Excerpts from the briefing:
Childcare costs in Scotland - what the survey revealed
Nursery costs for a child under two years old are over £100 per week in Scotland. On average, parents in Scotland can expect to spend £101.49 per week for 25 hours of nursery care for a child under two years old. The same amount of nursery care for a child aged two or over costs an average of £94.52 per week. Childminders in Scotland cost an average of £93.10 per week for a child under two. Out-of-school clubs, attended by many primary school children, cost an average £48.55 per week in Scotland.
The highest fees for a nursery in Scotland are £233.75 per week for an under two receiving 25 hours of childcare. A working parent purchasing 25 hours care in this nursery over 46 weeks of the year would face a bill of £10,750 every year for childcare.
Importantly, too, there is a strong link in Scotland between an inconsistent supply of childcare and varied and high costs. The survey shows a strong correlation between high costs and gaps in supply. For local authorities that had higher than average childcare costs for children under two, just two local authorities were able to state that they had enough childcare for this group of children. For the nine local authorities that had higher than average costs for out-of-school clubs, only one local authority was able to state that it had enough childcare for 5-to-11- year-old children.
The survey also shows that childcare costs in Scotland are among the highest in Britain. Childminder costs for a child under 2 are higher than in England and Wales, as are out-ofschool clubs. The average cost of out-of-school childcare is higher than in England and Wales. Overall, parents in Scotland pay nearly as much for childcare as parents in southern England, but this is a substantially higher proportion of their income.