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Working with our Monitoring and Evaluation Working Group, the Scottish Government has set out a multi-year (2018-2025) strategy for evaluating the impact of the ELC expansion to 1140 hours on outcomes for children, parents and families. We expect to publish the 2018-2025 Evaluation Final Report in December 2025. This will draw together findings from across all the strands of the evaluation work.

As set out in our , alongside the evaluation of outcomes, an economic evaluation is being undertaken to assess the economic costs and benefits of the 1140 expansion. The economic evaluation will include an element of standard economic appraisal technique using Cost-Benefit analysis. But we also recognise that it will not be possible to capture all of the possible impacts of the ELC expansion by focusing purely on benefits that can be expressed as a monetary value (i.e. in £). Therefore, this will be accompanied by a “Cost-Consequence analysis” – a type of analysis most commonly used in health-economics, which will allow the economic evaluation to draw on a wider range of data than monetary impacts and present a more comprehensive picture of the impacts of the policy intervention by reporting outcomes separately from each other.

In 2016, prior to the expansion, it was estimated 11,000 people (9,000 full time equivalent workers) would be required to deliver the transformative early learning and childcare (ELC) expansion.

“” outlines four key priorities that will move us closer to achieving our vision that, through access to rich and nurturing early learning and school age childcare experiences, children, families, and their communities are enabled to reach their full potential and the poverty-related outcomes gap narrows.

Priority 3 is “Ensuring that the delivery of our priorities is supported by a sustainable, diverse and thriving sector and profession”. We recognise that we cannot deliver positive outcomes for children and families without a sustainable, diverse and thriving childcare sector. For that reason, we have taken forward actions including:

• making Fair Work central to the 1140 expansion to date - our investment to support sustainable rates and the ELC real Living Wage has already led to increases in pay across private and third sector providers;
• developing a range of new resources and learning signposting tools for the childcare workforce, including a new continuous professional learning portal and a new National Induction Resource;
• working with local government and our partners in the sector to develop long-term workforce plans that address workforce issues and ensure sustainable delivery of the 1140 funded entitlement;
• allocating over £8 million in 2024-25 to Skills Development Scotland to deliver Modern Apprenticeships in childcare;
• providing funding for 100 childcare professionals to study for Masters qualifications each year at the University of Strathclyde and the University of Aberdeen; and
• investing in the Programme for Scotland’s Childminding Future, launched in June 2024 and backed by more than £1.6 million in 2025-26.

The contains both a mid-term (2024-2027) and long term (2024 – 2034) future demand forecast for the childcare sector. In both forecasts, employment growth in the childcare sector is predicted to continue and with a larger percentage growth than is forecast overall across Scotland. However, the forecasts also suggest that recruitment will remain challenging in the sector.

According to the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001, the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) is responsible for producing and publishing data and intelligence on the social services workforce in Scotland, including the early learning and childcare workforce. As an Accredited Official Statistics provider (meaning they comply with the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) Code of Practice for Statistics) they publish a number of reports that may be of interest to you.

The first is the yearly “”. This report combines administrative data from the Care Inspectorate with data collected by the SSSC directly from local authorities to form a comprehensive picture of the paid workforce employed in the social service sector in Scotland. The report includes data on headcounts and staffing in the sector. The report also clarifies that it is not possible to calculate turnover as the annual collections do not capture data on staff who join and leave a service wholly between the reference dates. The alternative measure of staffing change to turnover used by the SSSC is the stability index (SI) which measures the proportion of staff who have been retained from the previous year and is contained within this report.

The SSSC also publishes an annual “”, which looks at the current provision of qualifications for the adult social care, children's residential care and early years workforce, and demand for those qualifications. It also looks at barriers to undertaking qualifications.

You might also wish to note that the SSSC publishes an annual “”. This report is jointly published with the Care Inspectorate, and provides data on vacancies reported by care services as at 31 December each year. It presents data on the number of registered care services with a vacancy, the number of actual vacancies that services say they had using whole time equivalent (WTE) data, and data on the reasons why services have reported that vacancies are hard to fill.

Finally, in April 2025, the SSSC published the “”, which gives an insight into leavers from the social work, social care and children and young people workforce. It examines who is leaving the SSSC Register, why and where they are moving to. This report is based on data from 2,003 people who left the Register between August and December 2024. This is the first collection of this data, but the intention is to continue to collect this to gain a deeper understanding of why people leave the sector.

The Scottish Government has not undertaken any such analysis. However, research undertaken by shows that the best experiences for children are found where professionals hold higher-level qualifications specific to early childhood, or those with a background in early years methodology, and where there is a range of staff with complementary skills in settings.

“" sets out our vision for early learning and school age childcare, our strategic priorities and the principles which guide our approach to working with partners and families.

With regard to reviewing and enhancing qualifications, we have worked with the Scottish Qualifications Authority to support the development and piloting of next generation Higher National qualifications for the childcare profession, which we anticipate will be rolled out fully for the next academic year.

The Scottish Government is also working with the Scottish Social Services Council on the current review of National Occupational Standards and will support the forthcoming review of Scottish Vocational Qualifications (SVQ). This work ensures qualifications are fit-for-purpose in providing the childcare profession with the knowledge, skills and experience required to deliver high quality services for children and families.

The response to question on 4 June 2025 outlines additional actions that the Scottish Government is taking to support the ELC profession.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at /chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

I refer the member to the answer to question on 4 June 2025

Until June 2024, daycare of children staff registered with the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC)were required to complete a minimum of 60 hours — or 10 days — of Continuous Professional Learning (CPL) over each 5-year registration period. This equated to at least 12 hours of CPL per year. This requirement applied to all staff registered with the SSSC, including full-time, part-time, sessional, self-employed and agency workers.

The Scottish Government recognises that the single most important driver of the quality of a child’s early learning and childcare(ELC) experience is a highly skilled, highly qualified workforce.

The Scottish Government provides a range of financial and logistical support to early learning and childcare (ELC) practitioners seeking to upskill through formal qualifications.

(a) Financial Support

In 2024-25, the Scottish Government allocated over £8 million to support Skills Development Scotland to deliver Modern Apprenticeships in childcare.

A tuition fee grant of up to £1,820 is available via the Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) through the Part-Time Fee Grant (PTFG) for individuals with a personal income of £25,000 or less. This funding supports eligible higher education courses and professional development at SCQF Levels 7–10, delivered by approved providers in Scotland. This funding is available to those working in childcare who are looking to study for a degree or college-based qualification.

The Scottish Government is also providing funding to enable 100 practitioners to study Masters degrees at the Universities of Strathclyde and Aberdeen to support their early years practice.

(b) Logistical Support

Practitioners benefit from a range of logistical support options to help them upskill while continuing to work in ELC. Many training providers offer flexible routes such as part-time, online or modular learning, enabling practitioners to balance study with existing commitments.

Work-based qualifications, including Modern and Technical Apprenticeships, allow staff to gain experience and qualifications on the job. In addition, many ELC employers support professional development by providing study leave, protected learning time and mentoring.

Practitioners can also access resources through the Scottish Social Services Council’s Continuous Professional Learning (CPL) portal, which offers a range of ELC-specific training opportunities and guidance.