The idea, which was outlined in an education policy discussion paper launched last week, would offer subsidised daily childcare sessions of up to ten hours in a bid to support parents who want to return to work.
The SNP proposes to establish six pilot schemes over four years to assess levels of demand. The discussion paper states, 'Within these pilots there will be a progressive introduction of subsidised childcare, starting in the first year with children of two and over prior to their placement in nursery education, following that with children of one or over and then, in the third year, allowing care for children below one.
'Care will cost a fixed fee for a daily session of up to ten hours. The pilots will also be encouraged to assess and meet demand for sessions that run from different starting times. The pilots will be continually assessed and in 2007 a programme for further roll-out will be prepared, with a full costing for a national scheme to include care for school-age children out of school hours.
'The pilots will be informed by international best practice, for example by Quebec's $5 a day childcare provision, which has been widely popular and has had a strong economic impact.'
The Quebec government began introducing daycare costing just over 2 a day in 1997, and from 2000 it was extended to all children. It is predicted that by 2005 there will be 175,000 subsidised places available in Quebec.
However, there is still a reported shortage of around 60,000 places and some parents are turning to unregulated daycare because of long waiting lists. Evelyn Wajcer, a private daycare provider from Quebec who attended the recent World Forum on Early Care and Education in New Zealand, told Nursery World that on paper the system was commendable, but it had not been sufficiently thought out. She said, 'The problem in Quebec is that it became popular beyond the government's expectations and beyond their initial budget. There has always been a solution to the problem, yet the government has chosen to ignore it: the private sector, at no set-up cost, could provide thousands of spaces using their own capital.'
Irene McGugan, SNP deputy minister for children and education, said, 'The Labour Government promised available, accessible and affordable childcare, and has only achieved that in part. We know that the biggest single barrier to women going to work is childcare. In the UK parents pay a higher percentage of childcare costs than in any other country in Europe.
'We have looked at other models to see how other countries operate, and our proposals are closely related to those in Quebec. We are trying to put together a unified national system of childcare for pre-school children, which we recognise will not be cheap. We are introducing a pilot scheme because the scale of demand will be impossible to quantify, and we aim to have a fixed fee for parents.
'There is a very real danger that, like in Quebec, we under-estimate demand. We will experiment with different levels of charges and subsidy to gain a unified, standardised system.
'Private providers will be part of our plan. There will be a lot of negotiation with private providers and childcarers. We would like to introduce flexibility that does not exist at the moment, and perhaps childminders are best placed to offer that and the private sector will be a big part of the process.'