of May. Forum members will be updated by email about the launch. The Chair thanked all members for their input so far and encouraged members to continue to engage with the exercise. 

Update on SSSC Survey findings  

Kristina Robb from the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) joined to provide members with an update on the findings from the recent “leavers” and “have your say” surveys. 

Kristina highlighted that 2025 was the first time the surveys had been run and SSSC will be looking at learning from this experience.  

Older workers and those who had been on the SSSC register for longer were more likely to respond to the survey. Retirement was the top reason for leaving the sector and there was a high turnover in younger groups of staff. Poor terms and conditions and alternative career opportunities were noted as a reason for leaving the sector. 

The “have your say” survey aims to hear about experience of people working in the sector. This will look to inform workforce planning and policy development. Slides have been circulated to members which contain a selection of the detailed responses. More information can be found in the survey report. 

SSSC are working on the next steps which include: 

• updating questions to gather more focused data
• researchers are looking at extracting more detailed findings,  the SSSC will continue to engage with the sector on the findings  

Members were interested in the findings and highlighted the importance of showing the sector that we are listening to and taking on board their feedback. 

Members raised concerns around pay being a factor for leaving the sector. They also highlighted the Real Living Wage is not enough to encourage people to stay in the sector. There were further concerns about the high numbers of young people leaving the sector. 

Actions to support the ELC profession 

The Chair welcomed Scott Sutherland and Victoria Bruce from the SG ELC workforce team to provide an update on work to support the ELC profession. 

The team has received excellent feedback on the pilot of new HNC qualifications. We anticipate the qualifications will be rolled out from August 2025.  The ELC team is also piloting a new programme with Skills Development Scotland, with a view to facilitating staff to access paid time off the floor.  

Member feedback was positive about the new qualifications. Members also highlighted the challenges around opportunities for newer members of staff to learn from more experienced colleagues, given staff turnover in the sector.  

Some of the key challenges the team are focusing on are pay, workforce planning, learning and qualifications and streamlining access to support and guidance.  The team’s priorities for 2025/26 are included in the slides which have been shared with the group. 

By the end of 2025-26 there will be national-level arrangements to supplement local authority processes for monitoring payment of the Real Living Wage to staff delivering funded ELC. 

Members highlighted that they could not attract experienced staff as they believe the Real Living Wage is not enough. 

Members flagged that the current qualifications lacked child development modules. The team explained the new qualifications addressed this and will include modules on play pedagogy, ASN and child development. 

Members noted that they were losing out on experienced staff who had gained qualifications out-with Scotland which were not recognised. It was discussed that there are numerous transferable skills gained from other qualifications and if additional modules could then be completed this would be a more attractive option to potential staff rather than having to complete a new qualification. 

SSSC are currently in discussion with SQA on assessment standards. Kristina committed to working directly with settings to explore options further. 

Early Adopter Communities update on emerging learning and new developments 

SG provided a brief update on the focus of the work the Early Adopter Communities (EACs). 

There is a focus in the EACs on learning and understanding the needs and complexities of providing childcare for families. 

The Early Adopter team had a deep dive with the Minister for Children Young People and The Promise. This gave an opportunity to take stock of learning so far and highlighted the need to develop creative childcare offers for the communities the team are working with. Janet highlighted it was helpful to gain an understanding of the unique challenges in rural areas through the current work underway in Shetland. 

Any other business

No items of any other business were submitted or discussed. 

Actions 

• Kristina Robb to continue to engage with members on SSSC survey findings
• ELC workforce team to continue to engage with members on workforce challenges and qualification requirements
• secretariat to circulate minute and confirm date of next meeting