Chamber and committees

Questions and answers

Parliamentary questions can be asked by any MSP to the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. The questions provide a means for MSPs to get factual and statistical information.

Written questions must be answered within 10 working days (20 working days during recess)
Other questions such as Topical, Portfolio, General and First Minister's Question Times are taken in the Chamber

Urgent Questions aren't included in the Question and Answers search. There is a SPICe fact sheet listing Urgent and emergency questions.

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Question reference: S5W-23577

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 04 June 2019
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 13 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what policies it has introduced to ensure that every school has access to a home-to-school link worker; what progress is being made with this work, including what proportion of schools have such access, and what the timeline is for its completion.

A range of policies are contributing towards an increase in the provision of home-school link worker access in Scotland including via the Attainment Scotland Fund and the ‘Learning Together’ National Action Plan on parental engagement. In addition, in order to promote the value and use of home-school link workers and other similar roles, Education Scotland published new guidance to local authorities and schools, available at:

https://education.gov.scot/improvement/Documents/par2-section9-mar19.pdf

The Scottish Government gathers official statistics on total FTE numbers of home-school link worker staff employed in local authorities through the ‘school support staff’ categories of the Annual Teacher Census. The most recent figures published in December 2018 can be found at:

https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/School-Education/SupportStaff/supportstaff18

The Scottish Government has worked with local authorities to supplement the official statistics gathered through the Annual Teacher Census by developing a local authority questionnaire to capture further detail on home-school link provision. This was run in late 2018/early 2019. Both the official statistics and local authority feedback indicate a significant increase in the numbers of home-school link worker staff employed in Scotland since 2017.

Initial assessments of local authority feedback show that:

• the Attainment Scotland Fund has had a significant impact on the number of home-school link workers being employed in Scotland;

• local authorities are using a variety of models of provision to provide home-school link support including individual school approaches, worker attachment to other referral and support services and education hub/cluster approaches; and

• there is a wide variety of roles and titles with local authorities identifying 53 individual titles for staff providing a home-school link worker role.

The information from the questionnaire exercise is currently being analysed and discussed with COSLA and ADES partners. An update on progress along with next steps will be provided in autumn 2019.”

Question reference: S5W-23736

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 11 June 2019
Current Status: Answered by Mairi Gougeon on 13 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S5W-18576 by Mairi Gougeon on 20 September 2018, by what date it will bring forward the legislation for Finn's Law.

Proposals for a Scottish "Finn's Law" were consulted on as part of the Scottish Government's commitment to amend the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006. The results of that consultation, which closed 26 April 2019, are currently being analysed.

The Scottish Government expects to be able to make an announcement about the timing of future legislation in the next Programme for Government in September 2019.

Question reference: S5W-23434

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Richard Lochhead on 11 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what plans it has to bring the Care Experienced Students Bursary into line with the Living Wage, as recommended by the 2017 Student Support Review.

The Scottish Government provided additional investment of over £5 million in 2018-19 to increase the care-experienced bursary across Further (FE) and Higher Education (HE) to £8,100 per year. This additional investment funded an increase from the previous level of £7,625 in HE and £4,185 in FE, providing a significant increase in the financial support available to care-experienced students.

We are continuing to work on improvements and focus additional student support funding on those students who are most in need.

Question reference: S5W-23475

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 11 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of looked-after children from each local authority area have entered a positive destination, according to its most recent statistics.

Question reference: S5W-23474

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 28 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 4 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of young people from each local authority area have entered a positive destination, according to its most recent statistics.

Question reference: S5W-23298

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Monday, 20 May 2019
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 3 June 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how any new guidance regarding the school estate and the schools for the future strategies will support small rural schools.

The Scottish Government has made, and will continue to make a significant investment in the school estate in Scotland. The £1.8bn Scotland’s Schools for the Future programme will deliver 117 newly built or refurbished schools by March 2020. These projects were put forward by local authorities as their priority projects for investment.

While we have achieved a great deal through the Scotland’s Schools for the Future programme, there is still more to do. This is why I announced the new £1bn schools investment programme in November 2018.

The Scottish Government is engaging with COSLA, and other key stakeholders, to agree a new Learning Estate Strategy and an outcomes based funding model for future schools investment. The strategy will emphasise the important role that digital technology can play in planning the future school estate, particularly in rural areas where it can widen access for learners and broaden the curriculum offer.

The Scottish Government’s investment is intended to augment, not replace, local authorities’ investment in their school estate. Scottish Government investment in a local authority’s priority project can give the authority greater scope to support small rural schools from its own resources, where that is required.

Question reference: S5O-03293

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Wednesday, 22 May 2019
Current Status: Taken in the Chamber on 29 May 2019

To ask the Scottish Government how it will ensure that more young people and their families managing long-term health conditions can access art therapy.

Question reference: S5W-22370

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 March 2019
Current Status: Answered by Maree Todd on 23 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government what proportion of kinship carers are in receipt of a financial allowance.

The Scottish Government collects information on the number of looked after children in kinship care placements. It does not collect information on the number of kinship carers who are in receipt of a financial allowance. Legislation supports the payment of allowances to kinship carers of looked after children as well as eligible non-looked after children where there is a Kinship Care Order in place under Section 11 (1) of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995.

Question reference: S5W-22369

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Tuesday, 26 March 2019
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 17 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government for what reason it no longer publishes data on the number of children who are looked after by the local authority as reported by schools.

Statistics collected from the annual school pupil census on children looked after by the local authority are no longer published due to concerns over the quality of the data. Definitive statistics on the number of children looked after by the local authority are published in Children's social work statistics, available on the Scottish Government website here: https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Children/PubChildrenSocialWork

Question reference: S5W-22398

Asked by: Iain Gray, MSP for East Lothian, Scottish Labour
Date lodged: Thursday, 28 March 2019
Current Status: Answered by John Swinney on 17 April 2019

To ask the Scottish Government whether the online training for teachers that has been developed as part of supporting pupils with additional support needs includes specific modules on autism.

We are committed to ensuring that all children and young people to receive the support they need to reach their full learning potential.

The inclusion module is a free professional learning resource for educational practitioners and local authorities. It has been developed to allow school staff to support all children and young people, including those with autism, to be included in a mainstream environment. It provides educational practitioners and local authorities with a professional learning resource which focuses on an introduction to inclusion and equality within the Scottish educational context.

We are also updating the autism toolbox, an online resource to support those who work with children and young people with autism. The toolbox includes tools to support understanding of autism, strategies for support and engagement with families and partners.