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As outlined in the Scottish Government’s Evaluation Strategy, published in 2022, we have robust plans in place to evaluate the impact of the ELC expansion to 1140 hours on outcomes for children, parents and families. This includes an economic evaluation that will analyse parental employment outcomes.

We are ensuring that individual components of the evaluation are made available as they are ready and that the learning from these is used to inform policy development and delivery. In August 2024 the Scottish Government drew together existing findings to publish the ELC Expansion to 1140 hours: Interim Evaluation report.

The interim evaluation found promising signs that the expansion is delivering improvements for families across Scotland. For example, in 2022, 88% of parents with a 3 to 5 year old were satisfied with the flexibility they have been offered to use their funded hours in a way that meets their family’s needs.

We expect to publish the Final Evaluation Report on the 1140 ELC expansion in December 2025.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-35713 on 27 March 2025. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The Scottish Government’s Continuing Care and Aftercare policies provide the framework for supporting young people transitioning from care on to more independent living. Through the Local Government Settlement, the Scottish Government funds local authorities to provide this support.

Continuing Care enables eligible young people from age 16, living in foster, kinship or residential care to remain in their care setting with the same level of support until their 21st birthday, maintaining and building on the strong and positive relationships developed with their carers and offering a pathway to safe, sustainable and affordable accommodation. Aftercare provision is available to all young people leaving care from age 16, regardless of their care setting, and enables them to request support, assistance and advice, based on individual need, from their local authority up to age 26, and beyond in some cases.

The type of accommodation that a young person leaving care is provided with should be informed by the Aftercare pathways assessment and plan, undertaken with a holistic and person centred approach. The pathway plan will set out the type of accommodation which best meets the needs of the young person and how this is to be obtained. Some young people will need more support than others on a range of matters and therefore the provision of suitable accommodation should also be accompanied by appropriate levels of support, bespoke to the individual needs of each young person.

Care leavers in receipt of Universal Credit Housing Element or Housing Benefit who find that their benefit does not cover all their rent can apply to their local authority for a Discretionary Housing Payment (DHP). DHPs can also be used where local housing allowance (LHA) rates for benefits recipients in the private rented sector are insufficient.

The Scottish Government provides a broad package of financial support for those leaving care. Section 30 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 sets out financial assistance available through Aftercare.

A Care Experience Bursary of £9000 is available for care experienced young people in Further and Higher education. In addition, a Summer Accommodation Grant of up to £1,330 is available to support Care Experienced students with their accommodation costs through the summer break. Some institutions may also offer discretionary support for childcare and travel costs or rent guarantees for private accommodation. The ‘Care Leavers Council Tax Exemption’ means that young people leaving care are not liable for Council Tax until their 26th birthday.

Work is also currently underway to develop the Care Leaver Payment. The Care Leaver Payment as currently proposed will provide a one-off payment of £2,000 to young people leaving care, with the intention of helping to reduce some of the financial barriers young people face whilst transitioning into adulthood and more independent living.

Following the publication of the analysis of our ‘Moving On’ from care into adulthood consultation on the current and potential package of support for young people leaving care, work is underway across the Scottish Government and with our partners to ensure that our response to the changes called enables young people to access the support they need to thrive in young adulthood

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting and growing our childminding sector, which is why we launched the Programme for Scotland’s Childminding Future in June 2024, in partnership with the Scottish Childminding Association (SCMA). The programme is supporting the recruitment of new professional childminders across Scotland, offering a package of funded support and training in addition to a £750 start-up grant, providing everything needed to establish a new childminding business from home.

The programme also includes a range of pilot measures to address the retention of the childminding workforce, and to encourage more childminders to deliver funded early learning and childcare. This includes trials of a mentoring scheme and ‘funded time off the floor’ designed to deliver more practical support to ensure our existing professionals are supported with their workloads and professional development.

The recruitment support is available across 19 local authorities during year 1 (2024-25), and 12 local authorities are currently participating in the retention pilots.

To keep The Promise requires a whole systems approach to connect the different strands of policy work, new and ongoing commitments and financial programmes across Government that can impact on the lives of care experienced children, young people and their families.

All three- and four-year-olds, as well as eligible two-year-olds, have a statutory entitlement of up to 1140 hours per year of funded ELC.

The most recent ELC Census shows that uptake of the funded ELC offer for 3- and 4-year-olds was around 95% of eligible children in 2024. For eligible 2-year-olds, the proportion was 59%.

According to Improvement Service data in September 2024, around 98% of children aged 3 or more receiving funded ELC in September 2024 were reported to be accessing more than 600 funded hours, and 89% were reported to be accessing the full 1140 funded hours. This data also shows around 92% of eligible 2-year-olds reported to be receiving funded ELC in September 2024 were reported to be accessing more than 600 funded hours, and around 77% were reported to be accessing the full 1140 funded hours.

Data for previous years on the number of eligible children accessing funded ELC is available from summary statistics, available here: Early learning and childcare statistics - gov.scot.

Data for previous years (reported quarterly) on the proportion of children accessing funded ELC who have used the full 1140 hours in previous years is available from Improvement Service reports, available here: ELC data collections, reporting and analysis | Improvement Service.

The single most important driver of quality in a child’s Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) experience and improved outcomes is a dedicated, highly skilled, and well-qualified workforce. The ELC profession is therefore critical to the successful delivery of our 1,140 hours offer. We will continue to support a sustainable, diverse and thriving workforce.

Although staffing of funded ELC services is the responsibility of local authorities and their funded partners, in order to support a sustainable ELC workforce, the Scottish Government has provided local authorities with an additional £9.7 million in 2025-26 to increase the pay of ELC workers in the private and third sectors delivering funded hours, so that they are paid at least the Real Living Wage from April. Building on last year’s recurring investment of £16 million, this funding for the further increase to at least £12.60 per hour demonstrates the Scottish Government’s commitment to the Fair Work agenda.

Joint Scottish Government and COSLA guidance, published on 20 February, confirms that the additional funding will be passed to all funded ELC providers (including childminders) in 2025-26 through a minimum 3.75% increase in sustainable rates. This means an average increase of over £1,000 per year in gross salary for the eligible staff who are working full time.

Beyond pay, the Scottish Government is taking forward a range of actions to support the ELC profession. These include investment in continuous professional learning (CPL) resources and a dedicated CPL portal for the childcare profession, providing funding to Skills Development Scotland to support Modern Apprenticeships in childcare, providing funding for 100 childcare professionals to study for Masters qualifications each year and working with Skills Development Scotland to pilot a new programme to improve staff access to paid time off the floor.

Scottish Government Ministers and officials regularly meet with counterparts in the UK Government to discuss reserved issues. Senior officials who lead on The Promise have recently engaged with their counterparts in both the UK and devolved governments regarding the Scottish Government’s work to keep the Promise.