Childcare failings in Scotland revealed
Katy Morton
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Hundreds of Scotland's nurseries and childminders are failing to provide acceptable standards of care, according to inspection reports obtained by the Glasgow Herald newspaper through a Freedom of Information request.
The data shows that 224 nurseries and 111 childminders in Scotland were graded as weak or unsatisfactory in at least one category during their recent Care Commission inspection, with 20 of those graded 1 or 2 in all four quality themes.
Individual reports said that settings are dirty, in a state of unrepair and hazardous to children. Inspectors also found that settings are not meeting staff:child ratios and staff are unqualified and lacking in basic first aid training.
Despite this, a nursery has never been closed down directly because of Care Commission enforcement action since the regulator was established in 2002.
A spokesperson for the Care Commission said, 'More than 95 per cent of the 9,000-plus childcare services inspected last year were classified as satisfactory or better. This shows that a very small minority of these services are failing to provide acceptable standards of care.
'We give the highest priority to ensure that standards in poorly performing services improve and, in the majority of cases, these improvements are made. In extreme cases, where services continually fail to make progress, we will not hesitate to move to cancel their registration.
'In cases where grades of 1 or 2 are awarded in any quality theme, we look to make recommendations or requirements to ensure standards of care improve.
'Of the services which received grades of 1 or 2 in at least one quality theme that have since been re-inspected, nearly half have seen their grades improve.'
From April this year the Care Commission is to be overtaken by Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland, and under the regulations a nursery's registration can be suspended by a sheriff.
Bronwen Cohen, (right), chief executive of Children in Scotland, said, 'What it comes down to is that services are relying on how much money parents can afford to pay in fees. We can say we need better regulators, but we need to look at why nurseries are failing.
'Another issue is that childcare is still treated differently to early education with a low-paid workforce. We need to make services for the under-threes inclusive and follow the example of Nordic countries, in particular Norway, who have brought together all services and support them financially.'
