Chamber and committees

The concordat withCOSLA includes an agreement to provide access to a nursery teacher for every pre-schoolchild as soon as possible. We will be developing guidance in partnership with localgovernment on the deployment of teachers in pre-school education. The amount ofteacher involvement in pre-school education will be monitored through the annualpre-school and childcare statistics.

Getting it rightfor every child in kinship and foster care - the National Kinship and Foster CareStrategy was published on4 December 2007. Parliamentary question S3W-7325 announcedthe launch of the strategy and a consultation on associated regulations. All answers to written parliamentary questionsare available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can befound at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

The strategy setsout our proposals for kinship carers. Approved kinship carers of looked after childrenwill be given the same level of support by local authorities, including the paymentof an equivalent level of financial support as that paid to their foster carers.This approach has been agreed with local government as part of the government’sconcordat with COSLA published on 14 November 2007. We anticipate each local authority will begin the processof approval during 2008-09. To support this, the expert reference group establishedby the strategy will recommend an approval process, which local authorities canuse and adapt for their local purposes.

The Scottish Governmentwill fund Citizens Advice Scotland (CAS) to provide a service for all kinship carerscovering advice, information and support on income, tax and benefits entitlementsand relevant legal issues. We anticipate that this service will be introduced fromspring 2008.

In addition, COSLAhas agreed to recommend to its members that they discuss their approach and criteriafor the payment of discretionary support of kinship carers under the powers localauthorities already have. This will ensure as far as possible that there is consistentlocal advice and approaches to supporting kinship carers.

The ScottishGovernment will be providing local government in Scotland with record levels of funding over the period covered by the spending review2008-11. The vast majority of the funding, including the funding for freeschool meals, will be provided by means of a block grant. It is theresponsibility of each local authority to allocate the total financialresources available to it on the basis of local needs and priorities havingfirst fulfilled its statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set ofnational and local priorities including the Scottish Government’s key strategicobjectives and manifesto commitments.

I refer themember to the answer to question S3W-06744 on 3 December 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions areavailable on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can befound at:http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

Improving pre-schooleducation is a key priority for the Scottish Government. We have already increasedentitlement from 412.5 to 475 hours and will increase entitlement further to 570hours from August 2010. We are working with partners to provide access to a teacherfor all children in pre-school education and will continue the development of ACurriculum for Excellence.

There are substantialadditional resources to help local authorities lower class sizes. On 20 June weannounced the provision of an additional £9 million additional funding to employ300 additional teachers in pre-school and in primary 1 to 3 in deprived areas. WestLothian Council’s share of this funding is £311,400. In addition, on 10 July 2007 we announced the allocation of an additional £40 millionof capital grant funding through the Schools Fund linked to the buildings implicationsof reducing class sizes. West Lothian Council’s share was £2.329 million.

Following the announcementon 14 November 2007 about the Scottish Budget, there is an extra£115 million being invested in local government for the first year of the SpendingReview period which can be invested in schools.

The Concordatbetween the Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish LocalAuthorities sets out how we will work with councils, including West Lothian, toreduce class sizes as quickly as possible as part of our approach to earlyyears intervention.

We have providedsignificant support for the six business improvement district (BID) pilots in both 2006-07 and 2007-08 in theexpectation that they will put their proposals successfully to ballot.

Based on theexperience of the BID pilots, the onus is now on localbusinesses in all parts of Scotland, in partnership with their council and other local partners, to decide whether or not to develop new BID proposals if they think that doing so would benefittheir area, taking advantage of the legislative framework that is now in place.

The ScottishGovernment is committed to ensuring the stability of the family support sector.Family Mediation Scotland, as well as thirteen local Family Mediation Services,will continue to receive funding through the Unified Voluntary Sector Fund, atlevels significantly higher than in past years, until 2010.

This information isnot held centrally.