It is not the case that 10% of children are not registered to receive their entitlement to funded early learning and childcare (ELC). The 2023 ELC Census showed an estimated uptake rate of 97% for eligible three and four year olds, and an uptake rate of 52% for eligible 2 year olds. Improvement Service data from September 2023 showed that 98% of children registered for funded ELC were reported to be accessing more than 600 hours, and 90% of registered children were accessing the full 1140 funded hours. This is not the same as 10% of children not being registered for funded ELC.

Families are not required to use the full 1140 entitlement. A 2022 parent survey found that when families were not using their full entitlement, this was often through choice. Typically, they did not need or want the full entitlement, or decided they did not wish to put their child in nursery for so many hours. However, around a fifth of those not using the full entitlement said they could not get the sessions they wanted at their preferred setting. We continue to work with local authorities to ensure that funded ELC hours are flexible and accessible to families.

We committed in our Strategic Childcare Plan, published October 2022 Best Start - strategic early learning and school age childcare plan 2022 to 2026 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) to work with local authorities to maximise uptake of the existing two year old offer using new access to data on eligible families in their local area.

Since then we have finalised data sharing arrangements with the UK Government and established ‘datapipeline’ – a digital platform from which local authorities can access lists of households in their area that meet the majority of ‘qualifying benefits’ criteria and have a child of the relevant age.

From this data we have been able to produce local and national estimates of the eligible population of two-year-olds. This has allowed us to publish uptake rates for two-year-olds by local authority for the first time ( Summary statistics for schools in Scotland 2023 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) , allowing more transparency on the national picture for uptake for two-year-olds as well as informing local authorities’ own understanding of their uptake rates.

With support from the Improvement Service, we have held a series of webinars with local authorities on making best use of the new data and on access to funded ELC for two-year-olds with a care experienced parent.

We are also offering one-to-one support, through the Improvement Service, to local authorities that would like to work on maximising uptake of funded ELC for two-year-olds.

The Scottish Government’s latest Financial Sustainability Health Check was published on 31 July 2023. It collected data at a national level through provider surveys, and reported that 81% of funded Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) providers in the private and third sector were paying the real Living Wage to either all their staff or those delivering funded ELC.

The Scottish Government is working with COSLA and local authorities, including through the ELC Fair Work and Real Living Wage Implementation Group, to identify approaches to strengthen the evidence base on the number of funded ELC providers paying the real Living Wage.

The Care Inspectorate publishes annual statistics on the number of childminders operating in Scotland. The following table summarises published Care Inspectorate data from the last 10 years. The figure for 2023 is expected to be published in the autumn of 2024.

The Scottish Government is considering the approach to publication of the strategic framework and plan for the early learning and school age childcare profession in light of the new childcare commitments included in the Programme for Government 2023-24 and will provide an update in due course.

We are continuing to work with the Framework Steering Group and other partners to support delivery of the actions developed as part of the original plan. We have, for example, already developed a range of new learning resources, implemented a Protecting Vulnerable Groups (PVG) fee waiver, released new mental health and wellbeing resources for the workforce and will shortly launch a new national portal for professional learning.

We are also continuing to support the profession by providing local authorities with an additional £16 million to deliver the Programme for Government commitment to increase pay to £12 per hour for staff in the Private Voluntary and Independent (PVI) sector who are delivering funded early learning and childcare from April 2024. This demonstrates our commitment to the Fair Work agenda, as we remain the only part of the UK to pay ELC staff in the PVI sector the real Living Wage.

My officials and I continue to engage with relevant parties to inform decisions on future college governance arrangements in the Lanarkshire and Glasgow regions.

I met last month with the chair of the Lanarkshire Regional College Board.

Next week I am seeking to meet with the Principals and Chairs of the three Glasgow colleges.

I would hope to make an announcement in both cases, shortly .

The draft Budget 2024-25 confirmed that an additional £16 million will be made available to local authorities in year to deliver our Programme for Government commitment to increase pay to £12 per hour for staff in the private, voluntary and independent (PVI) sector who are delivering funded ELC from April 2024. The commitment will also be implemented in a fair and sustainable way for childminders delivering funded ELC.

The Scottish Government and COSLA will publish updated guidance for setting rates for 2024-25 shortly to reflect how the additional funding being provided to enable delivery of the £12 per hour commitment will be reflected in the sustainable rates that funded providers in the private, third and childminding sector will receive in 2024-25.

There could be a number of contributing factors relating to the differences of recorded Additional Support Needs (ASN) data between ELC and schools.

The 34% of learners who were recorded as requiring additional support in the 2022 pupil census represents a cohort of learners who have spent a longer period of time in primary, secondary and special school settings compared to ELC. The length of time children and young people spend in primary, secondary and special school settings combined with their individual stage of development, strengths, areas of need and circumstances provides increased opportunities to identify, understand and record their needs. It is therefore highly likely that there will be a higher incidence of reporting in school settings compared to ELC settings.

An additional support need can arise for any reason and may not be permanent. There is a wide spectrum of support that may be needed, from support to overcome barriers arising from health or disability, to support for social and emotional reasons. In addition, the factors which give rise to additional support are often interconnected. Children and young people may also have more than one type of additional need that has been identified over a period of time in primary and secondary settings. This means that the total percentage for ASN categories does not equal the sum of individual types of additional support needs.

Identifying additional support needs in young children should be a holistic and collaborative approach that is centred around the child. It usually takes place over a period of time, to take cognisance of the child’s individual stage of development, strengths, areas of need and circumstances. It should involve the gathering of information from varied sources in order to identify their needs and to suggest appropriate interventions, support and planning. This can include consultation which actively involves educators, parents/carers, the child and other agencies. This is often not achievable until primary or secondary school, and is another factor that is reflected in the differences in recorded statistics.

Scottish Government have committed to ensure that sportscotland’s Active Schools programme is free for all children and young people by the end of this Parliament. While there are still a small number of cases where charging remains, it is not currently possible to determine how many children this applies to.

The Active Schools Network consists of over 400 Active Schools managers and coordinators working with schools. This means that every state school in Scotland is supported by an Active Schools coordinator dedicated to developing and supporting the delivery of quality sporting opportunities for children and young people.

Data published by sportscotland in 2023 shows significantly increased participation levels across the past academic year (2022-23), with over 4.6 million visits (a rise of 34% on 2021-22) made to almost 247,000 Active Schools sessions. The number of Active Schools participants (over 269,000 children and young people), deliverers (over 17,900 with 90% of those being volunteers), and school/club links (over 2,500) also increased from the previous academic year as the recovery from the pandemic continued.

All of the test and learn projects in this phase of the Scottish Educational Exchange Test and Learn pilot were led by Scottish higher education institutions.

(a) 23 applications were submitted

(b) 2 projects applied for additional funding for cross sector projects

(c) 3 projects applied for the full £25,000 (in addition to those who applied for extra cross sector funding. The total amount applied for was £345,093.10