Inside the childcare funding crisis in West Lothian

Earlier this year, West Lothian Council made the decision not to allow 1140 hours of funded childcare for children who go to private nursery in the local authority catchment area, but do not live there.

It has left hundreds of families with no childcare as their places are lost and they scramble for whatever options are left.

Louise Licznerski runs Little Bugs outdoor nursery near Abercorn. The decision to stop funding private places for those who live outwith West Lothian means she has lost 65 children from Edinburgh or Falkirk council areas.

“I would say we are the most affected nursery by the cross boundary decision,” she told Scotland on Sunday.

“We’ve seen a considerable drop in our numbers which has hit us financially, and the most harrowing thing is we will have to put those costs onto other families.

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“The real living wage has gone up, National Insurance contributions have gone up, and we need to have legal adult-to-child ratios.

“Some of the children affected are now not going to nursery at all because of the waiting lists.

“For one of our families, this is the second time this has happened because Edinburgh Council did the same thing.”

Then, the father was forced to give up his job to look after his child.

She said it is creating a “postcode lottery” between those who can and cannot afford the fees.

Ms Licznerski said: “It is having a hugely detrimental impact on our children and on parental choice.

“What’s absolutely devastating is some are now paying completely private fees that are more than their mortgage.

“The thing that boils my blood is the 1140 funded hours was supposed to be about equality and helping to close the attainment gap, but now the wealthiest families are able to send their children to a unique setting and other families who live in flats and don’t have access to the outdoors can’t afford it.”

Ms Licznerski has a second nursery in Fife, which some members of staff have had to transfer to because of the drop in numbers in West Lothian. She said if she did not have a second site, there would have been redundancies.

While the council still funds cross-boundary childcare for children going to local authority nurseries, Ms Licznerski says this often does not suit working parents as they are often term time only and only open from 9am until 3pm.

One of the parents affected is actually a member of staff at Little Bugs - manager Rebecca Morris had to pull her three-year-old son Finlay out of the West Lothian site and move him to Fife.

Ms Morris said: “That’s changed his friend group and his routine, and he is not the only one. It’s created a lot of logistical management, which is not fair on parents.

“It should be the parents’ choice where they send their kids, and that has been taken away from them.”

Andrew Carr runs First Adventures nursery in nearby Linlithgow, where more than 100 children have been hit by the new funding rule by West Lothian Council.

“One family needed to be near where the mum works, and that’s now been taken away.

“Another needed somewhere on her way to work. One is now having to drop siblings off in different places.

“Parents are now at short notice having to find alternative childcare arrangements which don’t suit them.

“At our own expense we are now providing the equivalent funded hours for some children because it is the right thing to do, and we are not alone in that decision.”

While nurseries locally have been campaigning against the council’s decision for the last few months, the National Day Nurseries’ Association has now taken the cause to the Scottish Parliament with a petition.

Hannah Murison from the association says the government must ensure parental choice is respected when it comes to getting funded hours for their children.

She said: “We know some parents are putting their children down on waiting lists in West Lothian before they are even born, sometimes before they’ve even reached viability in pregnancy, because choice matters to parents.

“State nurseries don’t meet working families’ needs because a lot of them are term-time only and then only open 9am until 3pm. If parents wanted a nursery like that for their child, they would have chosen that in the first place, but that choice has been stripped away from them.

“We have had families losing their jobs because they’ve lost their childcare, and that can be traumatising. So many families are being plunged into uncertainty because they rely on childcare being funded.”

West Lothian Council, however, has defended the decision, saying it is facing a financial crisis “of a magnitude which has never been experienced before”.

A spokesman said: “With the ongoing financial challenges faced by the council, this recent decision was based on the need to prioritise West Lothian Council resources for West Lothian’s children and families.”

They said the guidance means the council must secure funded childcare hours for children residing in the council area, but there is no duty on them to do so for other children.

The spokesperson added: “West Lothian has significant capacity within the early learning and childcare sector and we recently closed eight council nurseries due to oversupply of places, in light of falling birth rates and ‘funding follows the child’ which has resulted in greater number of parents choosing to use funded provision with private providers.

“It is worth noting that had the measure to remove funding for non-West Lothian children not been approved, alternative savings within the early learning and childcare budget would be likely to result in further council nursery closures within West Lothian.

“This would likely have resulted in a greater number of parents having to access early learning and childcare at a different venue.”

They added they want the Scottish Government to carry out a “root and branch review” of the guidance.

This is an issue the Scottish Greens have been campaigning on for some time. Gillian Mackay MSP, the party’s co-leader, said: “It is unacceptable for young children to be forced out of the nursery they attend and have to start over somewhere else, because of a decision made by West Lothian Council to cut all funding for cross-boundary placements.

“The disruption that these kids and their families face could have been completely avoided if this had not happened. It has resulted in parents being forced to pay private fees to retain their space in preferred nurseries or find somewhere else, despite being promised funded childcare spaces.

“Take for example, some parents who live near me in Falkirk, but work down the road in Linlithgow - these changes now mean their child isn’t able to attend nursery near their workplace because of the new rules.

“Childcare provision in this country should be equal for all, but it continues to remain a postcode lottery. Funding must follow the child, not the council area, and it must be flexible and available to every child who is eligible.”

A spokesman for the Scottish Government said: “Scotland already has the most generous universal childcare offering for three and four year olds in the UK, worth around £6,400 per eligible child, per year if families paid for it themselves.

“Our policy is clear that funding should follow a child and whilst existing cross-boundary arrangements across Scotland continue to work well for many children, ministers have repeatedly raised concerns with West Lothian Council about how they are applying this policy.

“We are clear families should be able to access childcare at a provider of their choice, in the public, private, third or childminding sectors.

“We are committed to exploring cross-boundary provision with Cosla, within the context of wider reform and the Scottish Government’s ambition to expand the wider childcare offer from nine months old until the end of primary school during the course of this parliament.”