Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government are in the process of competitively tendering for parts of the Bute House repair schedule and therefore the full cost of the planned repairs has yet to be determined.

I refer the member to answer to question S6W-07294 on 22 March 2022. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at - https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Decisions on device procurement, distribution and use of devices are taken by local authorities themselves.

We provided £25 million of funding in 2020-21 to local authorities across Scotland to tackle digital exclusion.

Statistics on the number of teachers in publicly funded schools in Scotland since 2016 are published in Table 3 of Summary Statistics for Schools in Scotland 2022, available on the Scottish Government website:https://www.gov.scot/publications/summary-statistics-for-schools-in-scotland-2022/pages/overview/ .

Officials from the Scottish Government are in touch with MG ALBA every week on detailed items of business. In addition, the Scottish Government has had more formal meetings with MG ALBA on 22 June 2022 and 15 March 2023.

These meetings covered a wide range of business outcomes including staffing, funding, performance figures, programme plans, projects and wider discussions with Ofcom, BBC and DCMS. For the year ahead the Scottish Government has arranged quarterly meetings with MG ALBA and these will continue to focus on our support for the channel.

The Scottish Government has not provided any guidance specific to the Care Inspectorate for the financial year 2023-24. As a non-departmental public body (NDPB), the Care Inspectorate follows the Scottish Public Finance Manual and the Government Financial Reporting Manual. The 2023-24 Public Sector Pay Strategy was also published in March 2023, and applies to the Care Inspectorate as a NDPB.

The Scottish Government has made clear our support for indigenous languages, including Scots.

The Scottish Government provides around £550,000 of funding to Scots organisations who support Scots education. Organisations such as the Scots Language Centre, Dictionaries of the Scots Language, The Association of Scottish Literary Studies, Scots Hoose and Yaldi Books are all supporting Local Authorities through the development of high quality Scots language learning and resources which allow young people access to Scots.

In addition, the Scottish Government works alongside Education Scotland and the SQA who have worked to standardise, promote and make the Scots language more readily available in schools. The Scottish Government’s Scots language policy was officially launched in 2015 and in 2017 Education Scotland published its Scots Language in Curriculum for Excellence report, which outlines good practice for teachers and senior leaders in Primary and Secondary and to Local authority officers with responsibility for literacy and 1+2 implementation.

We are currently considering the responses to the recent consultation on the future of Gaelic and Scots, this will help inform part of the work to develop Scots language policy and future guidance for Local Authorities, as well as the upcoming Scottish Languages Bill.

Investment in the Scottish Attainment Challenge is available in a number of publications. In June of last year we published the Attainment Scotland Fund Evaluation: Fifth Interim Report - Year 6, detailing the funding streams and allocations for the first six years of the Attainment Scotland Fund: Attainment Scotland Fund Evaluation: Fifth Interim Report - Year 6 (www.gov.scot) .

Investment in 2021-22 was published in the Education, Children and Young People Committee ‘Scottish Attainment Challenge Report’, having been provided by the Scottish Government, and may be accessed here: Scottish Attainment Challenge Report .

For the 2022/23 financial year, final spend figures are not yet available. However, the Pupil Equity Funding and Strategic Equity Funding allocations to schools and local authorities are all available on gov.scot here: Pupil attainment: closing the gap - Schools - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . 2022-23 allocations for the Care Experienced Children and Young People funding stream are provided below:

Data on the poverty-related attainment gap in schools for each year since 2016 is publicly available in the NIF Interactive Evidence Report , which holds data on a range of key measures by academic year from 2016-17 onwards. In December we published the 2023 National Improvement Framework and Plan , which set out the latest evidence for progress and our plans, shared with local government, for closing the poverty-related attainment gap.

Further to this, in February 2023, the Summary Statistics for Attainment and Initial Leaver Destinations were published, providing information on the attainment and initial destinations of 2021-22 school leavers in Scotland. This information is also publicly available and may be accessed here: Summary Statistics for Attainment and Initial Leaver Destinations, No. 5: 2023 Edition (www.gov.scot) .

I refer the member to answer to question S6W-10759 on 20 September 2022. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at - https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

We continue to work with local authorities on plans to ensure every school-aged child has access to a device and connectivity by the end of this parliamentary term in 2026.