CHILDCARE costs in Scotland are among the highest in Britain, with some parents facing bills of nearly £12,000 a year, a new report has revealed.
Childcare charity the Daycare Trust has found that the cost of putting a child into nursery in the most expensive areas has soared to more than £11,500 a year, and some families are paying nearly as much as those in affluent areas of southern England.
Parents in Scotland spend an average of £101.49 putting a child under the age of two into nursery for 25 hours a week. For a child older than two, it drops to £94.52, the trust said.
The price of 15 hours of after-school care is also higher than in England and Wales, at £48.55 weekly.
Now the trust is calling on the Scottish Government to ensure costs are brought down and that affordable childcare becomes established as a universal right.
Bronwen Cohen, chief executive of Children in Scotland, said: "High quality, accessible, affordable childcare is essential for Scottish families, who are paying among the highest childcare costs in the UK and indeed Europe – and also still lack the systematic provision to extend programmes for children under two and out-of-school wraparound care.
"Childcare is not just about enabling parents to work or study.
"The long-term benefits to children of social, learning, development and play opportunities that may not be available elsewhere are well documented.
"A universal entitlement to early childhood education and care, with subsidies to limit what parents pay, would make the benefits of early learning available to every child."
The report examined the costs of both nursery and afternoon care in each local authority area north of the Border.
It found families faced a postcode lottery of sky-high prices, while just one-fifth of local authorities had enough childcare for working parents. and one in 10 had enough childcare for parents who work outwith normal office hours.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: "We're providing £4.5 million over the next three years to deliver additional early learning and childcare for all looked-after two-year-olds; and a further £4.5m to promote community-based solutions to family support and childcare."
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