A Fife SNP councillor has defended the council’s commitment to early-years services after being attacked for making “damaging” cuts.
Councillor Douglas Chapman, chairman of Fife Council’s education and children’s services committee, said Labour councillor Mark Hood had exaggerated savings being made by the local authority’s SNP-Lib Dem administration.
Mr Hood had criticised the council for putting vulnerable children at risk by cutting early-years services by more than £1m between 2011 and 2014.
However Mr Chapman said the £350,000 saving identified in 2011/12 was a one-off and not a year-on-year cut.
Nonetheless the council document outlining the saving, seen by The Courier, stated, “There would be no capacity to extend zero-to-three provision which may lead to vulnerable children continuing to be at risk.”
Mr Chapman said the document did not make clear the council’s investment in early-years services.
He said, “This year we invested £120,000 back into early years specifically to deal with the zero-to-three years age group, who are either potentially at risk through poverty, parents’ drug abuse etc, or are in another vulnerable position, for example disability.
“Mark Hood’s comments come on the day when the First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, launches a £250m Scottish Futures Fund, huge swathes of which will go to support children in their early and formative years.
“In particular, the funding will go to those children who are considered vulnerable or from an area where poverty might blight their young lives.
“In Fife, we have taken the early years of a young person’s life very seriously indeed and it has been a constant focus for this administration, for example through our interventionist policy to reduce class sizes in the early years of primary.
“This year we were able to announce the setting-up of family centres in Kelty and Kennoway and we are working on further provision for vulnerable families with children zero-to-three years in Ballingry, Glenrothes and Kirkcaldy.
“At nursery level we have improved the child-adult ratios to allow more time to be spent with each child and have employed eight additional early-years officers over the past 18 months, focusing on areas of deprivation to support families with children aged zero-to-three.”