Chamber and committees

The publication of Highlands and Islands Airports Limited’s (HIAL) Board minutes were delayed due to delays in clearing the draft minutes. The outstanding minutes have now been published on the HIAL web site and HIAL has been reminded of the need to publish all Board minutes within two weeks of the meeting.

As a responsible government, we have been preparing for all EU exit possibilities and we have been working with our public bodies and non-departmental public bodies to understand how they are preparing for the UK leaving the EU, and to identify and mitigate potential risks across a wide range of issues.

Working at Directorate level we continue to engage with our non-departmental public bodies through our Sponsor teams on identifying the risks to ensure that the Scottish Government are as prepared as possible for EU withdrawal. Specific exercises have been undertaken across the public service, for example on workforce impacts and data flows from EU countries, which in turn inform wider planning assumptions and risk mitigation.

The information shared contains confidential and sensitive details and the Scottish Government has no plans to lay this risk information in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre.

Non-departmental public bodies are required to operate within the terms of the Scottish Public Finance Manual which sets out specific arrangements for financial control, internal and external and internal audit arrangements and effective risk management procedures. Accountable Officers of non-departmental public bodies are responsible for implementing effective risk management processes within their organisation. The Scottish Government has no plans to place copies of contingency risk planning documents in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe) sent and received from non-departmental public bodies.

Following the 2015 Education Committee’s inquiry into the attainment of pupils with sensory impairment, a work plan of actions to address the recommendations in the Committee’s report was developed. The majority of these actions are already completed and a progress report was provided to the Committee in March 2018.

Work is progressing well to address the outstanding recommendations, which are the review of the competency guidance for Teachers of the Deaf (ToD) and Qualified Teachers of the Visually Impaired (QTVI) impaired and the review of habilitation provision within schools.

Work on both of these recommendations should be completed by the end of 2019 and a final progress report will be provided to the Committee in early 2020.

The Access Data Working Group was a technical working group established by the Scottish Government to assist with delivery of a recommendation from Commission on Widening Access to look at measures to identify access students. A report on the group’s work was presented to the Access Delivery Group when it met on 6 February 2019. The report will be placed on the Scottish Government website as part of the papers from this meeting in due course.

The Access Data Working Group was established by the Scottish Government in March 2018. The group has completed its work to look at measures to identify access students. The Scottish Government is currently considering how the group could assist with future data work to support widening access; a date has not been set for the next meeting of the group.

Membership of the Access Data Working Group:

• Lynn MacMillan, Strategic Lead Access to Higher Education, Scottish Government (Chair)
• Neil Croll, Head of Widening Participation, University of Glasgow
• James Dunphy, Head of the Department for the Enhancement of Learning, Teaching and Access, Robert Gordon University
• Ester Ruskuc, Director of Strategy and Policy, University of St Andrews
• Vonnie Sandlan, Senior Policy Officer, Colleges Scotland
• David Livey, Campaigns and Engagement Manager, National Union of Students
• Alastair Sim, Director, Universities Scotland
• Terry Shevlin, Interim Head of Learning and Teaching and Widening Access, Universities Scotland
• Fiona Burns, Outcome Agreement Manager, Scottish Funding Council
• Cathy Mitchell, Assistant Director, Scottish Funding Council
• Ryan Scott, Statistician, Scottish Government
• Alasdair Anthony, Statistician, Scottish Government
• Elisabeth Boyling, Statistician, Scottish Government
• Ewan Mackenzie, Analyst, Scottish Government

The measures that the group examined in detail were:

• Free school meals
• Education Maintenance Allowance
• SAAS higher education bursary income data

The Commission on Widening Access identified a strong relationship between Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) quintile and participation in higher education, particularly participation at universities, and stated that SIMD “should continue to be used for tracking, monitoring and targets relating to fair access in the coming years”.

The aim of the Access Data Working Group was to identify measures that could assist in identifying learners who do not live in the most deprived areas of Scotland (based on the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation) but face similar socioeconomic barriers to accessing university.

As the member is aware, regulation and legislative competence in respect of all telecommunication matters is reserved to the UK Parliament and UK Ministers. The Scottish Government is intervening, on economic development grounds, to try to address "notspot" areas that have arisen, across large areas of rural Scotland, as a consequence of the failure of the UK wide approach to market regulation, but is, as the question alludes to, only able to intervene where there is no commercial proposal to establish coverage,

The Scottish Government is investing up to £25 million in the Scottish 4G Infill Programme (S4GI) to deliver 4G infrastructure and services in selected “notspots”.

Initial target locations for S4GI include three sites in the Shetland Islands, located at Ham, Ayres of Selivoe and Bruray.

Preparatory work is underway to secure landowner agreements and planning permission. However, as with other target locations, masts will only be built when there is a firm commitment in place from at least one mobile network operator to deliver services from each site. We continue to engage proactively with mobile operators to encourage them to support the programme. We will publish quarterly progress updates via the Scottish Government website.

The European Convention on Human Rights is incorporated in the law of Scotland, as in the other legal systems of the UK, by the Human Rights Act 1998. Under the terms of this legislation it is unlawful for a public authority to act in a way which is incompatible with a Convention right. "Public authorities" include a court or tribunal, and any person certain of whose functions are functions of a public nature.

Moreover the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Ministers may not act incompatibly with the Convention, under the terms of the Scotland Act 1998.

Should an individual feel that his or her rights provided by the Convention are not being protected, ultimately his or her recourse is through the courts.