Scottish Government

BACKGROUND NOTES

1 This publication provides information about pre-school education centres, childcare centres and childminders registered with the Care Commission. The methodology is mostly the same as that used in 2006 and 2007, and the figures are generally comparable with those years, with exceptions outlined in the footnotes. Changes to the methodology are described in points 6, 11, 12 and 14 below.

2 Historical statistics, notes on the background to the surveys, the questionnaires, guidance notes, and related publications can be found at www.scotland.gov.uk/childrenstats.

3 Census week was the week beginning 21 January 2008. Childminders also answered the survey for this week.

4 The response rate to the Pre-School and Childcare Census was 84 per cent. An additional sixty nine centres responded to say they had closed or were not currently operating. The 608 centres that did not respond were sent a letter to ask them their main service type, the total number of children attending during census week, and a selection of the questions on pre-school education from the main census form. Of these, 285 responded and 323 did not respond.

5 Figures for the numbers of children attending childcare centres during census week, numbers of management and childcare staff, and staff and registrations in pre-school education have been imputed for those centres that did not return forms or did not complete these questions. If the centre had responded to the question in 2007, the 2007 figure was used. If a figure from 2007 was not available, centres were assigned the median figure (depending on the distribution) from those centres that did respond to the question in 2008, according to the main service of the centre or the pre-school centre type.

6 In 2007, the mean rather than the median had been used to impute the number of children attending centres and the number of centre staff. The median was used this year to make the methodology consistent across the publication and to reduce the influence on the statistics of the few centres with very high numbers of staff or children. The decrease seen in the number of children attending and the number of staff in childcare centres is attributable to this change in methodology, and the figures are not comparable with those for 2007.

7 There were 9 centres that reported providing pre-school education but did not say whether they were local authority or partnership run, or neither. These centres have been excluded from the figures on local authority and partnership-run centres.

8 For the first time, centres providing pre-school education were asked how many children had access to a General Teaching Council for Scotland ( GTCS) registered teacher during census week. In the guidance notes "access to a teacher" was defined as "the teacher being present in a pre-school education setting when the child is in attendance", and it was acknowledged that systems for providing access to teachers vary.

9 Pre-school education centres were also asked for the first time whether they received occasional or ad hoc support from any external GTCS registered teachers. This could be instead of, or in addition to, any teacher(s) providing pre-school education on a regular basis.

10 The Pre-school and Childcare Workforce Qualifications Survey was combined with the census. Around a quarter (1,004) of the centres contacted for the census were sampled and asked to distribute survey forms to every member of their staff who worked directly with children and/or who was responsible for the management of the registered service. The sample was stratified by management sector and main service type, excluding public and private playgroups and private family centres (as there are very small numbers of these) and any unknowns. 810 centres returned at least one survey form (81 per cent), with 4,592 individual responses. Responses were weighted by sampling probability estimated from the census returns and grossed up to 26,180, the total number of paid childcare staff in centres that were not excluded plus the number of management staff for centres that returned more forms than childcare staff.

11 In previous years staff responsible for the management of the registered service who did not work with children were not asked to fill in the workforce survey. Data on workforce qualifications is therefore not strictly continuous, although, as the number of these staff is estimated to be small (around 150, or less than one per cent of the total staff), the effect of the change is negligible.

12 For the Childminders Survey 1,195 registered childminders were sampled, of which 876 (73 per cent) returned completed forms. The sample was stratified by urban-rural classification and area deprivation. Responses were grossed up to 5,580, the total number of registered childminders in Scotland on 1 February 2008 excluding those listed as "inactive" by the Care Commission. This is a change from previous years, when the number of inactive childminders was estimated from responses to a question in the survey. Childminder qualifications data are therefore not strictly comparable with previous years', although these changes should not affect percentages.

13 Because the figures reported for the qualifications of childminders and childcare staff are based on samples, they are best understood as estimates with some level of statistical error surrounding them. For this reason all childminder and staffing figures have been reported to the nearest 10 and confidence intervals should be considered when using the figures. Appendix 2 provides a guide to the confidence intervals for childminders and Appendix 3 provides a guide to those for centre staff. For example, where a figure of 800 is presented for childminders the half-width of the 95 per cent confidence interval is 150, so the true number probably lies between 800 - 150 and 800 + 150 (in the range 650 to 950).

14 To reduce the burden on childminders of completing the form, this year some information on their characteristics was taken from the Care Commission's December 2007 Annual Returns. As there was a significant number of non-responses to this return the numbers have been weighted up to the total number of registered childminders, excluding those listed as "inactive", on 1 February 2008. These figures are presented in Table 14 and are classed as outwith the scope of National Statistics. The number of responses, the number of childminders, and the weights used are shown in Appendix 4.

15 The figures in Tables 14 and 15 show the numbers of childcare staff and childminders with qualifications at the level equivalent to the SVQs shown below.

16 Definitions of the services provided:

Nursery: This category includes daycare and pre-school centres for children aged 5 or under including local authority pre-school classes and nurseries; private and voluntary daycare nurseries including centres providing pre-school education in partnership with the local authority; and community and workplace nurseries. The services will normally be used by parents on a regular rather than a drop-in basis and be provided for at least the school term.

Playgroup: These provide sessional or day care for children aged 5 or under. Most are run by groups of parents with parent-led committees, although some may be owned by individuals or organised by other voluntary bodies or by the local authority. They rely heavily on parents/carers who volunteer their services although they may employ paid staff, e.g. a play leader or assistant. Some playgroups will provide pre-school education in partnership with the local authority.

Out of school club: Out of school clubs offer care for school age children in the absence of parents or carers from the end of the school day until parents can collect their children, and also before school starts.

Breakfast club: This is a specifically designated breakfast club that is likely to provide a meal and will take place before school hours.

Crèche: A crèche provides 'drop in' care for children in order to enable adults to engage in activities such as further education, shopping or attending a meeting.

Children/family centre: Child and family centres provide services similar to those available in community nurseries and nursery centres. Day care/education is provided along with a range of support services for families which can be adapted to meet local needs. They are usually managed by voluntary organisations or by the local authority's social work or education department.

Sitter service: A sitter service provides childcare in the family's own home from early morning until late evening seven days a week.

Holiday play scheme: Holiday play schemes cater mainly for school age children and provide opportunities for children to participate in a broad range of supervised leisure and educational activities during school holidays.

Family support services working directly with parents: This should be taken to mean services which go over and above the normal contact that a childcare or education service would have with parents. These services give parents opportunities to assist their child's development and achieve greater satisfaction in their role as parents, to support them in providing a healthy upbringing for their child, to promote self-esteem and personal confidence in both children and parents and to provide opportunities for parents to acquire skills which lay the basis for more extensive training or subsequent employment.

Professional health care: Services provided by professional health staff such as midwives, health visitors, speech therapists, psychologists, doctors and dental practitioners including antenatal care, postnatal care and support, child health clinics/screening and support groups where these are run by health professionals.

Gaelic provision: Services wholly or primarily in the Gaelic medium.

Outdoor play area: Any area out of doors available to the children attending the centre, which may also be shared with others or available to the wider community.

17 Whole time equivalent is the total number of hours worked by all staff members divided by the number of hours in a standard full-time working week, which was specified as 35 hours.

18 The categories of urban-rural were derived from the Scottish Executive classifications published in August 2006. This provides a mapping from individual postcodes to six categories of rurality. Individual pre-school and childcare service providers were assigned to one of these categories based upon the category of the area in which they are located. Urban areas are settlements over 10,000 population. Small towns are settlements of between 3,000 and 10,000 people. Rural areas are settlements of less than 3,000 people. There are two childcare centres that do not have an urban-rural classification because they are not situated in residential areas.

19 The categories of deprivation were derived from the Scottish Executive classification published in October 2006. This provides an indicator of deprivation for each of the 6,505 data zone areas of Scotland. The category "least deprived" denotes the 33.33 per cent least deprived data zones, "most deprived" is the 33.33 per cent most deprived data zones and "intermediate" makes up the remaining 33.33 per cent. Individual pre-school and childcare service providers were then assigned the category corresponding to the data zone in which they are located.

20 Further information about the urban-rural classification, area deprivation and the additional data sources used in this publication can be found through the following links:

Care Commission: http://www.carecommission.com/

General Register Office - Scotland: http://www.gro-scotland.gov.uk

Urban-rural classification: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/07/31114822/0

Area deprivation: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/SIMD/StatisticalCompendium.

21 Correction to 2007 data

In Table 14 of "Pre-school and childcare statistics 2007" the number of childminders with any childcare qualification at SVQ2 or above was given as 1,000 and the percentage was given as 18 per cent. These values should have been 1,220 and 22 per cent respectively. In the same row, the number of pre-school staff with any childcare qualification at SVQ2 or above was given as 19,300. This should have read 20,840. The corresponding percentage of 76 per cent was correct.

22 This is a National Statistics publication. National Statistics are produced to high professional standards set out in the National Statistics Code of Practice. They undergo regular quality assurance reviews to ensure that they meet customer needs. They are produced free from any political interference.

23 For public enquiries ( non-media) about the information contained in this Statistics Publication Notice, or for more detailed information, please contact:

Rosie Telford
Children, Young People and Social Care Statistics

Telephone: 0131 244 0314
e-mail children.statistics@scotland.gsi.gov.uk.

For media enquiries, please contact Brendan Rooney on 0131 244 2960.

The Scottish Government web site is: www.scotland.gov.uk.