PRIVATE nurseries are being “ignored” under plans for a significant expansion of free child places, campaigners have warned.
The National Day Nurseries Association Scotland (NDNA) called on the Scottish Government to include more private establishments in pilot schemes set up to assess the roll-out.
The SNP has already announced plans to increase free early learning and childcare to 1,140 hours by 2020 from the current level of 600 hours.
Ministers claim the move will help close the attainment gap between rich and poor and announced £60 million funding this year to begin the work.
However, funding beyond 2018 has not been confirmed and there are concerns council-run nurseries will not be able to cope with the demand both in terms of facilities and additional staff.
Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of NDNA, said ministers should look at harnessing the private nursery sector.
She said: “The private nurseries we represent make up a significant proportion of providers in Scotland and they are experts in offering the flexible childcare working parents need.
“These nurseries are crucial to meeting demand which is expected to be very high, but we haven’t seen enough private and third sector nurseries fully involved in the pilot schemes announced so far.
“Private nurseries need to have confidence that they can deliver this policy sustainably and see whether the funding is sufficient to cover their delivery costs.”
Sharon Fairley, owner of Little Flyers childcare, who contacted The Herald to raise similar concerns, echoed the call.
She said: “The government should work with all private early years providers because many are currently not working in partnership with councils.
“This would allow time to assess if additional council provision is needed, avoiding an immediate impact on extra cost for buildings, resources and staffing.”
A spokeswoman for the Fair Funding For Our Kids group of campaigning parents added: “Being given a nursery place for half a day makes no sense for working parents so until council nurseries provide the full-day places most working parents need, we need private nursery places to be available.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said the commitment to increase free early learning and childcare was its “most transformative infrastructure project”.
He added: “The programme of expansion trials, launched last year, will test various models of delivery for the expansion and help us better understand how we can increase the quality and flexibility of provision, based on what children and their parents need and want.
“A number of trials feature partnership working with third and private sector providers as a means of increasing flexibility.”
Amongst the pilots already announced include a scheme in the Scottish Borders to introduce extended days and cover for school holidays.
There will also be a “stay and play” scheme for two-year-olds in Aberdeen and an extended woodland play area scheme in Edinburgh.
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