Associate Feature: Time to take rural childminder recruitment national

The childminding workforce has declined by 34% since 2016 during Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) expansion with the loss of 1926 childminding businesses and over 11,000 childminding places for families. Without intervention, these losses are projected to almost double by July 2026. This has major implications for families, communities, parental choice and the delivery of the Scottish Government’s Programme for Government commitments to extend funded ELC down to one year-olds and to develop a new system of wraparound school-age childcare – both areas in which childminders have much experience and will be required to deliver these commitments. 

Recognising the decline was more pronounced in remote and rural areas, the Scottish Childminding Association (SCMA) established the Scottish Rural Childminding Partnership in March 2022. Led by SCMA with financial support from Highlands & Islands Enterprise, South of Scotland Enterprise, Skills Development Scotland and the Scottish Government and delivered in partnership with 10 remote and rural local authorities, the pilot has successfully recruited new childminders where they are most needed and tested a demographically-targeted recruitment campaign and supported childminder recruitment model. Thirty nine new childminding businesses are already established and are providing much-needed childminding services to local communities with a further 20 working through the process and almost ready to open.
 
While these results have led to the further testing of  the application of our recruitment model in four larger, more densely populated, urban areas, the childminding workforce continues to decline. There is a need for the Scottish Government to act decisively, contribute to the scaling-up of childminder recruitment nationally and to tackle the issues which are causing childminders to leave the workforce – most notably the significant increase in paperwork, bureaucracy and duplicative quality assurance during ELC expansion.

The clock is ticking.

This article is sponsored by the Scottish Childminding Association (SCMA)

www.childminding.org