WHATEVER the funding arrangements for nursery places in Glasgow are, they are certainly not what I and many others thought had been promised by the Scottish Government ("Anger as parents cannot get free nurseries of their choice", The Herald, August 7).
There didn't seem to be any strings attached to the promise of three hours each day in a nursery for a three-year-old.
Now some Glasgow parents are being told that their children no longer qualify for a funded place in their current carefully-chosen nursery. To say that there are council nursery places available misses the point entirely. Three hours each day during term time are of no use to a working parent, and that is no doubt the reason that there are places available. So many working parents have no choice but to rely on the many excellent partnership nurseries which are now to have this vital funding removed.
Surely the solution, as the nursery manager suggested, is to have the funding allocated to the child to avoid this disruption and uncertainty for whole families. I know that the relationship between councils and the Scottish Government is strained, but surely three-year-olds don't deserve to be in the front line of battle?
Fiona Harrison,
49 Tibbermore Road, Glasgow.
IT is little surprise many parents across Glasgow feel so badly let down because they cannot access free childcare places in their chosen nurseries. The SNP's commitments can never work under the current system whereby the Scottish Government promises something fundamentally at odds with the ability, and indeed willingness, of some local authorities to deliver the policy. These local authorities have been told that they have to use part of the overall block grant from Holyrood to provide enough free places in a combination of state nurseries and partnership nurseries. This means that if a local authority cannot meet the demand within its state provision it is obliged to pay partnership nurseries who are in a position to add private sector places.
However, at least two local authorities have demonstrated that they will not play ball. Instead, they have been guilty of capping the private sector places, presumably because they do not agree with the policy of public-private partnership funding for political reasons. The result is a shortfall in available places in partnership nurseries and a serious restriction on choice for parents. This is an unacceptable situation, most especially because there is a legislative duty upon local authorities to consult with parents about where free places should be allocated.
The policy needs to change. Nursery provision should be led by parental demand and not by the edicts of councils. We are told that the policy of nursery vouchers isn't popular, but that is not the message coming from the parents across Scotland who find that they cannot access the place of their choice. At the public meeting held in Glasgow this week by the Fair Funding for our Kids Campaign the strong message was that funding should follow the child. How right they are and policy needs to change to reflect that.
Many working parents cannot easily use state provision, because it is often only for three hours a day and it doesn't operate across the school holidays. This is the practical reality, whether political parties like it or not.
Liz Smith, Conservative MSP,
Scottish Parliament, Holyrood, Edinburgh.
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