Chamber and committees

Our priority is keeping children, young people and school staff safe. The COVID-19 Advisory Sub-Group on Education and Children’s issues keeps the mitigations in schools and ELC settings under constant review. It considered the issue of parental attendance at school sporting events at its meeting on 21 September. Scottish Ministers are considering the sub-group's advice on this and other issues, and will announce the outcome as soon as possible.

Scottish Government is aware of the Burgenland pilot project which has been underway since 2019. We understand that 250 relatives providing care for family members have participated in the pilot in a population of 20,000 people in receipt of care allowance. We are also aware that the model will be evaluated over the coming months.

The Social Care (Self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013 outlines that individuals who choose to employ a Personal Assistant may employ family members where this is deemed appropriate, under certain circumstances. Joint COSLA and Scottish Government Covid-19 Self-directed Support guidance currently advises that consideration to employ family members on a temporary basis should be given, particularly if family members lose income as a result of taking on a caring role during the pandemic period.

The guidance is available on the Scottish Government website and is currently being updated: https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-guidance-on-self-directed-support/

The commitment to invest in access to school counselling services across education in Scotland was announced in our 2018/19 Programme for Government.

The Scottish Government provided guidance ( https://www.gov.scot/publications/guidance-education-authorities-establishing-access-counselling-secondary-schools/ ) and agreed a set of aims and principles with local authorities ( https://www.gov.scot/publications/delivery-of-access-to-counsellors-through-schools-aims-and-principles/ ) to support delivery of the commitment.

Our local authority partners have confirmed that access to counselling support services through secondary schools is now in place across Scotland. It was up to local authorities to determine how they would deliver the commitment to best suit the children and young people in their area.

As of 23 September 2021, there are nine suppliers registered to the Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (SBVS) who have indicated that they have delivered a commercial service to properties on Shetland.

In total, there are currently 73 suppliers registered to the SBVS. The whole list - which can be broken down by Scottish Local Authority area - is available on the Scotland Superfast website at https://www.scotlandsuperfast.com/how-can-i-get-it/scottish-broadband-voucher-scheme/ .

The Programme for Government is largely a one year delivery programme, and does not include all of the activity planned by Government over the full parliamentary period. Therefore although crofting reform has not been included in this year's PfG, work will be undertaken during this parliamentary term to reform the law as stated in our 2021 Manifesto.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all children and young people with additional support needs are supported. Under the Additional Support for Learning Act education authorities are responsible for identifying and meeting the additional support needs of their pupils. This includes the employment and provision of appropriate resources, including teaching and support staff, to meet children’s needs.

The Scottish Government remains committed to maintaining teacher numbers nationally and ensuring we have the right number of teachers, with the right skills, in the right places to educate our children and young people.

Figures published in December 2020 show that teacher numbers increased for the fifth year in a row – rising to 53,400 in 2020, an increase of 1,153 on the previous year. There are now more teachers than at any time since 2008, and the ratio of pupils to teachers is at its lowest since 2010.

We also continue to provide additional support to education authorities through investment of £15 million per year to further enhance capacity in education authorities and schools to respond effectively to the individual needs of children and young people, through the provision of support staff.

The Scottish Government has also established a Pupil Support Staff Working Group to explore how best we can empower and support pupil support staff, including taking action in response to the recommendations of the additional support for learning review. As part of this a Professional Learning Framework for Pupil Support Staff was launched at the Scottish Learning Festival, on 22 September 2021 .

Within schools, Curriculum for Excellence's flexible guidelines allow teachers to decide upon the content of lessons that best meets the local needs and circumstances of all children and young people in attendance. However, we are working with stakeholders to consider the greater opportunities for children and young people to engage in swimming lessons and water safety education within communities.

The National Learn to Swim Framework, which is supported by Scottish Water and delivered by aquatic partners every week, already helps children to become safe, competent, and confident swimmers and these water safety themed lessons are an essential part of the Framework to help educate on water safety.

Professor Ken Muir has been appointed as an independent advisor on education reform and formally started work on 2 August 2021, and is expected to take around 6 months to conclude.

Professor Muir’s work will include designing the implementation of the OECD’s recommendations for structural change of the SQA and Education Scotland, including delivery of the national curriculum, assessment, qualification and inspection functions. This will include consideration of the role, remit and purpose of both the SQA and Education Scotland, their functions and governance arrangements.

Professor Muir is expected to conclude work and report recommendations to Scottish Government early 2022 and we will seek to publish Professor Muir’s findings as soon as practically possible.

Updates on Professor Muir's work will be provided via https://www.gov.scot/policies/schools/education-reform/

As previously stated the scope of the review involves analysis of the legal constraints and governance arrangements of the existing Tripartite structure of Transport Scotland, Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited and David MacBrayne Limited (including its subsidiaries). Once the final report has been considered by Ministers, there will be engagement with all key stakeholders including trade unions.

The Scottish Government continues to work with partners to safeguard vulnerable people through the implementation of the National Missing Persons Framework for Scotland. Over the past three years we have developed return discussion training for professionals across Scotland to build understanding about the reasons a person went missing and reduce the risk of future missing episodes.

We have worked with young people who have experience of being missing and invested £40,000 to develop an education resource for young people, hosted on the Runaway Scotland website, to build understanding of risks and where support can be accessed. We have also provided £242,000 of funding since 2016 to Missing People charity to raise awareness of their Runaway helpline service (call 116 000 or visit www.runawayhelpline.org.uk ) for people who are thinking about running away, have already run away or have been away and want to come back. Ninety-nine percent of people who go missing in Scotland are returned safely.