12/04/2025
Walkerburn And District Community Council response to early learning enter consultation.
Executive Committee MembersScottish Borders Council 11th April 2025
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Early Learning and Childcare Provision: Report by Director of Education and Childrenโs Services
Agenda Item 10 for Executive Committee Meeting on 15th April 2025
Walkerburn and District Community Council (WDCC) completely rejects the arguments put forward in the Report by the Director of Education and Childrenโs Services being brought before the Executive Committee on 15th April 2025 to save money by โmothballingโ Walkerburnโs Early Learning provision.
We also wish to note our irritation at the very disingenuous and poorly drafted letter dated 3rd April sent to parents, apparently about timescales for confirming places for Early Years Provision, which adds a consultation period for โaffected settingsโ. What on earth is an โaffected settingโ? We were strongly tempted to make corrections to the letter and send it back to the Director of Education and Childrenโs Services in the hope that she had not read through what she was signing!
We understand that the Councilโs finances are in a dire state and that there is an urgent need to save money wherever possible. Of course, this means that Councillors will have to take unpopular decisions and services will be cut. There is inevitably waste in any well-established organisation but there are also areas where cuts will have profound and long-term implications for society in general and for communities in particular. We believe that Early Learning and Childcare services is one such area, particularly in communities such as Walkerburn where there are high levels of social deprivation.
There needs to be a process to match enrolment figures to effective provision: paragraph 3.5 makes the point that delivery has to be manageable and affordable within Local Authority resources. We also understand that โmothballingโ is a temporary closure and does not require the statutory consultation for closure under the 2010 Act. I believe we may be forgiven for seeing the use of this term in the Report as an underhand method of achieving closures without having to go through the rigorous consultation process required by the 2010 Act.
The Report places great emphasis on โthe most efficient staffing modelโ of groupings of 8 children. We accept that, in financial terms, this is no doubt accurate, and makes it comparatively easy to make financial decisions, but education and child-care is not just about delivering the best financial solution to a problem. It is also about the long-term effects upon children, upon families and upon communities. Paragraph 5.12 of the Report covering โbest valueโ completely misses the point that this is about โbest valueโ for children, not just about counting pennies. Paragraphs 5.14 and 5.15 make the point well, but then Paragraph 5.16 returns to โefficientlyโ in monetary terms. There is, of course, a valid argument that attending a bigger nursery with a wider group of children and more resources may benefit children but so does walking to a nursery attached to a community school attended by their siblings and neighbours.
Walkerburn village is small. It is a post-industrial village with a large percentage of social housing which is suitable for young families, many of which are single-parent families, and many do not own cars. There is some employment in the village, but most local jobs are outside the village and fall into the minimum wage category. Parents and carers will sometimes choose to use childcare/nursery provision outside the village, either because of their work commitments or because they can access help from relatives. However, most choose the local primary school, which is within walking distance for the whole village. Obviously, where there is more than one child in the family it is also useful to be able to access early years provision and the primary school in the same location.
The Report states that โtravel distanceโ to alternative provision is 2 miles. That estimate is only accurate if parents walk young children along the almost-disintegrating pavement alongside the traffic on the busy A72. From the main area of social housing to Innerleithen along the safe multi-use path on the banks of the Tweed is somewhat more than 2 miles! However, we note that the term used is โtravel distanceโ rather than โwalking distanceโ so presumably someone thinks parents can take the bus or drive to the alternative. We would be interested to hear how anyone thinks that a parent/carer with more than one young child is going to manage to get from Walkerburnโs Tweedholm Avenue up to the bus stop, take one small child to nursery whilst at the same time taking another child to the primary school with a baby in tow โ we have a young parent who would be in this position โ and it should be borne in mind that this would occur twice each day, there and back. No doubt, neighbours might help, but what a horrible situation to have inflicted on you when you live in a village with good, safe provision at present.
Closing Early Learning provision in Walkerburn will not just impact on families currently using the nursery and the school but will inevitably, we fear, lead to a decline in enrolments at the school. This in turn will have an impact on St Ronanโs School and Nursery at Innerleithen and an impact on school transport costs since much of the social housing in the village is more than 2 miles from St Ronanโs School in Innerleithen. We doubt that these costs have been factored into this proposal.
The whole Report smacks of sloppy thinking and shoddy presentation. We cannot believe that either the Director or the Executive Member for Education can be content with this standard of work. An example is to be seen at Recommendation 2.5 which includes the phrase, โthe decision made pursuant to paragraph (d)โ. What is and where is โparagraph (d)โ?
Finally, we consider that this is all being presented to the Executive as a โdone dealโ and the proposed, very short consultation is calculated not to allow the opportunity for any changes to the proposal. We therefore urge the Executive Committee to reject the recommendations and send the Director of Education and Childrenโs Services back to think again.
Yours Faithfully,
C Kerr Chair
