Chamber and committees

Between 1 April and 22 May 2024 I held four meetings to discuss the relationships and behaviour action plan:

? Two meetings with the Scottish Advisory Group on Relationships and Behaviour in Schools (SAGRABIS) on 16 April 2024 and 15 May 2024, the minutes of which are available at: Scottish Advisory Group on Relationships and Behaviour in Schools (SAGRABIS) - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

? A meeting with Opposition Party Spokespeople on education on 16 April to discuss their priorities for the development of the action plan, with actions to provide further information and further explore some of the issues discussed.

? A meeting with the Head Teacher Taskforce on 22 May, the minutes of which can be found here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/head-teacher-taskforce-minutes-may-2024/

We understand that reunion and contact with family members are vitally important to refugees living in Scotland. Although asylum and immigration are reserved matters, we want the process of family reunion to be simpler and safer for refugees in Scotland.

The legal duty for housing and homelessness, including responsibility for managing and allocating temporary accommodation, sits with local authorities and neither Ministers nor Scottish Government officials are able to intervene in those decisions. Support with finding suitable housing for refugees and their children are the responsibility of the local authority who should be contacted if housing circumstances change.

In some cases, where there is a change of circumstances, the local authority will require the individual/family to register as homeless. Refugees and their dependents, are entitled to access homelessness support from their local authority. Most funding for homelessness is provided through the local government settlement. In addition to this, the Scottish Government has provided local authorities with £60.5m since 2018 to support the implementation of rapid rehousing transition plans and provide £30.5m annually for their work to prevent homelessness.

Scottish Government and Education Scotland have begun user engagement around the development of a National Digital Academy. A survey capturing the views of 2,229 learners has been undertaken, and a series of interviews and focus groups have been held with learners, parents and virtual learning environment providers. Education Scotland will continue this engagement with teaching organisations and other national bodies over the next few months, with overall findings from engagement being shared in due course.

The relationships and behaviour action plan had been agreed by the Scottish Advisory Group on Relationships and Behaviour in Schools (SAGRABIS) at its meeting on 15 May 2024, subject to some identified drafting changes. The guidance was in the process of being finalised when the need to consider whether or not it could be published during the pre-election period arose. The guidance would otherwise have been published prior to the end of school year.

The recruitment of teachers is a matter for local authorities. Details on the number of teachers employed in Scotland’s schools will be available in the annual teacher census which is due to be published in December.

The university intake targets for Initial Teacher Education (ITE) for the academic year 2024-25 are set by the Scottish Funding Council. The ITE target for Computing Science for 2024-25 is 52.

As part of routine government business, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills met with officials between 1 April and 22 May 2024. The Scottish Government response to the Independent Review of Qualifications and Assessment was discussed and refinements were made to the draft response.

Clinical data collection, including around fracture liaison services, is carried out locally by territorial NHS Boards. Public Health Scotland will additionally carry out national data collection or collation in some areas, including its forthcoming audit of Fracture Liaison Services.

We intend to resume Tranche 1 of the Sustainability Loan Scheme in 2024-25 once we have completed the disbursement of funds for those loans already completed and confirmed a budget. This will likely not be until midway through the financial year.

Our preference remains to continue the loan scheme into Tranche 2 and beyond – however, this is dependant on whether the UK Government resumes the allocation of Financial Transaction Capital to the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government is committed to boosting planning capacity across Scotland. Through our Investing In Planning Consultation earlier this year, we proposed a series of practical options, including the potential for a planning hub to support authorities to access skilled staff at short notice to help them to respond to pressures, alternative fee mechanisms to boost income and opportunities to get more people to consider planning as a career. We will announce the way ahead for our Investing in Planning proposals soon.

In the meantime, to strengthen the future pipeline of planners we are supporting 10 post graduate students, through grant funding, to study at Scottish planning schools this year . This bursary offer will be enhanced by helping to link students with internships and industry placements.

It remains the case that planning permission is required for any material change of use from any lawful planning use to a short-term let use, in addition to any licence required for the operation as a short term let. The licensing regime does not add any new planning requirement.

The primary source for measuring Scotland’s inward investment performance is through Scottish Development International’s (SDI) annual inward investment results on behalf of the Enterprise Agencies.

SDI tracks the number of planned and safeguarded jobs associated with supported inward investment projects (Foreign Direct Investment and inward investment from the Rest of the UK).

The average number of planned and / or safeguarded jobs recorded per inward investment project (Foreign Direct Investment and inward investment from the Rest of the UK) in each of the last five years was as follows:

2018-19: 93

2019-20: 53

2020-21: 58

2021-22: 68

2022-23: 99

SDI results form part of a suite of indicators used to measure Scotland’s inward investment performance. The latest EY Annual Attractiveness Survey (2024), which excludes intra-UK investment, shows Scotland’s strong track record of attracting inward investment continuing, featuring as the top performing part of the UK outside of London for the ninth year.