COUNCILLORS have agreed an overhaul of early learning and childcare provision in East Ayrshire – with an overall annual saving of £1 million.

East Ayrshire Council's cabinet considered the best value service review of the provision last week.

The review has identified around £1.4m of savings, with many of the services that have previously operated 52 weeks a year moving to a school term time service.

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From this saving, the council will invest £394,000, with the remaining £1m in savings used ‘to bring it in line with the budget allocated to the service’.

The investment aims to improve pay to childcare providers and early learning providers, which are among the lowest in Scotland.

The investment includes:

  • Increase for funded childcare provider rates
  • Use £168k to cover overspend
  • Use £100k to invest in payments to cross-boundary funded providers and childminders to support increases to the hourly rate
  • Use £54k for enhanced rates for funded providers who support children with assessed complex additional support needs.
  • Use £20k from balances to invest in Early Learning Centre meals, which will provide a total budget of £1,355,100.

All areas of early learning and childcare will undergo a consolidated self assessment and identify further improvement actions across the service.

The report reveals that East Ayrshire Council currently pay the lowest hourly rate among the 31 local authorities who have provided figures.

It states: “The hourly rate in East Ayrshire has not increased, apart from the recent 7.6 per cent uplift, since August 2021.

“Therefore, it is recommended that the revised hourly rate for academic year 2024-25 is increased for academic year 2024-25 as follows:

  • For funded providers an increase from £5.92 to £6.00 for three-five year olds
  • and £6.15 for two year olds.
  • For childminders an increase from £5.12 to £6.00 for three-five year olds
  • and £6.15 for two year olds.

“The proposed increase to the hourly rate would result in additional annual costs of £32,000  based on the number of children accessing funded ELC at August 2024.”

The recommendation around requests for assistance sets out plans for new guidance ‘with a structured limitation placed on a number of spaces, hours and the level of need to accommodate requests in order to support a sustainable budget’.

A consultation of parents of Early Learning Centres was carried out in 2022.

The report said: “We launched our statutory consultation during April and May 2024.

“This was issued to 2,062 parents and carers via social media and appropriate channels.

"There were 674 (33 per cent) returns with 636 (94 per cent) from parents and carers who currently have a child or children attending or have applied for a funded early learning and childcare place in an ELC, funded provider and/or childminder.

“The consultation confirmed the levels of satisfaction with the funded ELC offer in East Ayrshire was high with the majority of parents and carers noting that the choice and flexibility of the offer met their needs.”

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Councillor Elaine Cowan, cabinet spokesperson for education, and children and young people, said: “Evidence shows that the poverty related attainment gap starts well before children start school.

"Reducing child poverty is a priority for the council and one of the key ways of doing this is to ensure that parents and carers have access to flexible childcare to help them train, study or return to work.

“Moving forward it is vital that we now utilise our resources to timeously match our workforce with service demand, to ensure the council meets its statutory responsibilities to deliver 1,140 hours of funded early learning and childcare to all three and four year olds and eligible two year olds and fulfil its duty to provide day-care for children in need.”