Equality and Social Justice Committee

Yes, I will start off. The first thing you should know is that it's in complete transition across the country right now. So, I'll tell you what it's been. First of all, Canada is a federation, so there are 10 provinces and three territories that have the responsibility for designing and operating all early childhood education and childcare programmes and other social programmes. So, we've never had a childcare system across the country. We've never had public funding as such; we've had bits and pieces of public funding. There have always been shortages and quality issues and so forth and so on.

So, there has been activity towards a Canada-wide quality programme for many years, but during the pandemic, when there was quite a crisis in our childcare provision due to closures and staff layoffs, and they were closed down for a period of time, the national Government, the federal Government in Ottawa, stepped in and announced that they would pull together a Canada-wide childcare programme, which they are able to do, and they actually committed quite a substantial chunk of money to get the process started over the first five years, and they're not permitted—. It's not custom for the federal Government to step in and manage a social programme like childcare, so it's more by what's called the federal spending power: 'Here's the money, these are the directions that we want to go in. Do you agree, provinces? Let's work on it together.'

So, there have been some major successes, but we're just really in the first phase. We have a lot of reflections on what has been done, what can be done, as well as having learned from many countries over the years. I think I'll stop there, but I will say that everything is in transition right now, so maybe that will make a contribution, actually; I think it may. And I guess I should say that different parts of the country are in different stages of development, so you may have heard that Quebec is further developed, and Quebec is a bit of a special case within Canada, which is what allowed it to develop further. So, I'm sure we'll have some questions about that, and I'll just leave that very complicated story right there.

Very good. I should have said, Martha, that we have, obviously, all read your paper, which is extremely useful at giving us some of the detail. So, it's really just to probe why you did X rather than Y. Jane Malcolm, could I bring you in in terms of how integrated childcare is going in Scotland, because you're a bit further along?

Of course you can. A bit further along, yes. In 2016 the Scottish Government committed to doubling funded childcare from 600 hours up to 1,140. That would be 30 hours term time, or 22 if parents decided to take it over a full year, and that was to be done by 2020. Now, obviously, that didn't happen because of the pandemic, so it kicked off in 2021. It's universal, so there are no criteria, all children are entitled—all three and four-year-olds—they're all entitled to that funded childcare. We have eligible two-year-olds; however, that is linked to benefit criteria at the moment. It's a small number, it's not that well taken up at the moment. However, they're looking at how to expand that later.

Basically, they said that the principles of it are quality, flexibility, accessibility and affordability for parents. That sometimes works, sometimes doesn't work, and I'm in no doubt we'll get to those issues later. We did have legislation in February 2021 that allowed parents to defer their children's moving on to school, and that would have that one-year funded continuation of their funding. The Scottish Government, which I'm sure you can appreciate is having a few difficulties today in the Scottish Parliament—I'll leave that there—basically, they've committed to expanding the two-year-old offer to a wider criteria to try and encourage more uptake with the two-year-olds.

It's been working for about two years now, we're moving into the second year. There are issues around funding, workforce. It's devolved to 32 different local authorities, so I'm sure you can imagine that's a bit of a challenge, because they all have different ways of doing things, and the Scottish Government have their criteria for them delivering the childcare. That's a very brief summary of what it looks like, but it's a good policy. I don't think there's anybody that doubts it's a good policy; the delivery of it is the challenge.

In terms of your top line of the aims is to improve children's outcomes and help close the poverty-related attainment gap, how successful have you been in enabling people from less well-off families to ensure that they are getting this valuable service?

I think it varies in different parts of Scotland. I've no doubt we'll get on to rural and island communities later—that's a bigger challenge, because there's maybe not that accessibility, it's maybe more difficult for people to get access. In the towns, Edinburgh, Glasgow, it's probably been more successful. Obviously, the Scottish Government have the child payment as well, which adds to that and supports that, but, yes, I think it's a real mixed picture across Scotland.

Very good. Jane Dodds wanted to ask a question.

Thank you very much, and I want to ask my question in Welsh. So, thank you very much to you both. Just go back to Scotland and ask how do you measure or assess the childcare provision and the poverty situation as well? Are you seeing the impact of that, and how are you seeing that impact?

I'm going to drop my headphones just for a second. We have a system in Scotland called SEEMiS, where they measure what's actually happening in terms of how many children are in childcare and how many hours are taken, and that sort of thing. We also have Growing Up in Scotland, which is a longitudinal study that's been carried out with, I think—. They're on several cohorts now, where they're following children through different age groups. And that's one of the ways that the Scottish Government are measuring what the impact is from policies like the early years policy. So, they gather lots and lots of information around that and the Scottish Childminding Association, which is the sort of childcare system, feeds into that, as well. And that allows us to work out what the outcomes are for children, because they do different age and stage surveys with these children, but they also look at families and they look to see the impact on poverty and workforce.

Okay. Can I ask, Martha, obviously, the Childcare Resource and Research Unit has got social justice and tackling poverty as part of its remit, so how successful do you think you can say that the Canadian model is at addressing that poverty attainment gap?

Well, let me answer that in a couple of parts. First of all, we don't have coverage of childcare; we have a low coverage of childcare—children who actually have a place, even though we've reduced the fees drastically to make them more affordable, and that would be true across the country. I wouldn't say that they're entirely affordable everywhere, because that process isn't finished, but it's a lot better. But, if you're looking for regulated childcare, let alone quality childcare, we are not anywhere near there yet. And because we haven't had an intentional policy about where childcare is located, for example, it's less likely to be found in low-income communities.

So, I guess what I'd like to say about this is that we—and I think everybody—regard access to quality childcare as a piece of reducing poverty—letting mothers go to work, letting children have a positive experience. But we can't say yet that we are in a position to have made childcare accessible, particularly to more marginalised families. I mean, our data is actually not very good on this, but a piece of work that I did fairly recently did look at newcomer families who are very—. There are many newcomers in Canada; we have a lot of immigrants to Canada. Racialised families, indigenous families and low-income families generally, generally have lower access to regulated childcare for a variety of reasons, although that was never the intention. So, I guess I would answer that I would say it's mixed. We've made it much more affordable, but not completed that process yet, because there are families who can't afford anything, and we haven't really completed that piece yet, but we certainly haven't tackled—. We are in the process of tackling intentional expansion where it's needed, which we think is an important piece of the policy, and, of course, that's being hampered by the issue of the childcare workforce, and I think this is true everywhere, that it always was difficult to get and retain people to work in childcare—qualified, educated, early childhood educators—partly because of the low wages and the poor working conditions. The pandemic has made that more difficult, so I would say that that's a work in progress. I don't know if that's a good enough answer, but we are not yet serving—. Our goal is universal, inclusive, quality childcare for everybody, and that is very uneven at this stage of development. I guess I'd say there's a lot more to that. It's not intentional, but it hasn't been developed well enough yet.

Okay. Just before I move on to Maria Jürimäe from Estonia, could I just ask, you say that eight provinces or territories have already moved to a maximum fee of CA$10 a day. Is that still a barrier for those who are living in poverty?

Yes, it is. I should say that every province and territory has a programme underneath that that subsidises the fees for lower income families, but those programmes have always had a lot of gaps in them, so it's not yet well enough developed. I mean, if you could see something that started at zero and went up to a maximum fee, which is what the CA$10 a day is, then you could see that process. So, that's what I mean: that there are programmes to actually support lower income families, but there might not be any provision of childcare that's available to them, and, also, it might still be too expensive for them to be able to afford. So, I guess what I'm saying is that I think that the policies that we still are carrying over from the old days—the market days—take a long time to work through. If you look at countries with well-developed systems, it just takes working on many other pieces for some years and pulling them all in the same direction. So, I guess my answer is 'yes and no'.

Work in progress. Thank you.

Yes, a work in progress.

I'd like to welcome Maria Jürimäe from the University of Tartu in Estonia. Obviously, Estonia has been on a massive journey, starting from a very low base to now having, probably, the best early years education service in the whole of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries—certainly one of. So, I wondered whether you could just tell us what you're able to on what impact it had on closing the attainment gap based on poverty that you'd get normally.

Thank you and hello from Tartu, Estonia. Firstly, I would like to say that, actually, our early years education has much stepped forward, but it has been quite nice already for 100 years, because we had some kindergarten already before the Soviet time. During the Soviet period, when it became totally 'all women working and all children to a kindergarten', then, luckily, in Estonia we had some people from our first republic, from the 1920s, who had studied near Montessori and Froebel, and all of those things, and our kindergartens were, even in Soviet times, quite child centred. Soviet programmes were very prescriptive and—[Inaudible.]—and so on. At school, we had to adopt Soviet programmes, but, in kindergarten, and I don't know how they managed it, the programmes were written by local ladies from our first independence, so they were quite child centred and play based.

How do I know it? Well, because my mum was a kindergarten teacher and kindergarten teacher trainer, and I know that those older ladies taught us those forbidden songs. We had this double culture, so when we got independence, actually, we didn't need to reinvent the wheel; we just went back openly to those old values, and I think that's why our kindergarten is nicely child centred; it's educational, but it has never been a small school. In Estonia, children from two to seven go to kindergarten, because our mothers can be at home until three and they won't lose their jobs, and for the first one and a half years they get the full mother's salary. If they save a bit, for many months, they don't need very early care.

We still have some places, like private places, still for early care, but kindergarten usually takes children from one and a half or two to seven, and 94 per cent, or something like this, from four years old, and 97 per cent at six or seven, attend. It's not free, of course, but, compared to some other countries, in smaller places it can be €60 or €70 per month, and in towns it could—it depends on the kindergarten—be €110 or €140. It's something that's quite affordable, actually. Eating is included, and it's a whole-day kindergarten, so they can go from 08:00 to 17:00 or so; most of the children don't, but some parents need it. If people have some problems, like they've lost their job or they're in poverty, then the local municipality will pay entirely for those children, so the parents don't need to pay anything.

Okay, so, where somebody needs extra help, then it's completely free. Excellent.

Yes, they need to apply.

Obviously, they need to apply, but assuming they have met that need, then it's free. Excellent. I'm going to call Jane Dodds now. We think Maria has translation, but we're not certain.

Well, I'll try to ask my questions in Welsh and just see if Maria can understand.

Maria, are you getting translation? Excellent. Very good. Go ahead, Jane.

Excellent. Therefore, if it's okay, I want to ask the three of you, from your nation, what are the best elements in this area, in the childcare area, that perhaps Wales could learn from? What do you think are the best elements with regard to your policies in this area? I don't know who wants to go first.

I think we should take Maria first, in case the technical—. Maria, and then we'll go to Jane.

Do you want to go first, Maria?

Do you want to go first?

Okay, I can start. I think, in Estonia, it's the culture of early care and education. It's a nice mixture of those Froebelian play-based ideas mixed with now Reggio Emilia and all those child-centred things, and at the same time very strong foundations of passing out the culture, as in your case, like our language and all those things that are almost sacred, and all those things and emotions and songs. Not so much even literacy, but emotions connected to reading and having those nice attitudes, I think, might be one of our keys to getting higher results at PISA later, building those things at early years. Also, I think that we have very good kindergarten teachers. Many of them have Master's degrees, and some of them even have doctorate degrees. They are smart ladies.

Very good. Shall I call in Jane Malcolm?

A lot like what Maria was saying, I would say, in Scotland, we've got a very strong play-based, child-centred approach to childcare. Obviously, we've just had the UNCRC incorporation Bill turned into an Act. We're looking to that happening in July. I would say the early years in Scotland, early learning and childcare practitioners, have been delivering that real child's-rights approach for many, many years. That is something that I think is a very strong aspect of our practice in Scotland. Our underpinning policy, GIRFEC, which is getting it right for every child, is a rights-based approach to anybody that's working with children, which really makes a strong base for practice.

The other thing that I would say is that we do have that highly qualified workforce as well, but, alongside that, we also have the Scottish Social Services Council, the SSSC—it makes our life easier to say that—which allows for registration for the workforce. So, you cannot work in childcare in Scotland without having the right qualifications for the role that you're in. That support is really strong in continuous professional learning as well. So, I think having that—having people who really understand what it is they're doing and why they're doing it for children—and having that real focus on child development as part of that CPL and part of the training, really, really help make it a good place for children to grow up and learn, as we would say in Scotland.

Martha.

I guess I would say that a lot of the best things we have are the intentions and the directions, because it's very hard to say about Canada that, 'This is the way it is.' In a way, Wales is like a province, essentially, in the sense that you have, in your Government, our federal Government and our provincial Government together. So, let me just emphasise that. One of the things that I think is a very positive thing is that we're in a position, because it's taken so long for Canada to move from this mixed market that we have trying to make it into more of an accessible system, is that we can observe what other countries have done, and even what some parts of Canada have done, and this, I do think, gives us a lens on what to do and what not to do.

I really want to emphasise that one of the things that I do think we have in the direction, is that we understand that it's really a complex policy. It's not just about giving parents money, or getting money to parents to enable to them to use childcare for a certain number of hours, but much more to develop the services that people can actually use at a fee that they can afford, essentially. So, we see it being a process, and I do think that this has been accepted as the policy direction. There are many pieces to it, as you have to enable parents to use it financially and you have to make it inclusive of all Canadians, which is really mixed, as I said. Culture is very important for some, and very important, for example, for the indigenous communities, so that it has to be their programme and they have to shape it—that's not only cultural, but political in Canada, and constitutional—and that it will move forward incrementally in that way, but that it's necessary to do that. And this is from observing other countries. Otherwise, if you just leave it up to parents who are now financially enabled to use childcare, and you don't develop the services, and you don't develop the workforce, you won't end up with a system that people can use. So, I think that's one of our advantages and one of our best characteristics.

And I guess the other thing I wanted to say is the emphasis on inclusivity, which is very Canadian. It not only would extend, as it does in early childhood education, to children with disabilities and other special needs, but to cultural inclusion, as I identified before, so that it would be people who are more marginalised—the idea is we're all in this together. Canada's a pretty egalitarian country—we really strive for that. And I think that that's a very important part of going forward with developing a proper system. I think those are our best assets. They don't make it simple, but I think that they're worth it.

Thank you very much. And then may I ask also about the financial situation in your nation in this area? How do you pay for this, please? I don't know who wants to go first.

Maria, would you like to go first?

In Estonia, it's mostly covered by local municipalities, but they are getting money from state taxes, and then they can make their own budgets. And also parents pay, but it's really moderate, monthly. In most of the places in Estonia, it's less than €100 per month, so it's not very bad.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Jane, in Scotland.

In Scotland, the initial budget comes from the Scottish Government. That is set at Scottish Government level, and then it's devolved down to the local authorities, so the local authorities then have the responsibility of delivering the early learning and childcare policy. So, that funding is then given to each local authority, and they work with providers, who become their funded providers through contracts—they develop a contract with them—and that funding is then given to the settings.

Parents don't have access to that funding, they don't hold that money at all; it's all claimed between the provider and the local authority. That's for three and four-year-olds, and there are no top-up fees added to that fund, that amount of money—that's what they get for 1,140 hours. They have a sustainable rate for each local authority. And, as I said at the beginning, we have 32 local authorities, so we have 32 different funding rates, and some cover what's required, some don't cover what's required. So, a lot of the gaps in the funding—and we think there’s about £1.25 of a gap on average—then have to be paid for by our one and two-year-olds who are not covered by the funded rate. So, we do have that slight inflation of those rates, which makes it more difficult.

Where our concern is, we’ve had a commitment from the Scottish Government that they will expand the one and two-year-old offer to make it a wider offer to more parents, to include more children, but in doing that, if we take away that opportunity for providers to charge rates for one and two-year-olds, we will then have a bigger problem with funding. So, as I said earlier, we really think the policy’s a good policy for parents, but, with the funding, there are a lot of issues around the funding in terms of making sure it covers what providers need to provide that high-quality childcare that parents should expect.

Thank you.

And then, Martha—

I think you touched on this a little bit.

Before we had the new policy, which began in 2021, we did have public funding from each province and territory that actually funded programmes. So, I’m not talking about any money that went directly to parents. That was rated the lowest amongst the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries in a UNICEF report in 2008, actually. It was one of the lowest public funding for children zero to five. There’s this benchmark that’s always been used by the EU of at least 1 per cent of GDP for children zero to five for EC programmes. So, we were at about 0.03, actually.

With the new funding from the federal Government, the way that works is it’s done on a per capita basis, and a share of it goes to each of the 13 provinces and territories, based on population. They devised the way to use it by flowing it to programmes to operate. So, none of this money is demand side that goes to parents.

Now, each one of them has come up with their own scheme for how they fund services in their province and territory, and so that would mean funding them to make them much more affordable for parents, which was required. It also requires expansion. It also requires raising the wages and working conditions of the childcare workforce. So, even though it was a huge amount of money when it was announced in 2021—. This isn’t Canadian dollars, so to translate it into euros would be maybe about half, more or less. It was $30 billion over a five-year period and it accelerated over time to account for expansion. It's apparent that it’s not enough. It’s certainly double what it was. It’s huge. It’s enough to work with, but it’s not really enough to adequately address the workforce issues nor the expansion issues—such things as capital funding for building new facilities.

Since that time, the federal Government, actually just in the last budget a couple of weeks ago, announced capital funding that will work the same way, and that is still being sorted out, exactly how that’s going to work. But I guess it’s obvious when you look at, actually, the amount of money, has it even reached 1 per cent of GDP in terms of public money? It hasn’t yet. It probably shouldn’t in the very earliest days, because you need to use the money effectively before you put all the money into the system.

So, again, it’s a work in progress. The way the money works is from the federal Government, to the provinces, to the service providers. And I should just mention in there one thing is that one of the stipulations from the federal Government was that the expansion should be for public and not-for-profit service providers, and that was a big part of it. I wouldn’t say that that’s going extremely well, but it is even part of the legislation. But that, again, is being worked out, on how that’s going to happen. We think that’s an important piece of it, and that it’s an important piece of the public policy.

Thank you very much. And then a last question from me—

Oh, Maria, did you want to add something? Yes.

Also, in Estonia, the money doesn't go to parents; it goes from municipalities to those kindergartens. And most of them are still municipal, but some are private kindergartens that have made an agreement with the local municipality. And to get this state and local support, the kindergarten has to meet special criteria, like having an educated workforce and environment. So, it can go to parents only when they have built a nice private kindergarten in their host centre, offering it to some—. And it sometimes happens in very small places, but it's very rare.

Thank you.

Thank you. And the final question from me. Are there, in your view, any particular gaps in policies in these areas in your nation? Who would like to go first? Martha. Thank you.

I think there are many gaps in our policy that are all being—. As I said, it's a work in progress. So, I think that there are gaps around, once somebody gets to the provinces, to the services, exactly how it's used, because it's still patchwork. So, it's essentially being used to replace what were parent fees before, which are not zero—they're much lower. And some of it is just money that's add-on. For example, across the country there is recognition that the wages of the educators need to be raised, but a lot of that has been done as add-on to budgets, even though it's a quarter of the budget. So, I think that we need more work on financial policies, how that works. I think we need more work on exactly how we're going to support the workforce, because we know what the issues are, we know what the problems are, but haven't quite figured out yet how to deal with them in a systemic way.

And I guess the other thing is that we have lots of bits and pieces of programmes. I should mention this—I guess I didn't say this before—that we also have, in addition to licensed and regulated childcare, kindergarten across the country, which was always a programme for five-year-olds for 2.5 hours a day. So, it's a programme entirely for children. It wasn't for mothers or parents' labour force participation. We now have an increasing number of four-year-olds in that programme, in what we call kindergarten programmes that are under the school system. How they come together with childcare, which is under different ministries, is—. It is known that they should be working—. We should have integration, and their efforts at that, and there's a lot of childcare located in schools, but it's still a very patchwork programme. It's, 'Here's a programme for this purpose and a programme for that purpose', and I think we're still trying to bring them together.

We have many gaps in policies, which isn't surprising because this programme has just started, and if you look at countries that have mature systems like Denmark, for example, a lot of these countries, it's taken them a decade or 15 years to build a system. Our aim is to build a system, and I think that that would be—. I mean, I'm not Government—I'm not the federal Government at all—but I think the aim of the federal Government is to build a system that's high quality and accessible to everybody.

Thank you. Jane wants to come in.

Hi. Yes, I think there are a couple of things—well, there are quite a few things—in the Scottish policy, firstly around workforce. You'll have read in my paper about the commitment from the Scottish Government for £16 million further, to pay that £12 to all providers in private and voluntary organisations. That in itself, whilst it was good—it was a good thing to come along—at the time it came along it was to pay what we call the real living wage, but the real living wage has gone up to £12, so actually it should be covered by that funding rate anyway. So, it's not really additional funding. So, we've now got providers who are in a position of still not having enough to be able to pay their staff that £12.

We've also got local authorities who can't meet that level because they've got their own budget constraints. So, there's an issue around that. Even with that £12, we've still got a huge gap in terms of what people in the same role are earning in local authority settings and what they're earning. And coming back to the children's rights, the UNCRC, that's going to be something that we can question, because is a child who is in the local authority worth more than a child that's in the private sector, given it's a local authority provision that they're both in, effectively? So, there's a real issue around that. Just as an example, a full-time early years officer can earn up to £36,000 in the local authority, whereas in the private sector it's closer to £30,000. So, you can see that there is a big gap there. So, that's one of the things. And having that funding hasn't resolved problems. So, it's how do we actually look at what the underlying problems are in terms of the workforce, not having enough people coming through that pipeline, which is something that we're looking at.

The other thing that we have a real issue around is that local authorities both provide the childcare but they also procure the childcare, and that causes a little bit of tension, because private voluntary settings who are providing that childcare question how can one organisation provide and procure it. Part of our policy is that the provision is provider neutral, so that should allow for parental choice. So, if a parent chooses to have a child in a private or voluntary organisation, because they want childcare all year and they need it from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. or whatever, they should have that opportunity. But that often doesn't happen in local authorities, depending on the provision that they have themselves—you know, is there enough provision around to make that provider neutral? And that goes for child minders as well. We also have child minders in the mix to make that blended childcare.

So, yes, those are two bigger issues. We have that funding issue every year—there's just not enough. We've got 70 per cent of our members who tell us that the sustainable rate is just not enough; it's never enough to cover what they actually need to cover. So, there are a lot of things there, and it always comes back to money; it always comes back to that funding and how you actually provide that. I'm sure Wales will be the same, but the Scottish Government are really struggling in terms of financial budgets. So, yes, it does unfortunately always come back to funding. But those I would say are our major issues in Scotland at the moment.

Thank you, Jane. Right, I think we need to move on to Buffy Williams now, or we're going to run out of time.

Thank you, Chair. I think you've all, basically, answered my first question, so I'll move on to my second question, and that is to Jane. Your paper says that, in Scotland, Government funding does not cover providers' costs, and that an unsustainable level of funding is causing settings to close. This issue has also been raised with us by witnesses from Wales. So, can you outline what potential solutions or funding models might be required to address the situation?

Yes. One of the things that we would suggest, the NDNA, is that we would have—. Obviously, we can't have a national funding rate because different local authority areas require that different funding, in terms of whether you are rural, or whether you're inner city. One of the things that we've suggested to the Scottish Government is that we have a childcare account, so that the parent is in control of what funding—. So, the parent has that, and what our account idea is, or the childcare passport, as we call it, is that any of the other funding, like the childcare choices funding, or your tax—your childcare tax—all that money that you would have, could come into that account for the parent. They've not got access to the actual money, but the money is sitting in that account for them. So, that would allow for that real provider-neutral choice. They could then, if they wanted to take some of their hours in a local authority setting, some with a child minder, that would be made easier.

One of the major issues we are facing at the moment is cross-border places. So, we have some children who will come from West Lothian Council, for example, and their parents work in Edinburgh, so the parent wants to take a place in Edinburgh. However, the City of Edinburgh Council have now said that they won't pay for private and voluntary cross-border places. So, you then have real issues for the parents—how do they get their funding, where do they get their funding, what local authority? Whereas if they had that childcare passport then they would be able to take that funding wherever would be appropriate. So, it's almost taking out that level of the local authority. So, it would take away that problem with the local authority actually providing the childcare and procuring the childcare, because it would come directly from Scottish Government to the childcare passport.

Thank you, that's really interesting. Thank you for that answer. My next question is to you all: how are different aspects of early years education and care provision integrated in your nation, and what policies do your nations' Governments have in place in relation to this? And we'll start with Martha, please.

I'm finding it a little—. Could you repeat that? I'm finding it hard to hear. It's not clear, that's all, I'm finding. Sorry.

It's okay. Can everybody else hear me okay?

A little bit quiet. It was a little bit quiet.

Is that better? I'm trying to—.

Yes, that's better. It's very indistinct. It was very indistinct, actually.

Okay. So, let me repeat it. How are you—? What is your strategy for integrating early years education and care, in your nation? You've touched a little bit on this earlier, but it'd be useful to—. What is your strategy for, or what is the federal Government's strategy for, integrating them?

Okay. I'm not sure the federal Government has a strategy for integrating them, but let me tell you how one could integrate them. Kindergarten in our country is not intended to be childcare for working parents; it's always intended to be early childhood education for children. Even though a lot of it is now a full school day, it really doesn't take parents' schedules into account. And we have wraparound programmes, but some of them are for children as young as three, and that might not be the best thing. I mean, I would envision—and I think other people, policy experts working in this, to actually—. One possibility—. It would work better to have a programme for four-year-olds and a—. You know, that children were not in multiple programmes. So, I can envision making the kindergarten programmes more suited to covering parents' schedules across the board and having childcare be for younger children, and after-school programmes for school-age children, which is the way it now is.

I think that there's a really mixed bag, and, in that happening, children fall through the cracks, parents fall through the cracks. I don't think that there's a clear policy yet on how to integrate them, but I think that among the thinking amongst policy people would be that a lot of the policy would actually be simplifying what's available, instead of having multiple programmes, so that parents—. You have parents taking their children from one programme to another programme, or programmes picking children up at the kindergarten half day to take them to the childcare, and I think that those are the kinds of things that need to be worked out.

I just want to say that I wanted to say something when Jane was talking. Can I say something in response to what Jane was saying about—? I'll leave it, because I really don't—

Yes. I think come back to it, because we're running out of time, so—

But that's what I think. I think the thinking is that they really need to be simplified so that there's clear coverage across the board, and that there are not all these multiple innovative programmes that get started as bits and pieces all the time. We have lots of innovative programmes, but then they end up creating a lot of difficulty.

Okay.

So, I guess what I would say is they need to be simplified and integrated and made more available.

Okay. Jane—briefly, please.

Yes. We describe ours as early learning and childcare, so it's all one. They don't go to different places, they're all—. You go into nursery, whether that's local authority or whether it's private or voluntary, and it's less about teaching and more about early learning. Unless it's a school—if it's a local authority setting, you would have an early years teacher—but, in the private and voluntary sector, we have early years pedagogues. So, we have people with childhood studies degrees, childhood practice degrees, so they have that early childhood development. That's why it's early learning and childcare; we wouldn't separate the two out. We have practice guidance in realising the ambition, and that's for zero to up to eight, and then we also have the overlap of the Curriculum for Excellence, and underpinning all of that we have GIRFEC, which I was talking about earlier, Getting It Right For Every Child. So, it's all about that early learning and moving the children. So, it's less about teaching in those early years. I hope that's helpful.

And Maria.

I agree with Jane. In Estonia, it's similar. Early learning and care, it's from two to seven. We call it kindergarten, but it's not like school—learning maths by dice games, learning literature by just the telling of stories and nursery rhymes and whatever—and right now our governmental policy is that, because kindergarten usually starts at two, then from one to two we have some private care centres, but they now would be integrated into this early care and education system and they also need to prepare curricula, and they are a bit nervous about how to do it. But, actually, from the very early years it's easier, but then the state can provide that those people also have some better qualifications and preparation to work with young children.

Okay. Thank you. My next question is to Maria also. Could you tell us—? The mixed system that you've just mentioned in the kindergarten, could you tell us what benefits this system provides, please?

This system, it's considering the development of young children, because parents can bring children there from 8 a.m. in every kindergarten, and some groups are even open from 7 a.m. for parents who go to work early, and then until 6 p.m. and sometimes until 9 p.m., one group is, for a kindergarten. So, actually, it's the whole day, but these playing and learning activities are mostly child-initiated, child-centred, like they're building some castles or whatever. It's not like small lessons, but teachers have been thinking about it and they are tracking it and doing pedagogical documentation and so on. So, I think it's quite a nice system. Some parents, of course—. After lunch, they have this nap time, and some parents take their children home, but most of them have a long day, and so it's—. Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thanks. Carolyn Thomas.

Just further to that, can I just ask: does it work better, or are they usually based around education settings, the wraparound childcare in each country? So, in Estonia, your kindergarten for two to seven, is that—? I suppose that doesn't matter, because that's quite a long period of education, but I'm just thinking, in Scotland or in Canada, just for that wraparound care and transporting children between settings and, as a parent or a guardian, making sure that it's consistent, is it better around the school or education setting? Could I ask Jane first? I think she put her hand up.

Yes. I would say that we tend to have parents who will drop children at nursery, at their private nursery at, say, 8 o'clock in the morning, and then with some children we have blended places, blended placements, so some children will be taken to a local authority nursery for a few hours and then go back to the private and voluntary nurseries. That's often done. There will be several children, perhaps, who will do that. Quite often, parents will move their child to a local authority nursery in the year before they move to school so that they can get used to friends that they might have in their class when they go to school, but then they go back. But often they don't; often they just stay in the one setting because they have links with the schools. And if they're in the local authority, again, there's that reciprocal—they'll take them back to the voluntary nursery if that's the blended placement that the parents want for the child. So, I think the way we have it is it's very easy for either; there's not a better one or the other. The settings work together.

Okay. Thanks, Jane. Martha, have you got anything to add on to that?

Yes. I think that the point of the model would be—. I mean, for one thing, we have parental leave, paid parental leave, which isn't—. It's far from perfect, but the norm is about a year, and then there's some things around the edges—more taken by the mother. It's rare to find babies in childcare under a year now in Canada; it wouldn't be the norm. So, it would generally be that the parent would be trying to find something that goes up to the time the child goes to kindergarten as part of the school system. I just want to say for sure that when we say 'kindergarten as part of the school system', our kindergarten tends to be play based. It's not very didactic. In general, that's true, and in general we have pretty good curriculum frameworks for both childcare and kindergarten. It may not be the same, but they're in the same direction. They tend to be constructivist programmes. But that's the direction it's going in.

I think the problem is that a lot of parents are still patching things together because they don't have many options. So, the kind of thing that Jane is describing, where they take them from one thing to the other, may not be just voluntary on the parents' part. Maybe that's all they can do. So, I guess what I'm trying to get across is that we're trying to make sure that there are enough places that can accommodate children, where the settings are relatively common in terms of what their goals are and what their methods are, but it's not really in place yet. The ideal would be that a child would get an affordable, good-quality space that's play based, that carries a child up to the time of school. That programme might be able to accommodate the children around the edges of kindergarten, like at the end of the day. It might have, but rarely would have, extended hours, the kind of thing that I think Jane was talking about, that goes to 9 o'clock—there are some. So, I think what we're trying to do is move it in the direction of more integration, more commonality, more consensus about what a good pedagogical approach is for young children. And I should say that the general prevailing view in Canada is that the purpose of early childhood education is to build a better baby so they do well in their future schooling and life. I think it's much more consistent. This is the prevailing view that Jane and Maria are describing.

To make it a bit more realistic about Estonia, yes, we have this nice, child-centred kindergarten, but in our major towns, like Tallinn especially, we have some schools that parents think are better, and then those schools—. It starts around seven, and they offer some preparation classes for four and five-year-olds. Some parents take their children from kindergarten and leave twice per week for those classes. They are paid. And, actually, they won't guarantee that the child can study in this school, but parents think, 'At least I have done everything I can do.'

We have that too.

I was just going to say we have that too, but I would say we've been working really hard in Scotland to try and bring parents along with the idea that the children don't need to be able to read and write before they go off to school. That's something that will come later. It's that early emergent literacy and numeracy that's important.

Can we move on to Peter Fox now?

It's fascinating to listen to you. I want to just explore a little bit around your systems and how they tackle inequalities and address barriers to access. So, I was just wondering, which aspects of your systems, or in Martha's case past systems, have been most successful in contributing towards supporting children from deprived backgrounds? Martha, do you want to come in?

Let me start. That would have multiple parts. One would be financial accessibility, which we've tackled but not finished, as I said. It would be physical accessibility, that there has to be a programme—I would say a good-quality programme—particularly for children who come from deprived backgrounds. I think that's the place where we are now. It's not that we're falling down; all the intentions are to do that, but it just hasn't happened yet. In order to do that, you have to have some concept of planning where childcare services are going to go. I've been part of doing some research on childcare deserts, and we have whole areas, much bigger than Wales, that are complete childcare deserts, where there's no regulated childcare at all. Parents make do, and they use all kinds of unlicensed care, though they may not want to, and so on. We regard that as an important part of making a universal system—that you have to make it for everybody. And that might mean different things with different groups of people. As I said, with people from the indigenous communities in Canada, there’s a big cultural element, and an autonomy in terms of guiding the programmes element. So, I think we’re making steps. I think there’s recognition, but it hasn’t happened yet. I think the next couple of years are going to be critical for making those things happen.

Just stretching that same question into additional learning needs and disabilities, would it be that same sort of process you've got to undertake?

I remember when the OECD reviewed Canada as part of the thematic review, I wrote the background paper. We identified inclusion of children with disabilities, in particular, as something, in a sense, that is a strength. It’s not perfect, but there has always been a strong recognition that this is a key part of running a quality programme. There’s a lot of work that’s done on inclusion of children with disabilities or related special needs—not inclusion of diversity and so on. I think that that’s a strength, but, again, it doesn’t extend to everybody. It’s relatively well done. It’s not that it’s in hand, but there is policy to accommodate that in some variation across Canada. Again, it's not a finished story, but it’s a recognition, and there's quite good work done on inclusion.

Thank you, Martha. Maria, perhaps the same question for you. What are the aspects of your system that would help most in supporting children from deprived backgrounds, but also, perhaps, from the additional learning needs and the disability side of things? And then we’ll come to Jane straight after. Thank you.

We didn’t have any kindergarten deserts after the Soviet time, because we had a network of them. But right now, actually, in very small places, sometimes we have problems like a kindergarten for six children and can we find an educated teacher for them. So, it may arise. But mostly, with those children from deprived families, they put the children into kindergarten when they are two, or even one and a half, because the mother's salary ends. And our kindergarten teachers are aware that the first year is the most important, but you can do a lot until three, and when they get the environment and speech and books and care, then, I think, actually, it can be one of the keys that our 15 years are good, that most of our children reach this.

But what about inclusive education? It has changed a lot compared to the Soviet time, because, then, those kids were separated into special institutions. Now, for 30 years, we have done more and more inclusion. But I think there’s still a long way to go, especially the inclusion of the non-Estonian speakers, because our kindergarten teachers have a lot of freedom, but it means, also, that we have had, until now, Russian-speaking kindergartens, and they are culturally quite different, and this kind of inclusion can be challenging.

And Jane, the aspects of your system that have been beneficial.

The Scottish Government, at the moment, are funding six local authority areas as early adopter communities. That's looking at all-age childcare. So, it's looking at childcare from nine months up to school-age childcare, so that would be up to 12. The local authority areas have been supported to find solutions for parents in a few of the areas in Scotland that are areas of deprivation. We're looking at areas within inner cities—so Glasgow, Clackmannanshire, Dundee—but we're also looking at Shetland, so we've got that kind of city centre, but we've also got the really remote parts of Scotland, where there's not a lot of childcare, and there are issues around staffing. One of the solutions has been to have a qualification that will cover somebody to be able to work in social care and in childcare, and that's one of the things that they're about to start piloting. They've developed things like that so that you could perhaps have one person that does a breakfast club, but then they also go and work in social care and then back to the after-school club. That's one of the things that we're looking at.

One of the other things that we have is the access to childcare fund. That fund was really looking at settings within these local authority areas. That included after-school clubs, it included child minders, it included private nurseries, and local authority nurseries. So, there were grants given to, I think, 15 different settings, groups or organisations within these early-adopter communities, and that was to allow them to find solutions to things like access to childcare—how do we provide that childcare in a way that parents can afford. Obviously, it was done in line with the 1,140 policy, but thinking about that kind of wraparound—how do you support families that need that wraparound? So, if they need all-year childcare, they're only going to get 22 hours a week that's funded. So, what do we do about the rest of it? This access to childcare fund has worked with different settings and different organisations to address different issues. It's very much in a pilot stage at the moment. They had four adopter communities for the school-age childcare and child minders, and we've just had two new communities added from the programme for government, just this year, and that's looking at early years. So, that's looking at how they add that early years element to it. Hopefully, that will then bring in the one- and two-year-old offer as well, around the eligibility criteria. So, it's about trying to maximise the access and the affordability for parents. We're in a position of waiting to find out what the result of that pilot is at the moment. But hopefully that should be something that will be really useful.

Thank you.

Thank you. Can I bring in Sioned Williams now?

Thank you, Chair. It's so interesting to hear all three of you speak of the process that your nations have been through in terms of expanding childcare and early years provision over the last few decades, and of course this work is currently under way in Canada. So, can I ask you what benefits there have been—? You've mentioned already some of the challenges, but what benefits have you seen in terms of this expansion in general in your different nations?

I think, for parents, it certainly has been a huge difference. We hear parents saying that getting that funded childcare is—. As far as they're concerned, it's free, because suddenly their wages have been freed up. They have that opportunity to do things with their families, so both parents can work, or maybe they can work part-time. So definitely, it's a benefit to the parents. There are issues around funding and around places, but on the whole, I think it's been a great thing for parents in terms of lifting people out of that poverty-related gap. There's a whole set of challenges around the business side of it and around actually delivering the policy, but if you ask parents—. The Scottish Government did a survey and it came out saying that the parents, on the whole, were happy. I think there are issues around additional support needs—challenges that we still have to address—but again, as I said earlier, that comes down to funding. It comes down to how you actually provide funding to local authorities to be able to support providers and parents. But on the whole, I think it's definitely achieved what it set out to, in terms of supporting parents.

What about children and the educational outputs for children?

Absolutely, yes. In terms of the children, as I said earlier, we have that rights-based approach for children, and we are seeing improvements in early literacy and early numeracy for children going forward to school. So, yes, definitely for the children as well, and that whole social aspect. There were issues coming out of lockdown, obviously, in terms of there being a lot of children coming forward to nursery who hadn't, perhaps, been in that social aspect, but we are starting to see children thriving again.

Maria, would you like to mention that? Clearly, Estonia is doing very well in educational terms. How much of that do you think comes down to the system that you have, the childhood education and provision system that you have?

I think actually the roots are certainly in early care and education, and it benefits, as has been said already, both children and parents, because in Estonia, most of the mums are actually working. We don't have many stay-at-home mums, but even these mums put the children, at three or four years old, into kindergarten because of social things, and also most of the mums are not so good—maybe they are good at storytelling, but not in early maths or art activities. In each Estonian kindergarten, they have a physical education teacher who has a special background in physical education, a music teacher who has a special background in music. And it's something that, actually, we have a big problem to provide, especially in those small places. So, we have now an idea—not me, but our Government has an idea to change the law so that it is not obligatory anymore. And some are fighting against it, but some say, actually, that it's a fact that we already don't have those specialists in small places anyway. But, yes, I think this early development, holistic development, is very important to future learning.

Is there anything in this respect to do with health, health outcomes, and mental health that you've seen that are related to the provision that you have in Estonia—things such as child health, obesity, the mental health of children? Have you done any work or have you seen any work around those issues?

I haven't seen those, but we have some research from our university that those who are doing things like physical education and then language and cognitive things, and those children who are active in childhood, are more active later, and also later more so they're better in maths and reading and so on. I think kindergarten is a place where children can be active. We do have some digital devices, but we have the smart learning pen without a screen. They are not sitting with films in kindergarten, or apps, or whatever. And so they are playing actively and they spend a lot of time outdoors, climbing and running and whatever. And I think, in some houses, some parents let them just watch tv or play on a computer, and so kindergarten can help to minimise those bad things.

Okay. Very good. Carolyn Thomas wanted to come back in.

Can I just ask a question, please? So, kindergarten is from three, but did you say earlier that parents can be at home until three years of age and get their full salary until the child is one and a half? No. I thought I might have written it down wrong.

You said it right, they can be home at three and they won't lose their job but they get paid for one and a half years. So, it depends how parents combine those things. Many go for part-time work when the child is one and a half and put them part-time into kindergarten or care, and then later, when they are three, they go full-time.

And do you have any child limits? So, a two-child limit, a three-child limit? Is there a child limit on—? No. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. I just wanted to come back to recruitment and retention, because, clearly, Estonia have done extremely well on ensuring that you've got a highly trained workforce. Apart from money, which is the obvious, is there anything that either Scotland or Canada could tell us is a strategy for improving the status, if you like, of the workforce? So, Martha, do you want to go first, briefly? And then I'll come to Jane.

Yes. I mean, I guess the conception is improving the work, but first of all, our qualifications aren't that high, as high as Estonia's, and we would like to raise them. But at this point, we would be happy to have people who are qualified, wanting to work in childcare. So, that being said, really, the conception is that the wages need to be raised, and they have been raised somewhat to different degrees, but not enough.

And then there are a lot of working-condition issues that people raise all the time. I was just in a two-day meeting about this—things like working as the only qualified person in a toddler room, for example, is a working-condition issue, or not having support staff to clean. Things like that are all working-condition issues that are important. Not having career ladders, or educators with lower diplomas doing the same job as somebody who's gotten a Master's degree.

So, when I say there are a lot of workforce issues to be worked out, it's not just the pay—it's all these other issues that have to do with recognition, how the programme is supported and so on. So, again, there is a recognition of that; there are changes being made, but nobody has got a magic formula yet at this point, but there is work being done on it at a national level amongst the officials and amongst the community. There's a lot of work being done on the workforce. The workforce is the core of the programme, and unless the educators are decently paid, happy, have good working conditions, and trained for the work that they're doing, it's not going to be very good quality, and then it's not going to be very good for children.

Okay. Jane Malcolm.

So, setting aside the wages issue, because we know that there is a gap in terms of private, voluntary or independent and local authority, we do have, as I said to you earlier, the SSSC, the Scottish Social Services Council, and you cannot work in childcare without being registered, so you're registered as a support worker, a practitioner or a lead practitioner. So, you then get that professional status, in terms of a lead practitioner will have a degree—there are various different degrees that they can hold—and your practitioner will have a practitioner qualification—again, there are various different ones—and your support workers are the trainees, and the apprentices. So, we have that in terms of professional status, that you are registered with a professional body.

We also have things like NDNA, which are about to launch the institute for early years education, and, again, that is something that is going to support that professionalism, and it's going to give practitioners and the workforce something—that they can say they are a member of the institute. So, I think that we are working towards, and the Scottish Government are doing a lot of work with their workforce strategy—. At the moment, things are really tough in terms of budgets, so a lot of the things on that strategy are—I wouldn't say they're cost-free, but we're looking at different ways of actually raising that profile without spending too much money. So, there are lots of different ways that we are—.

In terms of issues that we have, it tends to be the pipeline; it tends to be the actual having people, bodies on the ground, to come into childcare that you would want to be working with children. So, NDNA have—. I'm sure you'll have heard of NDNA's Childcare Works programme in Wales, and we're literally—it's been very successful in Wales, but we've now launched that in Scotland. So, hopefully, we'll try and replicate that success to try and bring people into the pipeline that have that want and desire to work in childcare.

Very good. Thank you very much. Sioned, last word to you, because we have run out of time.

I just wanted to ask, on that point, you say in your paper—it's a question for Jane—you say in your paper that you want to see the Scottish Government delaying things before further expansion. Is this due to what you've just outlined about this pipeline, about this issue with the workforce? Is that the main reason?

Yes. In terms of the one- and two-year-old offer, we would like to see them slow down and fix the issues that we have with the three- to four-year-old offer in terms of workforce, and in terms of funding. If we start to need to have more staff on the ground, qualified staff, our argument is we hear that the first 1,000 days of a child's life are the most important, so why, suddenly, have we got our highest qualified staff with the four-year-olds? Because that's where the money is, that's where the policy has gone. We're arguing, actually, we need our highest qualified in those first 1,000 days. But, at the moment, if we just rolled out the way it's gone with three and four-year-olds, we'd see that there would be a drop in quality, I think. So, we want them to slow down and just say, 'Right, let's really iron out the problems at that three- to four-year-old level, before we start just rolling it out to the one- and two-year-olds.' I think Martha said about not really having babies; we do have babies. We have babies in from six months, so we want to have the best staff working in that environment, and some of the baby rooms that I've visited recently are astounding. They're fabulous, the babies are content and you can see that they're just engaged, and we want that for every baby in Scotland.

Thank you very much indeed. Thanks to all three of you for sharing your ambition and your achievements. We'll send you a transcript of what you've said. Please check it to make sure that we haven't misheard you. Otherwise, we thank you very much indeed for your contribution to our inquiry. The committee will now take a short break before the next session, which will start at 3.30 p.m.

Thank you.

Thank you, all.

Bye.