Families to benefit from more childcare

6th May 2013

Scottish families will save costs equivalent to around �700 per child, in funded early learning and childcare under proposals by the Scottish Government.

Under the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill, children will be entitled to an additional 125 hours of early learning and childcare a year. Following an increase in 2007 this represents a total increase of 188 hours under this Scottish Government.

Minister for Children and Young People, Aileen Campbell said:�We want Scotland to be the best place in the world to grow up and that is why we are working hard to help families. Around 121,000 children in Scotland will benefit from the provisions proposed in the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill, including three and four year olds, two year olds who are looked after and two year olds who are under the new Kinship Care Order.

�Families will save around �700, per child, per year through this legislation. This additional support, along with increased flexibility of provision, will support parents who are working or training. This in addition to the important financial help such as the council tax freeze, free prescriptions and the scrapping of tuition fees.

�We want to do more for families including helping more Mums who want to get back to work. We know that the increase in female employment between 1992 and 2007 is estimated to have increased Scotland�s national economic output by around �8.5 billion.

�It is crucial that our children get the best start in life with more time and focus on the very start of their learning journey. We want all barriers removed from employment and we want to promote economic growth and that is exactly why we are making this offer of early learning and childcare support in the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill. �