A SENIOR Dunfermline councillor has blamed lack of capital funding and choosing wrong priorities as reasons as to why so many children have been told they don't have a nursery place next term.

Councillor Helen Law claimed the Scottish Government hadn't funded the expansion of 1,140 hours of early learning sufficiently and that Fife Council had placed more emphasis on the balance of different age groups in a classroom than on where parents wanted their children to attend.

Politicians have been swamped with complaints from parents not being able to secure their choice of nursery provision.

And, although Fife Council insist that every child has a place, 385 children have been told by letter that they don't have a nursery placement.

"There are two reasons why this has gone wrong; there was not enough funding for accommodation and the wrong priorities have been chosen," Cllr Law told the Press.

"The capacity issue is down to the Scottish Government. They announced a policy but they did not provide sufficient capital as means for buildings, so Fife Council then had to go and find more money to do this.

"Priorities were chosen by each council.

"The first should have been trying to make sure children who are settled in a nursery were kept there. The next should have been keeping siblings together.

"Instead, there are some cases where families are dealing with extremely difficult travel arrangements.

"The reality is that they've made it harder for parents, it's not been thought out."

The policy to increase childcare hours by the Scottish Government in 2013 aimed to help children and make it easier for parents to work or go into education or training.

Cllr Law added: "I am very concerned about the importance Fife Council have placed on making sure there is a balance of three- and four-year-olds rather than where people want to go.

"They have prioritised this at the expense of putting some children in a different nursery to where they already go.

"And if you ask parents, this is not the most important thing to them.

"Parents are more concerned about the location and if all their children can all go to the same school."

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “In March, Audit Scotland confirmed we were on track to deliver the 1,140 hours expansion, in partnership with local authorities. Hundreds of buildings were already built or refurbished, thousands of additional staff recruited, and more than 50,000 children were receiving more than the current entitlement of 600 hours.

“Councils are working hard to see what capacity will be available once ELC provision is able to open safely, and they will update parents and carers on local arrangements as soon as possible. We know that most local authorities had capacity to deliver some increased places for the expansion but local authorities will need some time to work out how this will be delivered.

“We continue to be in discussions with Fife Council regarding the situation locally.”

Fife Council says there is "still capacity" to place all children in ELC settings in all nursery areas and parents were asked to apply for their child’s funded place for August 2020, as the current nursery models no longer exist

Jacqueline Price, education manager, said: "The Fife Council-agreed admissions process provides the fairest way to allocate places and this has been successful for the majority of families."