SNP childcare promise raises big questions – the party doesn’t want to answer them |
This article appears as part of the Lessons to Learn newsletter.
Well there we have it: MSPs have given their final speeches of the current Scottish Parliament, formal dissolution happens next week, and the electioneering has begun.
One of the emerging themes of the campaign seems to be childcare, with most parties looking to address what has become an increasingly prominent problem over the last couple of years.
It is only fair to point out that the SNP has improved early learning and childcare (ELC) in Scotland, expanding the number of ‘funded hours’ to 1,140 for all children aged three and four.
But there have been problems. Private providers have accused councils of distributing the funding unfairly, whereas councils have said that the shift towards independent services has put council-run nurseries under threat. Some areas have also changed eligibility rules in ways that cost families thousands of pounds, and the overall costs for some remain cripplingly high.
At the most extreme end of the scale, the reliance on new, for-profit operators, alongside a serious decline in inspection rates, could even be putting some children at risk.
According to John Swinney, the SNP has heard and listened to concerns. Speaking at his party’s recent conference, he said that if re-elected First Minister he will “extend childcare for every child in the country from nine months old to the end of primary school.”
This would be delivered as means-tested support for families (no universalism here) who would receive between £1,400 and £11,000 per year, at a total cost of around half a billion pounds.
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It is certainly an attention-grabbing position, but it also raises a whole host of important questions, the answers to which are crucial to understanding how these plans might actually work in practice and, therefore, whether the party is likely to be able to actually deliver on its pledge.
We have a rough figure for what this will cost, but more detail will be needed before we can be sure of the totals. How, for example, will that £500m bill break down? Will some of the money have to go on preparation costs, or for the construction of new facilities? How many of those public pounds are ultimately going to be alchemised into private profits? And given that we’re always being told that money is incredibly tight, where is the funding actually coming from?
We also need to know how the funding is going to be distributed. Will the government keep asking councils to manage the allocations? Perhaps they will adopt the sort of voucher model that would allow parents and carers to control how the money moves around the system? Or maybe they will simply hand over the cash to families and let them figure it out.
As for the actual childcare itself, how many fully-funded hours will be available from the age of nine months? This matters a whole lot more to most families than the amount of funding that will be allocated to them.
How will the provision up to the end of primary school age work? Are we talking about every primary school having a before-and-after-school club? If so, who is going to staff them, and do they all have the space? Or maybe the care for primary pupils will be provided by alternative, and probably private, operators – but in that case, are there enough of them for every child in the country, and how will things be organised?
The SNP says that provision will be ‘year-round’, but what will that look like? Right now the 1,140 funded hours are understood as covering about the same amount of time as pupils spend in school, so does this mean that the 1,140 hours are being further expanded as part of the ‘year-round’ commitment?
As for school-age pupils, it won’t just be a case of replicating before-and-after-school care during the holidays – provision will have to significantly increase. How has that been factored into the SNP’s sums?
John Swinney says he has heard the concerns about how the current system operates, but more specificity is required. What exactly has prompted him to accept that the flagship ELC model needs to be changed and expanded? What shortcoming and unintended consequences has he seen? Which struggles have convinced him that a rethink is needed?
If Mr Swinney wants credit for being an adult, hearing concerns, and acting on them, he’s going to have to tell us more about what those concerns were, who raised them, and how.
Finally, we need a deadline. These changes clearly can’t be delivered for the start of the new school year in August, so what’s the target?
Why does all this matter so much? Two reasons.
The first is that, barring a huge shock between now and polling day, the SNP are going to form the next Scottish Government. Whether they do so as a minority, in a coalition-style arrangement, or with another majority, their proposals are going to be the direction of childcare policy in the coming years.
The second reason is that the SNP has a horrendous track record for making, and then breaking, manifesto commitments around education, as well as a habit of causing problems by making big, expensive, headline grabbing promises that it cannot or will not fully deliver.
What the SNP are now offering could revolutionise childcare in Scotland, but the details matter. We can’t wait until after the election to get answers to important questions, nor should the public be expected to make do with a few lines of point-scoring snark during a televised hustings event.
We have asked the SNP these questions and received no details in response, just a statement that more information will be laid out in the manifesto – but the chances of that covering all of the above are effectively zero.
If the SNP is able to answer these questions then The Herald is happy to give them yet another opportunity to do so.
If they can’t, then voters should beware.