In terms of section 1(1) of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 and section 47 of the 2014 Act, the Council must secure that the ‘mandatory amount’ of EL&C is made available for each eligible pre-school child belonging to its area. The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 and linked statutory guidance has set out the increased entitlement to 1 140 hours for eligible children and places a duty on the Council to offer increased flexibility to parents as to where and how their child can access their early learning and childcare entitlement.
The Council has therefore identified a requirement to establish a flexible framework agreement with suitably qualified and competent early learning and childcare service providers to ensure security of required places, in order to fulfil its duty. On successful completion of this application process, all providers that meet the criteria set out within the national standards and agree to Aberdeen City's terms and conditions of contract, will be accepted onto the flexible framework.
A procurement under the light touch regime to establish a non-competitive, flexible framework of early learning and childcare providers. This will ensure Aberdeen City Council has sufficient capacity to deliver every child’s funded ELC entitlement by August 2020. The framework will commence in August 2020 and will operate for 4 years.
