Target for nurseries too costly to be met

EDUCATION bosses have admitted they won't be able to meet the costs of increasing nursery provision in Edinburgh to bring the city in line with national targets.

The Scottish Government has pledged to increase nursery education from 475 hours per child each year to 570 hours by 2010.

But education leaders say this would cost around £800,000 – which the council won't be able to find without additional funding.

The admission over nursery hours comes amid controversy over the quality of school meals in the pre-school sector.

The council has recently axed hot meals in 14 of its 18 stand-alone nurseries, and replaced them with packed lunches of processed cheese sandwiches, jelly, cake and crisps.

It also comes as education leaders admit not having enough money to cut P1, 2 and 3 class sizes to 18 pupils to meet Scottish Government targets. New figures show that just 15 per cent of this year's 152 P1 classes had fewer than 18 children in them.

In P2, just ten per cent of 129 classes had 18 or fewer pupils, while eight per cent of the 131 P3 classes met the 2007-08 target. The council says it would cost £7.7 million to pay for more teachers to achieve a reduction of class sizes. Adapting and extending schools to accommodate more classes would cost around £16m.

Labour group leader Andrew Burns asked education leader Marilyne MacLaren directly whether the city was in a position to provide increased nursery hours and to reduce class sizes, to which she replied "No".

He says Cllr MacLaren's admission exposes "yet another completely shallow commitment".

He said: "We should not be signing up to these commitments when we don't have the money to see them through. It is a perfectly laudable goal but every goal has a potentially big cost."

Ninety six per cent of children in council nurseries presently receive the maximum 475 hours per year provision in Edinburgh.

Tina Woolnough, chair of Parents In Partnership, says that while many parents would welcome a rise in the number of hours, she fears it would lead to a reduction in provision.

She thinks Edinburgh's education chiefs should focus on filling places in city nurseries, saying: "Where there's space in the pre-school nursery sector they should offer more places for working parents and vulnerable children."

But Ms Woolnough added that she wouldn't accept the council's reasons for not cutting class sizes in P1 to 3. She said: "They're dragging their heels. In the light of school closures, clearly there's spare capacity in the city. They can reduce class sizes by getting extra teachers in classrooms – they do not necessarily need to increase classroom provision."

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said local councils had "significant flexibility" in how to spend their settlement. She said: "

The Government has increased funding to them by more than 13 per cent over the next three years, providing £34.9 billion."