The Edinburgh Reporter October 2025

4 NEWS

Council accused of mishandling government funding

Come

what May

By PHYLLIS STEPHEN

AN EDINBURGH NURSERY BODY
has challenged Edinburgh Council
questioning its mishandling of Scottish
Government funding for Early Learning
and Childcare (ELC).
The organisation, Scottish Early Years
Association, (SEYA) claims that the local
authority continues to act in breach of
policy - and that the council’s legal
department has now confirmed that.
Since August 2021 The Scottish
Government has awarded funding to
local authorities to provide 1,
hours of funded ELC to all eligible
children - largely three and four
year-olds.
At a recent meeting of the
Education Committee councillors
discussed three options - to open up

the partnership agreement process

to allow more private providers to

offer ELC and so share in the

government funding, to review the

council’s own nursery provision to

reduce capacity and repurpose

buildings, or retain the council’s

current approach to partnership

agreements in line with the council’s

Early Years Delivery Plan.

But none of this discussion would

have been needed if the council had

used the government funding more

wisely in the past, according to the

industry body which represents

private nurseries in and around

Edinburgh.

Sharon Fairley, Chief Executive of

SEYA, presented a four minute

deputation to the committee in

which she said that “the hourly rate

of £6.77 is unsustainable”. (This is the

rate paid to private ELC providers.)

She said that she believes the

council receives more than £9 per

hour from the government and it is

not justifiable to hand on only two

thirds of that to private nurseries

• keeping £1,500 per child per year
  for the council (allegedly for
  administrative costs) when
  businesses were told it was “up to
  them to be efficient”.
  Ms Fairley also explained that since
  the council are controlling the purse
  strings for 3-5 year olds, the only
  portion of their business over which
  private providers have any flexibility
  is providing ELC to under threes.
  She said: “We will not see a
  sustainable rate increase until the
  government takes the funding away

from the council and pays it into a

childcare account.” (A previous

voucher system offered families the

choice of where to use the money).

She alleges the sector in

Edinburgh is being weakened for the

benefit of the council’s own budget.

Ms Fairley was direct in her criticism

of the way the council deals with

allocation of the funds which ought

to be “following the child”.

She said in her deputation: “I am

here to raise concerns about the

council’s handling of the budget for

the 1140 funding and their

continuing breach of policy.”

She asserted that in response to

some Freedom of Information

requests from the body and families

there had been inaccuracies in the

responses - and they have revealed

“troubling financial information”.

She said: “It’s been said that the

council wants to be the core deliverer

of ELC, and we’re now seeing clear

evidence that the council is it seems

on a path to protect themselves.”

She said that where there have

been offers of funding from

neighbouring local authorities for

children who live in one postcode

and attend nursery in another, these

offers have been refused except

where the child is to attend a council

run facility. She said: “This continued

refusal will almost certainly be the

next legal challenge.”

The council is holding a further

additional meeting of the Education

Committee on 6 October when it is

expected to discuss at least some of

these matters.

By PHYLLIS STEPHEN

TIME IS CLOSING in on the current cohort of

MSPs at Holyrood, with some having already

decided to move on after May next year, some

who pundits expect to lose their seats, and

others knocking on the door to take their place.

We have spoken to three politicians at

various stages of that journey.

Gordon Macdonald is MSP for Pentlands

and his legacy after 15 years at Holyrood is

assured. He told me that he will be the last

representative for this constituency as the

boundaries here, as they are elsewhere in the

city, are changing. He was preceded by

Conservative David McLetchie and Labour’s

Iain Gray and swept in with a sizeable

majority on the SNP wave in 2011.

He explained his strategy to represent 35,

households has meant having staff wholly in the

constituency and not in parliament. He has

concentrated on getting help for individuals - the

elderly woman having problems with a

bathroom supplier (“We managed to get her

flowers from the company.”) or another who had

their mobility scooter removed from them. But

the biggest campaign was to fight the council

who proposed to combine Currie High School

and Wester Hailes Education Centre (“the

WHEC”) alongside the communities in each

place who thought it was a “bad move”. Currie

Community High School has just opened in a

new building and the WHEC is being upgraded

to Wester Hailes High School. He has also been

involved in persuading the council that they

should buy homes owned by the Ministry of

Defence - including those with tenants in them.

He said: “I pointed out the ludicrous situation

that they were going to make people homeless in

order to house homeless people. Thankfully they

saw sense and suspended their policy of not

taking on homes which were already tenanted.”

Mr Macdonald laments the loss of the

cooperative spirit which he saw when first

elected and said: “It’s gone completely post 2014.”

Sanne Dijkstra-Downie is a Scottish Liberal

Democrat councillor in the Forth Ward,

elected in 2022. She was brought up in the

Netherlands and is the party’s spokesperson

for net zero with a day job at the University of

Edinburgh centred on the environment and

climate research. She is a candidate in the new

Edinburgh Northern constituency.

Sanne said that she is proud of her record as

a woman putting herself up for election. She

said: “Prominent politicians have spoken out

about the difficulties for women in politics but

I do think it’s really important that women

continue to put themselves forward for

election because we won’t ever get change

unless we get proper equal representation.”

Her big win is the protection of Wardie Bay

where there was a need for regular water testing

which Scottish Environment Protection Agency

(SEPA) took on in 2023. She says that protecting

more green spaces as well as retrofitting more

homes to cut bills and emissions is something

she would aim for as an MSP. But despite her

green credentials her party is opposed to

routing the proposed North-South tram

extension along the Roseburn Path favouring

the on road alternative. She said: “One of the

things about the Roseburn Path is when it’s

gone, it’s gone and we’re not going to get that

amazing corridor back. Obviously, none of this

will happen without significant government

funding and at the moment there is just no

prospect of that. We wanted officers to look at a

rapid bus system.”

Daniel Johnson is a former businessman who

was elected as a Labour MSP for Edinburgh

Southern almost a decade ago, but he still feels as

though he is “the new boy about town”.

With its new boundaries Daniel thinks it

“probably reflects more what people might

expect Edinburgh Southern to look like”.

Gilmerton, Fairmilehead and Liberton are

now wholly included right up to the bypass

making it almost the same as the Westminster

constituency which his Labour colleague Ian

Murray has represented since 2010. He is

proud of his Members Bill which offers more

protection to shopkeepers, particularly those

selling age-restricted goods and services. And

then there was the water main in Liberton

which burst leaving a seven or eight foot deep

hole where Daniel said: “It was one of those

situations where genuinely with that volume

of water we were lucky nobody was killed.” He

was glad to help local Scout groups being

pursued for charges they were not liable for,

helping people stay in their homes when

threatened with eviction, sorting out noise

issues, helping a primary school class in

Bruntsfield who complained about the state of

their school toilets. (Pupils sent him

illustrated letters - that was a first.)

He is not the first Labour politician to claim

that Edinburgh Council is the lowest funded in

the country which makes for many “invidious

choices”. Although the Integration Joint Board

cuts to social care are not in Daniel’s view

particularly partisan, he says that Edinburgh is a

growing city and it is getting “squeezed” which

everyone “will have to recognise” - but

particularly the SNP government which has

reduced funding for councils from a third of the

Scottish budget to around a quarter. He is firmly

behind the tram extension: “Transport is

absolutely critical and if you create good,

efficient public transport you will enable

economic opportunities.”

The Scottish Parliament

Gordon Macdonald

Sanne Dijkstra-Downie

Daniel Johnson