National nursery organisation slams council vote to remove parental choice from funded childcare offer
Despite a hard-fought campaign by early years and parenting organisations, West Lothian Council voted not to fund early learning and childcare (ELC) places for families who live outside West Lothian in private, voluntary, and independent (PVI) nurseries.
National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) Scotland along with parent campaigners Pregnant then Screwed have raised this issue with the council and the media, saying that the proposal is a direct attack on the ELC policy principles of parental choice, funding following the child and provider neutrality.
The decision will leave around 100 families from neighbouring local authorities forced to move their children from settings where they are settled and have built relationships into council nurseries that offer less flexibility and wraparound care for working families.
Providers in the West Lothian area have already been told that new children who live outside the council boundary will not be funded from next term, even if they have already got an accepted offer. In addition, cross-boundary children already at nursery will be forced to move places before August or lose their funded entitlement.
Parents have chosen PVI nurseries because they meet their needs . Removing children from settings where they have already formed attachments with adults and children could be distressing for them.
Most local authorities allocate ELC places for the year ahead as early as January, so this will come as a shock to parents who will now be scrambling to find places for their children. Nurseries also plan their staffing for the year based on early allocation decisions.
Many nursery providers will now be impacted by this hasty decision and will struggle for financial survival. At least one nursery expects to have to close its doors as a direct result. Families affected in neighbouring council areas such as Falkirk and Edinburgh were not consulted on this proposal.
Tim McLachlan, Chief Executive of National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) who wrote to the Chief Executive of West Lothian Council also met with senior officials on Friday to outline our concerns.
Tim said: “This decision is devastating for families and providers across West Lothian and is a direct blow to the Scottish Government and parents nationally. It is so damaging for children and plunges many families and nurseries into chaos.
“The council is essentially protecting its own services at the expense of parental choice. We all know that partner providers like nurseries and childminders can offer families greater flexibility, longer hours or unique experiences they value. This flexibility is crucial for giving better access to employment and education opportunities for parents.
“This decision will put PVI providers at risk of closure – threatening more places than just the 100 families affected. These families have chosen PVI nurseries because they meet their needs, in particular are open all year round and enable them to work a full day.
“This decision risks breaking down reciprocal agreements with other local authorities, meaning West Lothian families who access ELC places outside the area could lose out. This goes completely against the principles of the nationally funded ELC policy which is supposedly built on parental choice and funding following individual children.
“The council will now see that this short-sighted budget cut in the long term will be damaging to children, damaging for families and damaging to the economy if people cannot work in the area without access to flexible childcare.”
Although funding children from neighbouring local authorities is non-statutory, for the vast majority of councils there are reciprocal arrangements in place which give parents more choice and enable many to send their child to a closer nursery if they live near boundaries.
Tim McLachlan met with Scottish Government officials yesterday to state the impact this will have on the national policy. He added: “We are seeing more and more issues with local authorities squeezing ELC budgets due to chronic shortfalls and severe financial pressures. This funding must follow the child to meet the intentions of the national ELC policy.
“The reality of the funding’s failure to translate into equal and fair delivery of the 1140 hours policy will impact children all over Scotland.”
Councillors agreed to pass the budget proposal by 17 votes to 15.
Andrew Carr of First Adventures Nursery in Linlithgow is NDNA’s chair for the West Lothian network of nurseries. He gave evidence at the start of the meeting along with a parent and other early years providers. His nursery will be directly affected as many of the families live in neighbouring council areas.
He told the meeting: “Funding Follows the Child and “provider neutrality” support an ecosystem of ELC provision that meets both the scale and diversity of childcare needs across Scotland. For their part PVI settings and childminders answer a granularity of different circumstances that the state cannot match – certainly not without attracting egregious costs.
“It would see the council drawing its own boundary across a national policy, a nationally funded policy, and declaring its own interests as more important than those of children and families across Scotland.”
Andrew added that the proposal would see West Lothian Council deciding on behalf of families whether or not siblings can attend the same setting; when mothers can return from maternity leave and which setting is best for their child.
His closing argument asked councillors to consider the ambitious, absolutist language used in ELC policy and question if they could really say they have done everything they could have done to ‘get it right for EVERY child’.
Other deputations included a powerfully emotive family story and plea to West Lothian Council to not follow in the City of Edinburgh Council’s footsteps. This deviation from the principles of “funding follows the child” risks putting families in the position to lose their jobs, and to upset family life to the point of traumatising young children who rely on consistency in their day to day lives. Families invest in their early years provision where ELC policy does not support them and the choice to keep their funding where it suits them most is their main ask.
Deputations also discussed implications of this decision not only impacting the families that use funded services from outside of West Lothian. There is a knock-on effect of the siblings of those children which families self-fund to keep their children together, now threatened with being separated, disregarding the importance of continuity of care and learning from birth that PVI settings and childminders can provide.
Andrew Carr has also launched a change.org petition Defend funding follows the child in West Lothian which you can sign here: https://c.org/PKqQQ2GNyH
The petition will instead be added to the agenda for the next Education Executive meeting, date to be confirmed in due course.
Listen to the meeting here West Lothian Council Meeting | 24 Feb 2026
- Scotland
- childcare
- early education
- early years
- funding
- Funding follows the Child
- NDNA
- nurseries
- Scotland
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