Seòmar agus comataidhean

Good morning, and welcome to the 20th meeting in 2022 of the Finance and Public Administration Committee. Before we move to our first agenda item, I put on the record my thanks to members of the Senedd Finance Committee for attending the first interparliamentary finance committee forum here at Holyrood last Thursday. I also thank committee members for their contributions to that meeting. I look forward to continuing to share experiences and co-operate on common issues as the forum develops in the months and years to come.

Under agenda item 1, we will take evidence from two panels of witnesses as part of our post-legislative scrutiny of aspects of the financial memorandum for the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill. I welcome our first panel. Sarah Watters and Matthew Sweeney—Matthew is attending virtually—are from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, and David Robertson is chief financial officer at Scottish Borders Council. Good morning to you all. We will move straight to questions.

One of the interesting things in the vast number of documents that we were provided with for this meeting is the statement that

“On 25 June 2021 COSLA Leaders agreed that from 2022-23 a single standard formula should be used to distribute funding”

between local authorities. I am quite astonished that that has not happened before now. Is it going to happen in the current financial year?

That was to be my last question, but I have not really had a good answer to why there is such a variation in the hourly rates across local authorities.

Yes, but has there been an underspend or not? Has more money been allocated? We do not see anything to say that COSLA looked for X, that it got Y and that it should have had Z, Z being more than Y. In fact, from the figures that we have, it looks as if there have been underspends each year.

There were clearly overestimates of the number of children who would qualify. I find that bizarre given that you know how many three or four-year-olds you will have in the population from when they are born. A few might move around districts or the parents could emigrate, of course, so there will always be an element of flexibility in the figures. However, there seems to be a significant overestimate of the number of children, which has meant an overallocation of funds and more money being available than has been required. Is that the case?

That concludes questions from the committee. I thank the witnesses for their evidence. We will continue our evidence taking on post-legislative scrutiny of aspects of the financial memorandum next week, when we will hear from the Scottish Government. That concludes the public part of today’s meeting.

The next item on our agenda, which will be discussed in private, is consideration of our work programme. We now move into private session.

I welcome our second panel of witnesses, who are Jonathan Broadbery, director of policy and external communications at the National Day Nurseries Association, who will be attending virtually; Graeme McAlister, chief executive of the Scottish Childminding Association, who is attending in person; and Jane Brumpton, chief executive of Early Years Scotland, who is also attending in person.

We will move straight to questions. My first question is to Mr McAlister, who provided an excellent and detailed written submission from which several things jumped straight out. It refers to the early learning and childcare expansion’s

“devastating effect on the childminding workforce in Scotland which has declined by 26%”.

That is about 1,450 childminders, to put it into a more human context. Can you talk me through that?

We heard from David Robertson from Scottish Borders Council that the number of childminders in that area has increased, so clearly there must be some areas where there are no issues and other areas where there is a really difficult problem. Could you tell us what some of those issues are and where they are?

Hold on a second. The figures that we have suggest that 97 to 98 per cent of parents have applied for the provision for three and four-year-olds. Only 50 per cent have applied for eligible two-year-olds, which is of course an issue, but the figures for older children are extremely high.

Matthew Sweeney wants to come in.

Thank you very much. The first of my colleagues to ask questions will be Liz Smith.

I will ask a final question before I open it up to colleagues around the table. I ask you each to answer quite briefly. I asked Jane Brumpton whether she believed that there should be a standard rate across the country, and she said yes. Earlier, we heard that COSLA believes in local contracts, local decision making, flexibility and so on. We understand that, as several former councillors, including me, are members of this committee. Do you feel that the sector is in a more vulnerable position because of that, or do you think that local flexibility is right? If you feel that local flexibility is not right, what role—if any—do you feel that the Scottish Government should play?

The Scottish Parliament information centre has said:

“It is not clear how any concerns around the accuracy of the financial memorandum estimates were reflected in the initial allocations for the expansion of ELC, or how later allocation methodologies have been developed to reflect variation in models of delivery.”

Is that a fair assessment?