Professor Susan Deacon was appointed as early years champion last year and commissioned by the Scottish government to lead a review on how to improve children's early years and reduce the need for more costly crisis interventions later on.
In her report, Joining the Dots - A Better Start for Scotland's Children, she criticised Scotland for taking a different approach to England's and not going down the road of providing children's centres. 'In hindsight, this was a missed opportunity,' she said.
'Why not set ourselves the goal of seeking to have a major programme of developing children and family centres to serve communities right across Scotland?'
Professor Deacon has written the report 'against a backdrop of the most significant reduction in public spending in a generation'.
To produce sustainable change, she proposes 'greater collaboration between sectors - public, private and voluntary'.
She is calling for more time and energy to be spent on action. 'We have masses of research and evidence and heaps of good practice. We don't need to invent or discover any of this, we need to work together to connect it up.'
Professor Deacon suggested setting up an Early Years Alliance from the public, private and third sectors to raise awareness of the importance of children's early years and enshrining an early years priority in law.
Claire Schofield, director of membership, policy and communications at the National Day Nurseries Association, called the report 'timely and positive'. She said, 'Nurseries will have a key role to play in achieving some of the proposed actions, and we are pleased the report also recognises that all sectors have a part to play and it is critical not to reinvent the wheel.'
However, Ian McLaughlan, chief executive of the Scottish Pre-School Play Association, said, 'Family centres, as suggested in the report, offer one approach, but it is one among others.'
He said structures like 'the voluntary sector playgroup and toddler group' offer a good early intervention approach and said it was an 'opportune time to build on these community-based services'.
Scotland's children's minister Adam Ingram promised to give all the proposals 'full and careful consideration'.