The Scottish Government will begin to provide 600 hours of free annual childcare provision, up from 475 hours, to three- and four-year-olds this week, as part of a £280 million commitment over the next two years.
However, plans announced in January to extend this to every two-year-old from a workless household by August have been postponed by three months, and the Scottish Conservatives have suggested that many councils and private nurseries are struggling to meet demand.
The Scottish education secretary Mike Russell confirmed in June that the new legal duty requiring all local authorities to implement the policy for two-year-olds by this month had been postponed and will not now come into force until the end of October.
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