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The sustainable rates that local authorities pay take into account investment in staff, investment in training and paying the real living wage. We have influenced pay in the PVI sector—that has been evidenced in the pay rates that staff in that sector have received since funded ELC has expanded. We are carrying out another financial sustainability check, and I believe that the survey went out last week. We will be in a position to report on that in the spring, when we will have a much more up-to-date picture of where private, voluntary and independent providers are.

Mr Rennie talked about flexibility. I draw his attention to the parent survey that was published just last month—I appreciate that that was a busy month for all of us. In the survey, 88 per cent of parents of three to five-year-olds and 92 per cent of parents of eligible two-year-olds reported that they were satisfied with the flexibility that was offered to use their funded hours to meet their family’s needs. That is evidence that families feel that they are getting the flexibility that they need. Overall, 97 per cent of parents said that they were satisfied with the quality of provision. That is a great tribute to the services that ELC providers offer to our children and families.

Does Eleanor Passmore want to add anything on the pay differential and the work that we are doing with the PVI sector to help it to retain staff?

As a Government, we provide the funding to ensure that we can provide 1,140 hours of ELC to all eligible children, which is what we do. A huge amount of money is provided to local authorities to sustain and fulfil their statutory obligations to provide the 1,140 hours of ELC. As I mentioned in an earlier answer about the parent survey, parents are satisfied with that.

In the past year, there has been an increase in the number of three to five-year-olds who are accessing early learning and childcare. It is now up to 99 per cent, which is almost universal coverage.

Our responsibility as a Government is to ensure that we fund those 1,140 hours of provision and that we allow local authorities to have the funding to pay sustainable rates to the PVI sector.

I thank Ruth Maguire for her question. She will be aware that we responded to the committee by letter on the specific asks that it made in its inquiry on ELC and pay and conditions, and on the request that we perform a mapping exercise.

Currently, no national data is available on the movement of staff across the sector. We have therefore asked the Scottish Social Services Council, which is responsible for collecting the relevant information, to explore the possibility of providing such data. It is not collected across local authorities reliably enough to enable us to map the committee’s concerns about the movement of staff.

The committee should be aware that the Scottish Government pays the highest average funding rates in the United Kingdom: between 2017 and 2022, they increased by 57 per cent, which is higher than the figures for Wales and England by quite some way. To put that into context, when the expansion of early learning and childcare began in 2018, about 80 per cent of staff employed by the PVI sector were paid less than the living wage. In contrast, our health check in 2021 indicated that 88 per cent of providers intended to pay the real living wage from August that year. We have seen quite considerable differences there.

It is also relevant for the committee to be aware that Scottish Government funding accounts for about 33 to 45 per cent of the overall income of private childcare services. It is a mixed economy, and there are business decisions for the PVI sector to make about staffing.

We work closely with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and, through the finance working group, we have worked intensively with COSLA to ensure that the investment of almost £1 billion that we are making in ELC in the next year is distributed fairly and that PVI providers are paid a sustainable rate—that rate has gone up by an average of 6.1 per cent over the past year. I hope that that assures the committee that we are listening and responding to your concerns.

Before the expansion of 1,140 hours, one of the issues that the Scottish Government consulted on was different models of support for delivery of ELC. That consultation happened between October 2016 and January 2017, and it included the model that the convener has alluded to.

The independent consultation analysis report that was published in March 2017 highlighted that the funding follows the child model was identified most frequently as the preferred model for best supporting the provision of high-quality ELC that is accessible and affordable for all. We see evidence of that in the figures that are coming out on the number of children accessing ELC and on parent and carer satisfaction about the quality and flexibility of the service that they receive.

As I said earlier and as Eleanor said, it is a mixed economy. The principle of the funding following the child means that parents are able to decide where they wish their child to receive early learning and childcare. We believe that the funding that we provide to local authorities through the funding formula that we agreed with COSLA is enough to enable them to pay sustainable rates to PVI providers.

I am not familiar with those figures, but, if the convener wants to send me the source of the information, I will be happy to look at it.

When looking at the funding that is provided by the Scottish Government to local authorities, it would be simplistic to say that there is £100 available and there are 100 children so that means that £100 should be divided by 100 and each child should get £1. I know that that is a very simplistic example. From their budget, local authorities have to fund not only the ELC for PVI providers but additional costs. They have things such as property costs, including the repair and maintenance of buildings and settings, and their own employee costs—

Local authorities are local authorities—if I can put it that way—but PVIs are businesses, so they have other sources of income.

Local authorities have additional costs such as other staff—operational staff, heads of centre and staff who do not count towards childcare ratios, including additional support for learning staff—support services such as information technology, finance and procurement; and the cost of meals for children who access both council nurseries and PVI providers. The latter cost is paid to PVI providers over and above their sustainable rates.

In the current settlement for next year, there is money for the deferrals policy change, which I am sure the committee is aware of, and for the equity and excellence leads. Local authorities have a statutory duty to provide 1,140 hours; they can be providers of last resort in areas where it is not financially sustainable for private services to provide childcare, and they have a duty for emergency responses, which they have carried out for those coming from Ukraine.

It is therefore not as straightforward as saying that providing 30 per cent of childcare equals passing on 30 per cent of the budget.

We have worked very closely with COSLA and local authorities through our financial working group to ensure that there is a fair and sustainable settlement for all our ELC providers.

If I remember correctly, you raised that issue in the chamber, convener. The issue was also raised during the debate about funded ELC. This is where the funding follows the child model is absolutely key.

I will ask Eleanor Passmore to speak about the work that we have done. If there are particular areas in which there is an issue, I would certainly like those to be highlighted to me so that we can try to facilitate working across boundaries.

The draft budget makes provision for £50 million to be invested in the whole family wellbeing fund. That will continue the vital preventative work that is required to keep children at home when that is the safest place for them to be.

In addition, we will invest almost £30 million in other activity that is related to the Promise, which includes funds to support The Promise Scotland, invest in the Promise partnership fund and take forward a variety of other actions that we committed to in the implementation plan “Keeping the promise to our children, young people and families”, which was launched last March. That includes funds that are required to bring into force the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill, which was introduced in December 2022. I believe that this committee will look at that bill, so I am sure that we will have further discussions on that and how it will fulfil the Promise.

Good morning, and thank you for inviting me to give evidence to the committee on two draft Scottish statutory instruments: the Police Act 1997 (Offences in Schedules 8A and 8B) Amendment (Scotland) Regulations 2022 and the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exclusions and Exceptions) (Scotland) Amendment (No 2) Order 2022. I hope that the following will be of help to committee members.

The instruments make amendments to the offence lists in the legislation covering disclosure. Those lists contain the offences that must be included when disclosure checks are carried out on individuals. The SSIs are required in order to ensure that there is consistency between state disclosure and self-disclosure.

Most of the amendments made to the offences lists by the instruments are intended to bring them into line with the equivalent lists passed by the Scottish Parliament in the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020. The changes made by the instruments will remain in place until that act is fully commenced.

If an offence is not included in the lists, a conviction for that offence cannot be disclosed on any level of disclosure once it is spent according to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.

Higher-level disclosures are used for roles involving a high degree of sensitivity, or where there is an expectation of integrity, or for the purpose of public protection. The offence lists therefore serve an important safeguarding purpose by ensuring that information about serious and relevant spent convictions can continue to be disclosed once the convictions are spent.

The legislation contains two lists of offences: list A and list B. Offences in list B are for convictions that must be disclosed in accordance with the rules and include those such as fraud or theft. An individual can apply to have spent convictions from that list removed from their disclosure. To do that, the individual must apply to the sheriff court.

There are some offences that must be disclosed regardless of how long has passed since the conviction. Those are the offences in list A, which include serious offences such as rape and other sexual offences as well as certain terrorism and firearms offences. An individual can apply to have those offences removed only after a certain amount of time has passed and depending on their age at the time of conviction. That application must be made to the sheriff court.

When the offence lists were reviewed for the purposes of the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020, some offences were moved between list A and list B, some were removed entirely from list B and new statutory offences that had been created since the offence lists were established in 2015 were added to both lists. For example, the offence under section 1 of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 of abusive behaviour towards a partner or ex-partner is specified in list A of the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020, but it is not specified in the offence lists in the legislation that is currently in force. That means that a spent conviction for such an offence cannot currently be disclosed on any form of higher-level disclosure. I have introduced the instruments in advance of the full commencement of the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020 to remedy that and to reduce any safeguarding risks that might arise in the interim period.

In addition to the changes made to align the existing legislation with the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020, some further changes are being made to the offence lists to take us through the interim period. Those changes relate to amendments that could not be made during the bill process due to the onset of the pandemic; new offences created since the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020 completed its passage through Parliament; and a general review of the offence lists. The factors that informed the creation of the offence lists and the review for the purposes of the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020 were revisited in order to classify offences as either serious, and therefore on list A, or less serious and on list B. Full details of the amendments are set out in the policy notes, which I believe members have.

Any corresponding amendments that are necessary to update the Disclosure (Scotland) Act 2020 offence lists will be made as part of the implementation of those provisions in 2024.

My officials and I are happy to take questions on the draft regulations and order.