Sighthill hit the headlines over the summer when tensions rose between local people and 1,200 asylum seekers and refugees housed on the Sighthill estate. The Executive has awarded 700,000 to the Glasgow Alliance, a partnership which brings together agencies from the public and private sectors as well as community and voluntary organisations, to improve community integration and local services. The grant will fund an additional 100 nursery places for three-to four-year-olds and 100 places for under- threes, created by expanding creche and parent-toddler provision.
This will be the first time that refugee children in Glasgow have had access to pre-school provision, as the contract between Glas-gow City Council and the Home Office's National Asylum Support Service only covers places for children of statutory school age. Children's and refugees' charities had expressed grave concern about this, pointing out that it hindered younger children's progress in preparing for mainstream schooling, settling into their new environment and learning English, and could also make it more difficult for their mothers to integrate (News, 5 July).
Welcoming the funding, a spokesperson for the charity Children in Scotland said, 'It is important that services are improved for the targeted communities as a whole and that the additional childcare places are available to all families.
'Against the background of unrest in areas such as Sighthill over the summer, this additional funding should be used to encourage integration and understanding between all residents, and should be a first step towards eliminating poverty and deprivation for the whole community.' Glasgow Alliance is also receiving 281,000 additional funding this financial year and 421,000 the following year to distribute among Social Inclusion Partnerships across the city. The Alliance has allocated 225,000 to create the 200 new daycare places in north Glasgow, half of which will come from the 700,000 Scottish Executive grant, while the rest will come from North Glasgow Social Inclusion Partnership.
* See special report, p10
