The targets are for all three- and four-year-olds to receive 15 hours offree education for 38 weeks per year by autumn 2010.
Speaking at a committee meeting, Councillor Marilyne MacLaren, convenerof education, children and families, said the target would cost 800,000. She confirmed the council could not afford this.
Ms MacLaren said, 'At the moment the majority of nursery age childrenreceive 475 hours per year (12.5 hours a week), which is the currentmaximum. It has been estimated that we would require an additional800,000 per year to increase the provision to 570 hours per year.Until we can secure this additional funding we will be unable to reachthe target.'
Councillor Elizabeth Maginnis of the children and families committeesaid, 'If the government is serious about the targets, they will have togive the local authority more money. The alternative is that theauthority will have to cut other services.
'It omits any local element of choice. It means that local governmentbecomes only a cipher of national government policy,' she added.
However, a Scottish Government spokesperson said, 'We have increasedfunding to local government by more than 13 per cent over the next threeyears, providing 34.9 billion. For each of those three years, weare also spending a higher percentage of our overall budget on localgovernment than the position we inherited from the previousadministration.'
The spokesman added, 'Alongside this increase in resources, we'veenabled local authorities for the first time to retain all theefficiency savings they make to invest in frontline services, includingeducation. We've also devolved to them significant flexibility in termsof how they spend their resources.'
Meanwhile, Edinburgh Council is also under pressure from centralGovernment to reduce primary school class sizes to 18.
