Electric cables within reach of youngsters, children being given the wrong medicine and nursery staff having to be prompted to care for distressed children:
the latest findings of the Care Inspectorate about childcare in Scotland will inevitably worry parents. They will wonder, could this be happening at my child's nursery? What really goes on when I'm not there?
For the vast majority, the news is reassuring. The inspectorate has found that more than 80% of childminders and more than 90% of nurseries received good, very good or excellent grades following a series of unannounced visits by inspectors. That means that most children attending nursery or being cared for by childminders in Scotland are being looked after well.
Unfortunately there are also some childcare facilities that are failing to provide adequate care. As well as recording a 4% increase in complaints in six months last year, the inspectors have uncovered a litany of flaws. Some nurseries have failed to carry out even basic background checks on new staff to verify whether they have a criminal history in relation to children. What more fundamental safeguard could there be? Shortcomings like this cannot be tolerated in any childcare setting, anywhere in Scotland. Among the nurseries to be criticised by inspectors are three, one each in Angus, Fife and West Lothian, where standards of care have actually dropped since the last inspection visit. This underlines just how crucially important is the regime of regular inspections, to ensure poor performance is caught and rectified promptly.
The key is to ensure that those nurseries identified as not good enough are given the support and staff training they need to improve. The Care Inspectorate should not hesistate if necessary, however, to force change, as it has the power to do.
Childcare provision in Scotland is set to be expanded from this autumn, when free places will be made available for 8400 two-year-olds from workless households. This will be expanded to a total of 15,400 two-year-olds a year later. The SNP has also highlighted the need for massively increased childcare provision for three and four-year-olds, and has promised that under independence this would be free for everyone. Goodness knows, there is a need for more childcare that is flexible and affordable, particularly for parents who are being forced to take work during antisocial hours to make ends meet. All of this will clearly require a major, rapid expansion in the number of childcare facilities and the number of carers and nursery nurses, but if even some existing nurseries are failing, it raises the question of whether this can be done while maintaining high standards.
Society is changing. Both the youngest and the oldest are being cared for to a greater extent than ever before in facilities separate from their families and home. Most nurseries, like care homes, are well run, but poor quality childcare must be eliminated. The low standards evidetnt in a few nurseries cannot be allowed to persist anywhere in Scotland.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article