Scottish care rules 'favour public sector'

Patricia McGinty, a director of the Scottish Independent Nurseries'

Association (SINA) and director of Bishopbriggs Childcare Centre in Glasgow, said that the different ratios for sessional and full daycare would benefit local authority provision, as these settings were more likely to be offering sessional care. The staff:child ratio for three- and four-year-olds in full daycare is 1:8, whereas for sessional care - defined as up to four hours of the day - the ratio may be 1:10.

Ms McGinty said, 'This will benefit local authorities but it will make planning for us, for an integrated approach and staffing, very complex. What if you have a mixture of children who come in for a day, so their ratio is 1:8, and children who are in for four hours, so their ratio is 1:10? Also, this came in right at the end of the consultation process.'

Liz Gallacher, also a director of SINA and director of Claremont Nurseries, echoed the same point. 'We were promised a level playing field, and this is not,' she said. She pointed out that local authorities also had an exemption from the space requirements, which were introduced into the standards at the very last stage. The standards state that in nursery schools managed by education authorities, the school premises regulations will apply.

The 'input' standards, that is, those on adult:child ratios and qualified staff requirements, were first put forward in a letter circulated to early years groups and experts on 5 December 2001, which sought responses by 7 January, a period of time for formulating comments that straddled the Christmas and New Year period. Ms Gallacher said, 'It bothers me slightly that they consulted extensively at the beginning, and at the end they pushed it all through and people didn't have time to think.' She added, 'After all that period of consultation, there's not a huge amount of change.'

Irene Audain, director of the Scottish Out-of-School Care Network, said the standards were a 'major improvement' for the out-of-school sector. She welcomed the age range covered - the standards apply to care for children up to 16. The qualification requirements do not apply for care for school-age children at present, but SOSCN will recommend that out-of-school staff take qualifications nonetheless, Ms Audain said. She pointed out that in the long term, out-of-school workers will register with the Scottish Social Services Council, the body responsible for regulating the care workforce, which will require them to be qualified.

The standards require half the staff in a pre-school care setting to have a qualification specified in the Scottish Executive document Working with Children, that is at least a level 2 qualification, and set out the Executive's aspiration that all early education and childcare practitioners should be qualified or pursuing on-the-job training. It is understood that the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care, which takes over regulation from local authorities on 1 April, is aiming to achieve this within the next two years.