Expansion of funded early learning and childcare to 1140 hours: 2018-2025 national outcomes evaluation

Footnotes

1 Please note that for brevity, the term ‘parents’ is used here and throughout the report to refer to both parents and carers.

2 Scottish Futures Trust highlighted that, “even though not all capital projects are operational, 1140 hours has been being delivered by all local authorities since the statutory deadline of August 2021. This is partly being delivered through robust contingency plans or transitional arrangements which have been put in place to ensure continued service delivery until the remaining projects are complete. The remaining projects… will also provide increased flexibility and accessibility in line with the original vision of the expansion.”

3 In September 2018 local authorities reported that 1,195 two-year-olds and 9,983 three- to five-year-olds were accessing more than 600 hours of funded ELC, while in September 2019 local authorities reported figures of 3,674 two-year-olds and 45,488 three- to five-year-olds.

4 During 2018 and 2019, the Improvement Service reported on the number of eligible children receiving more than 600 hours of funded ELC against forecasts, see e.g. Early Learning and Childcare Expansion Delivery Progress (December 2019).

5 It is possible that a service may offer several different types of care and learning e.g., a nursery may also provide out of school care provision in the form of a breakfast club. For the purposes of their statistical reporting, Care Inspectorate assign services to one of the categories of main service provision. This is based on information supplied by the services in their annual returns. Further information on definitions can be found in Early learning and childcare statistics 2024, Appendix 1 (p35).

6 Capacity is defined by the Care Inspectorate as the maximum possible attendance in a service at any one time, measured by number of available ‘registered places’. For example, a registered place could be filled by a different child in the morning than in the afternoon.

7 The number of children a childminder may care for is limited by regulation according to the children’s ages. When working on their own, the maximum number of children a childminder can be registered to care for is six under 12 years, with no more than three not attending primary school and no more than one being under one year old. These numbers are inclusive of the childminders own children whether they are present or not

8 In a Report on the Movement of Day Care of Children Staff in June 2023, SSSC undertook analysis of data from the SSSC register in 2021-22 to examine the movement of registrants in daycare of children services. This analysis has not been repeated so the 2021-22 analysis is the most recent available.

9 Until 2007, the Scottish Government set a minimum advisory ‘floor’ level of funding for local authorities to pay to partner (funded) providers in the private, third and childminding sectors. From 2007 to 2017, local authorities set their own rates for partner providers. During this period, the approach to setting rates varied across local authorities – with some electing to uplift rates from the previous floor in line with inflation, some at a higher or lower rate than inflation, and with some rates remaining at 2007 levels.

10 Setting managers were asked to complete the online questionnaire at Phase 4 – when data was collected on eligible two-year-olds – and Phase 5 – when data was collected on ‘ELC Leavers’ aged four and five. The Phase 5 results are discussed here as the sample was larger. In Phase 5, 271 setting heads completed the online questionnaire: 78% from local authority settings and 22% from private or third sector providers.

11 See also a recent survey of settings by the National Day Nurseries Association: Nine in ten UK nurseries are struggling with NMW increases ahead of the Budget - NDNA.

12 Although HMIE can inspect childminding services delivering funded ELC, HMIE choose not to inspect childminding services at this time and such services, therefore, are only inspected by Care Inspectorate.

13 Care Inspectorate data provide information on the quality of ELC services. Until 2022, settings were graded based on four ‘Quality Themes’: care and support, environment, staffing, and management and leadership. In 2022, the Care Inspectorate launched an updated quality framework for daycare of children, childminding, and school age childcare settings that focuses on children’s wellbeing. Five ‘Key Questions’ replaced the quality themes, with four of these directly linking to the previous four quality themes. In 2019, the Care Inspectorate moved away from a frequency model and took a more focussed intelligence-led and risk-based approach to inspection. In addition, the Care Inspectorate suspended their normal inspection programme in March 2020 in response to Covid-19 protective measures. Full thematic inspections were only carried out between 2020 and early 2022 on a risk and intelligence basis. In addition, a proportion of better performing services are inspected each year. The figures provided in the Care Inspectorate ELC statistics are based on the evaluations held by services as of 31 December 2024 and many of the services will not have been inspected for a number of years, in line with the previous frequency model. These points should be borne in mind when interpreting the data on quality gradings.

14 This is also true for childminders who wish to deliver funded ELC (childminders register, as a service, with the Care Inspectorate). General Teaching Council Scotland registered teachers who work in ELC are not required to also register with SSSC.

15 For more information, see: Publications | Scottish Social Services Council

16 The number of survey respondents with a two-year-old who were not using funded ELC was too low in 2025 to make this comparison.

17 Take-up figures for eligible two-year-olds were included for the first time in 2023, so data is not available for earlier years.

18 While Improvement Service collected data on ELC delivery from 2018, figures are only comparable from August 2020. Additionally, the total number of children eligible for funded ELC increases throughout the academic year as more children become eligible. The summer term, starting in March/April, is the last statutory intake period in the academic year. The Improvement Service has implemented various adjustments to the data collection process to improve accuracy of returns, which may affect comparability over time.

19 This figure was arrived at by calculating an hourly rate (£5.30) using the figures reported for the price of 50 hours a week (paying for 20 hours) of childcare in a nursery for three- and four-year-olds in Scotland in the 2025 Coram Childcare Survey (£105.88 for 20 hours per week) (See Table 6, page 18) and multiplying it by 1140. Note that these figures are based on an average and that childcare costs faced by parents are likely to vary considerably, particularly due to location and provider type.

20 Latent Class Analysis (LCA) is a useful tool that can be used to understand ‘latent’ concepts or ‘variables’. It is a powerful, theory-driven approach that helps to make sense of categorical responses, or groups of responses, such as those that have been collected in the SSELC parent surveys. A LCA approach was used to support understanding of family wellbeing.

21 Statisticians at the University of Glasgow, working with PHS, used a LCA approach to identify qualitatively different subgroups, using unobserved subgroups within the data based on patterns of responses, using the ten questions.

22 The profile of eligible two-year-olds has changed since the 2014 Act first introduced a duty on local authorities to provide funded ELC for this age. In 2017 and 2019 a technical change was made to account for the roll out of Universal Credit. Eligibility was expanded to include children of care-experienced parents in 2021.