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In Stranraer, the Galloway Childcare Company has just moved into its bright, new, specially designed £500,000 building. The small-size wellies are lined up to make the most of the decking area to which every room has direct access, and now that the weather is improving, they will make a start on turning the building site into a garden.

It is one of the bright beacons of hope for the future of Scottish children that has benefited from the Scottish Executive's recent investment - but it is close to financial disaster. Gillian Vance, the corporate development manager, who describes the company as "a social enterprise run in a businesslike fashion", carried out her financial review last week and concluded: "Without some form of funding from the local authority, we won't make it to the end of the financial year. We cannot afford to pay much more than the minimum wage. In future, we will have to have more qualified staff, which is good, but I don't know how we are going to pay them. We are already relying on the good will of people putting in more time than they are paid for."

This is the reality of Scotland's piecemeal childcare policy: a gap between intention and reality bridged by a series of temporary measures, shoved into place by a dedicated but desperate workforce.

That bright building in Stranraer is the result of lottery money combined with funding through the executive's childcare strategy. It has allowed Galloway Childcare Company to expand from offering after-school care to provide much-needed daycare.

"This is an area with a lot of deprivation. It is beautiful but a fabulous view does not put food on the table," says Vance. Some parents who use the service are working and pay full fees, but others who are on low incomes or unemployed are funded through the tax credit system. While that works in theory, in practice it has been found to be open to abuse, resulting in checks by the Inland Revenue, which can take a large amount of time away from managing the service.

Sure Start, the Westminster government's flagship policy for improving the worst childhoods, is administered by the Scottish Executive via the 32 local authorities in Scotland, where the annual allocation to the councils to work in partnership with health authorities and relevant voluntary-sector organisations will increase to £59.9m by 2008. The outgoing executive says that demonstrates their commitment to the initiative and recognises Sure Start is not a quick-fix solution.

However, it has been widely criticised for not being ring-fenced and therefore not always channelled to the most vulnerable families. While Vance praises Dumfries and Galloway's policy of providing short-term care places to help families over a crisis, the overall view is that, at best, it's patchy and, at worst, it can be spent on road repairs.

As the umbrella group for everyone involved in services for children - and, importantly, for parents' groups - Children in Scotland is in the best position to give an overview of the how we support families and children. They confirm it varies wildly. "We have no up-to-date research on what services parents have and how they are spread across the country and across different age groups," says Paula Evans, their policy officer.

"A national parenting and family support strategy would provide some consistent funding while allowing the services themselves to determine the needs of parents and to meet them. Often the provision is patchy. They are looking at 8am to 6pm "wraparound" care but that has to be high quality to aid the child's development and has to be affordable. It needs to be flexible enough and affordable enough for the parent, but stable enough and high-quality enough for the child. At the moment, these are not being balanced properly by the state."

She argues it should be available to all: "We need to move to it not being a sign of failure when parents need support. The explosion of nanny programmes on TV does point to a gap in provision that needs to be filled. All parents need some support but some face more difficulties, which is why support should be both universal and targeted. There is a stigma about needing help but if you make it more acceptable, people will access it more and children will benefit."

For many parents, the cost of childcare is a major expense. The Daycare Trust reports childcare costs in Scotland have risen by 10%. This above-inflation rise may increase the number of parents who think it makes more sense to stay at home. Many years of running the Scottish Out of School Care Network and experiencing the difficulties of funding good quality after-school services, leads Irene Audain to suggest it is time to consider the more radical idea of supporting stay-at-home parents, with children's right to play nearer the top of the priority list.

"Most after-school provision is run by parents in the spare time they would prefer to spend with their children, instead of filling in application forms and worrying how to meet the cost of the requirement to have more qualified staff. Childcare is one route out of poverty but we should probably now concentrate on providing services for pre-school children," she says.

An unexpected fellow-lobbyist for provision for the under-fives is Alan Sinclair, former director of learning and skills at Scottish Enterprise and former chief executive at the Wise Group, which provides training for unemployed people. In a paper for the Work Foundation, he argues we should concentrate resources on the under-fives because "there are very strong economic reasons for doing that as well as the moral reasons."

"At the Wise Group, I knew many of our hapless, long-term unemployed young men were parents two or three times over and that always stuck with me. When I was responsible for skills and learning in Scottish Enterprise, the biggest problems employers reported were about people's ability to speak and listen and to work with one another. You get these skills very early in life or you don't get them at all.

"Starting at five is better than trying to start with Neet (not in education, employment or training) groups at 16 but three is better than five and zero is better than three. Yet the paradigm is that our childcare is staffed largely by young girls who have not done well at school and are paid close to the minimum wage.

"It is not good enough to say we are doing well enough. This is too grave. We have to raise this as one of our central community and political issues. It is not just about mothers looking after babies; it is a serious economic and social issue and it really ought to be treated as that. At the moment, I don't think we are doing that."

He concurs with almost every group involved in providing services for children in Scotland (and some of the political parties) and Children in Scotland in calling for a 10-year strategy for early-years provision - as England has.

The Unicef report in February which found children in the UK to be the most unhappy in the western world sounded an alarm call about family life in this country. In Scotland, it should not only encourage us look to Europe and the Nordic countries for models of good practice but to take an even closer look at our own.

While the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Spain topped the table, the UK was in the bottom third in five of the six measures of children's wellbeing.

There were no separate Scottish figures in the report. As Sinclair points out, however, usually Scotland's position across such indicators is worse than the UK as a whole.

The question which may only be answered by the next election, but which anyone who cares about Scotland's children should ask, is: do the different parties appreciate just how far we have to travel? While initiatives such as the healthy eating programme are welcomed, many argue, Paula Evans among them, that they are unnecessarily handicapped by beginning too late.

The vital age for introducing healthy foods is around three. Whatever combination of policy cards we collectively hold at Holyrood from May 4, the future will be family-focused.

Lone parents need help, but what about support for the rest of us?'
It was because they knew there was good after-school care available that Heather McCrae's parents made a placing request for her to attend Hyndland Primary School in Glasgow. "The nearest primary school has no after-school care, but it is absolutely vital for us," says Gordon McCrae.

Heather, six, loves the wide range of activities at "the aftie", including outdoor games, arts and crafts and baking, while Gordon and his wife, Shirley, can be sure she is happy and well cared for.

The couple work in the care profession - Gordon in mental health and Shirley with people with learning disabilities. "So that we can be out caring for vulnerable people, we need someone to care for our child.

It's catch-22," says Gordon.

He would like political rhetoric about "hard-working families" to be translated into more practical help. "Of course one-parent families need help, but what about a bit more support for all families?" he says. "We both work full-time to pay the mortgage, but we don't have a big, posh house or a flash car: we just want to keep our heads above water.

"What most families need is good, affordable childcare. At £230 a month, the after-school club is fantastic value - and so is £17 a day during the school holidays - but during the six-week summer holidays, half your wages can go on care."

The couple are so enthusiastic about Hyndland After-School Club that Gordon, 48, is on the management committee. "The premises are the old school dining hall, and they were threatened with demolition," he says. "We managed to avert that, but it was so serious that both of us asked our employers about reducing our hours, because that would be the only alternative.

"Our staff are excellent but we can only afford to pay them minimal wages. If the executive is serious about getting parents back to work, they need more practical help."

What the parties say

SNP
Families will benefit from its plans to scrap council tax and cut the overall amount to be paid in local taxation by £450m. It will support working parents by promoting home and flexi-working, increasing free nursery education for three and four-year-olds by 50% and keeping schools open longer for after-school clubs. Carers will also benefit.

CONSERVATIVE
Parents should be entitled to greater flexibility when accessing nursery education and childcare. It should be up to parents, not councils, to decide which nursery to use for their weekly entitlement to free pre-school education. It will encourage employers to make salary-sacrifice childcare vouchers available to employees.

LIB DEM
Provide a free playgroup place for every two-year-old. Cut class sizes and turn schools into community hubs, with exciting activities for young people and affordable childcare before and after school. Invest in communities and give protection to greenspace, enhancing the environment in which families live.

GREEN
Early intervention to support vulnerable families before they reach crisis point, including parenting skills, nutrition and home support for education; integrate children's services and develop 10-year strategy for early years; child health to be a national priority; strategy for safe-play spaces.

SSP
Free public transport policy would remove travel costs from families at a stroke. Replacing the council tax with an income-based Scottish Service Tax would benefit 75% of the population. Free childcare and extended maternity and paternity provision. Build 100,000 affordable homes for rent.

SOLIDARITY
More public-sector quality childcare.

12:58am Tuesday 1st May 2007

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