Chamber and committees

The legal powers to mandate the reporting of pay gaps is largely reserved to the UK Parliament and is currently limited to the reporting of gender pay gaps under the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017. There is no requirement for data to be disaggregated or collected to the level of parental status and Scottish Ministers have no plans to expand pay gap reporting in this way.

The Scottish Government’s policy towards local authorities’ spending is to allow local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently. As such, the vast majority of funding is provided by means of a block grant. It is then the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

Decisions on Local Government budget allocations for future years are subject to the outcome of negotiations with COSLA, the results of which will be confirmed in future Scottish Budgets.

Furthermore, although it is the statutory responsibility of local authorities to manage and maintain their school estate, East Dunbartonshire Council will receive significant funding support from the Scottish Government - through the £2bn Learning Estate Investment Programme - for their Lenzie Academy project.

Officials have met with education leads in the local authorities expecting to be most affected to understand their assessment of the potential move of pupils to the state sector. We have also sought assurance from local authorities that they have the capacity to support pupils in the event of an independent school closing. I have met with the Scottish Council for Independent Schools and officials will continue to engage with them directly, following this policy change from the UK Government.

The Scottish Government is fully committed to implementing the recommendations of the Pathways Review: Pathways: A new approach for women in entrepreneurship - gov.scot (www.gov.scot). Record levels of funding have been allocated to support women’s enterprise, including the £1.3m Pathways Fund in 2023 and a further £2.6m of funding in 2024-25 for the Pathways Fund and Pre-Start regional pilot.

The successful applicants of the Pathways Fund have been notified and will be announced shortly. The funded projects addressing the challenges faced by women and other under-represented groups while promoting the key Pathways themes of access to support, education, finance and investment.

These interventions are foundational to the full implementation of the Pathways Review and the Scottish Government remains determined to unlock the full potential of Scotland’s female business leaders.

The independent Pathways review and recommendations were developed through extensive consultation and engagement with entrepreneurs and analysis of data on women in entrepreneurship.

Activity within the South of Scotland Enterprise Pilot pre-start programme and projects funded through the Pathways Fund will be evaluated to determine effectiveness and to support the development of further implementation of the Pathways recommendations.

It is the responsibility of individual public bodies to ensure they have procedures in place for the recording of violent incidents and policies for staff welfare. The Scottish Government would strongly encourage staff to report all instances of violent and aggressive behaviour through their local reporting systems. If it is a serious incident, we expect employers to fully support staff in escalating issues to Police Scotland as quickly as possible.

It is important for public bodies to capture data on protected characteristics when staff report instances of violence. This kind of data will help inform targeted interventions on a national and local level.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of reducing violence against employees of bodies delivering public services. In addition to work undertaken by public bodies themselves, we are currently working on a range of targeted initiatives including:

• Invested over £4 million in the delivery and implementation of the Violence Prevention Framework, including supporting the Mentors in Violence Prevention school-based programme.
• Published a joint action plan with COSLA to tackle violence towards staff in educational establishments.
• Co-chairing Your Safety Matters (YSM) External Partners Group (EPG).
• Promoting the Equally Safe at Work (ESAW) employer accreditation programme.

Children and young people should feel happy, safe, respected and included in the learning environment and all staff should be proactive in promoting positive relationships and behaviour in the classroom, playground, and wider learning community.

It is for teachers, head teachers and other professional educational practitioners to decide the development and implementation of the curriculum within the overall framework. Schools are encouraged to work closely with parents and carers on the development and delivery of learning and teaching.

Guidance is, however, made available on health and wellbeing, such as relationships, sexual health and parenthood education, and is updated regularly. The Racism and Racist Incidents Sub-group of the Anti-Racism in Education Programme is currently developing guidance on a whole-school approach to preventing and responding to racism and racist incidents in schools, including how to engage with children and young people.

As part of the Scottish Government’s commitment to embedding the Breaking the Mould anti-racism curriculum principles, we have funded development of new online anti-racism in education resources, antiracisted.scot published last month. Personal and Social Education was identified as the priority for curriculum development by children and young people that were part of the Anti-Racism in Education Programme and this was selected as the first topic for focus. The resources were created by the Development Education Centres in collaboration with a range of different voices and perspectives. The voices of learners from St Euan’s Primary School in Clydebank and Drumchapel Hight School in Glasgow are reflected in the animations as well as other areas of the resource.

A number of approaches are being used to collect and publish effective practices underway in schools and local authorities that embed anti-racism practices in schools:

• Case studies are being gathered and published to illustrate Scotland's Breaking the mould: Principles for an anti-racist curriculum | Resources | Education Scotland located on Education Scotland’s Anti-Racist Curriculum Principles – Promoting Anti-Racist Education in Scotland (glowscotland.org.uk) web-based resource.
• As part of Education Scotland’s Anti-Racism Mentors project, alumni from the Building Racial Literacy programme are also providing case studies of effective anti-racist practice.
• Case studies taken from examples of practice that inspectors see in schools are shared on the Education Scotland webpage, Promoting improvement through sharing highly effective practice | Inspection and review | Education Scotland. Through inspection and review, HM Inspectors continue to identify and share highly effective practice, within and across sectors. They work closely with a range of organisations to disseminate good practice and build the capacity of establishments and authorities to provide education and services for children, young people and adult learners of the highest quality. HM Inspectors exemplify and promote good practice through web-based publications, video extracts and events.

In February 2023, Education Scotland published the report of its thematic review on approaches to recording and monitoring of bullying incidents in schools. This report can be accessed at: Approaches to recording and monitoring incidents of bullying in schools (education.gov.scot).

In January 2024 Education Scotland published an online resource following a second phase of its thematic review, which looked at good practice in preventing and responding to bullying behaviour. This resource includes examples of schools responding to increases in prejudice-based behaviours. Information and case studies can be accessed here: Preventing and responding to bullying | Bullying | Resources | Education Scotland.

The findings from the thematic inspection are informing the work of the Racism and Racist Incidents workstream. This includes the development of resources which are focused on preventing and responding to racism and racist incidents, including strengthening approaches to recording and monitoring, and developing guidance on a whole-school approach to anti-racism.