Seòmar agus comataidhean

Jane Brumpton, I note that you want to come in, but first I have a nuanced point. The “Overview of local authority funding and support for early learning and childcare providers”, which was published in August last year, set out that there are four broad ways to arrive at costs, including surveys of both costs and prices, a working group that agrees costs for particular headings and cost modelling. When you look at how different local authorities approach the task, it looks as if, rather than striking a balance across those methods, they are picking one of them and a lot of them miss out surveying.

That is one observation. Another is that some of the survey data is quite old. It looks as if some local authorities are using data from 2016, but a lot of things have happened between then and now. Am I gleaning the right things from that? Which of those approaches do you find better or worse? Would you like to see a balance of those approaches?

This is my final question. I am afraid that I have been doing research while sitting in committee, because I was slightly surprised by what COSLA was saying about the number of providers. The Care Inspectorate reported in March on the state of the sector. It should be noted that the report relies on data that is about two years old, as most of the data was collected in 2019, but in broad terms it seems to say that, although capacity overall across all providers in the sector has increased, the number of services—that is, the number of providers—has declined. Given that we know what is going on in local authorities, that would seem to be painting a chilling picture for those providers that are outside local authorities. What impact do you feel that it has had? I note that this report is saying that the number of childminders has fallen by 7 per cent, but your up-to-date figures show a reduction of 25 per cent. Is that sort of level of change also reflected in the PVI sector?

That is the Borders, but nationally there is a decline in childminders. Matthew Sweeney, do you have any comment on that?

Graeme, I apologise that the preponderance of my questions have gone to your colleagues.

I want to follow straight on from that question about rates and the impact that there has been on partner providers.

There is variation, but, if you look at the rates that are offered by different councils you see one number come up rather a lot, which is £5.31. Given the specificity—if I can say that at this time of the morning—of that number and the number of times you see it, I would be interested to know where it came from. I think that the number was arrived at by COSLA. Could you correct me if I am wrong? Where did that number come from? More importantly, how was that number derived?

Jonathan, do you have anything to add about the impact on the sector? Is it forcing consolidation to large chains? Is that a fair analysis?

Can I push back a little bit there? Clearly, there is evidence that childminders are removing themselves from the sector. Could you explain why that has happened? Does COSLA hold that data? Does it know how many PVI providers there are in Scotland today compared with when we embarked on this journey?

I would like to make the distinction between settings and providers. I am sure that the number of settings has not fallen, but I would be interested to know if there is data on the number of providers. I am mindful of other colleagues waiting, so I will hand over at this point.

I will leave it there.

I understood that, but it is a useful clarification. I guess that the danger is that you fall into the trap of thinking that we have always had the extra consequentials and expecting to have them again in future. I take that point.

On the difference between the OBR growth forecast and the forecast growth in Scotland, I want to unpack what is contained in your forecast. We have had a change. I understand the points about holding the thresholds rather than inflating them, and about the decision at UK level to have a 19p basic rate in future years. However, if we strip those out, it appears that, since December, the commission’s forecast for earnings growth in Scotland has deteriorated. Certainly, it is clear that earnings growth in Scotland is slower than that in the rest of the UK. Can you provide any insight into what changes have occurred since December and what the likely consequences are?