Council under fire after funding for free private nursery places scrapped

A SCOTTISH local authority has been criticised for scrapping free private nursery places for children in a controversial cost-saving move.

East Dunbartonshire has become Scotland’s first council to end new funding for private pre-school education for three and four-year-olds, with parents told their children will have to go to state-run nurseries.

The move sparked a claim from a senior Conservative MSP that the local authority was “strangling” private sector nursery provision as the funding squeeze continues to gripping public services.

All three-and-four-year-olds are entitled to 12.5 hours nursery education a week – worth about £1,500 a year to families – with the funds given to local councils through a Scottish Government grant.

However, East Dunbartonshire has this month opted to stop any new funding requests this year from parents for private sector nursery places, with children instead to be given their twelve-and-a-half hours a week at a local authority nursery.

A number of parents are reported to have been forced to turn down places at council-run nurseries because of the lack of full-time care and because they are not local to the primary school where their children would go.

Tory MSP Alex Johnstone warned yesterday that if other councils were to shift resources away from private sector to the state, that it would “reduce the quality of provision” and lead to soaring costs.

He said: “Anybody coming up with this sort of idea needs to look at the fact that public services which are privately provided are well below the cost of those delivered by the public sector.

“We only have to look at the examples of the care of the elderly and other contracted-out services to see how much better the private sector can do.

“When money is tight, some local authorities revert to type and seek to protect their empires rather than public services.

“Strangling private sector nursery places will reduce the quality of provision and lead to higher costs for local authorities.”

Labour MSP Jenny Marra, a member of Holyrood’s education committee, said that state nursery education should be the “preferred option” for Scotland’s 32 local authorities.

Ms Marra said: “The more state provision of nursery school provision the better, as it means we can do more to monitor the standard of teaching that’s being provided.

“State provision of nurseries should be the preferred option for councils, but it needs to be properly funded, as early years education is such a crucial area for a child’s development.

“But if funding for private nurseries is not replaced with properly funded state nursery place, then this would be a big problem area.”

East Dunbartonshire’s head of education, Gordon Currie, said that the authority would ensure that every child “has a nursery place” made available to them.

He said: “While we appreciate that the childcare needs of families can vary dramatically, the council was last year faced with the task of making £8.5 million savings and difficult decisions had to be taken to achieve this.

“The council still has places available in local authority nurseries and these will continue to be allocated according to the council’s admissions policy.”

Cosla, Scotland’s local councils body, said that any decision about spending on state and private nurseries was an “operational matter for local authorities”.

Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee councils last night ruled out ending private provision.