Chamber and committees

Following the announcement of the introduction of remote learning on 4 January, and its extension on 19 January, the National Qualifications 2021 Group has been considering the impact this will have on delivery of National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher courses under the alternative certification model.

The Group is overseeing changes to the alternative certification model and associated timeline that was announced in December. This includes moving the final date for schools and colleges to submit provisional grades from 28 May 2021 to‎ 18 June 2021.

Pay and conditions of service for teachers are matters for the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT).

The SNCT issued guidance on a job retention scheme for supply teachers in April last year. The payment was available to supply teachers during the lockdown and closed at the end of June.

The SNCT is currently considering whether further support will be required.

Pay and conditions of service for teachers are matters for the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT) and therefore not a matter for the General Teaching Council for Scotland.

The SNCT is currently considering whether further support might be required.

The Scottish Government has provided local authorities with £80 million of additional investment in education staff, sufficient for the recruitment of around 1,400 additional teachers, including supply teachers, and 200 support staff this year.

In addition, a package of £45 million of new funding was announced on 13 January to support the delivery of remote learning. This new funding can be used to recruit additional teachers and may offer further employment opportunities for supply teachers.

The Scottish Government does not hold the information on how many people accessed the Supply Teachers Job Retention Payment. Recruitment and deployment of teachers are matters for local authorities to determine.

The Scottish Government has provided £80 million of additional investment in education staff, sufficient for the recruitment of around 1,400 additional teachers and 200 support staff this year.

On 13 January a further package of £45 million of new funding was announced to support the delivery of remote learning, which can be used to recruit further staff. It is sufficient to employ an additional 2,000 teachers to the end of this financial year if required and may offer further employment opportunities for supply teachers.

This money is additional to the £160m that we have already committed for education recovery since the start of the pandemic.

This year the Scottish Government has increased funding for policing in Scotland by £60 million to more than £1.2 billion. This 5.1% rise, compared to 2019-20, is ensuring that Police Scotland can maintain officer numbers, enhance its community policing capability and maintain and modernise its estate.

In her statement to Parliament on 9 December 2020, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance announced an additional £8.2m funding for Police Scotland to cover COVID pandemic-related income shortfalls. This funding has been provided to the Scottish Police Authority through consequential funding generated by UK Government spending.

The allocation of these resources across policing priorities, including to support staff homeworking during the COVID-19 pandemic, is a matter for the Scottish Police Authority and the Chief Constable to determine. The Scottish Government is supportive of Police Scotland’s commitment to put measures in place to support its workforce during the COVID pandemic. These include flexible working including working from home, provision of laptops and changes to working patterns. Additionally, police staff can access a range of services to care for their physical and mental health through the “Your Wellbeing Matters” programme.

The decision to introduce these restrictions was based on clinical and expert advice provided by the Scottish Government COVID-19 Advisory Sub-Group on Education and Children’s Issues as to the public health risks of the new strain of the COVID-19 virus. We recognise that as a result of the latest public health guidance most private, voluntary or non for profit day care of children services are open only for small numbers of children, and we are aware that this can create financial pressures for providers.

That is why temporary financial support will be available to those services who are currently only permitted to operate for vulnerable children or those of key workers, to help mitigate the reduction in income resulting from operating below capacity and to ensure these settings can remain open.

Support will be provided through grants to services that are delivering childcare to key worker and vulnerable children during the temporary restrictions.

Services that choose to close over this period will be able to draw on support from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

We have also agreed with local government that the payments for funded ELC should continue during the period of additional restrictions, even for those children who are not able to attend, to ensure that local capacity is retained ensuring sustainability for the future delivery of ELC.

We are also aware that many childminders continue to encounter challenges and that some may be experiencing a drop in demand for their services despite being able to remain open.

The Scottish Government is continuing to work with the sector to determine how best this additional support for childminders who are most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic can be delivered.

We recognise the value that families place on access to high quality early learning and childcare, and understand the decision to restrict attendance at these settings is very difficult for both children and their parents and carers.

For all our learners, and particularly for the very youngest children, some of the best learning already takes place through play, within the home with parents and carers. We are mindful that working parents of very young children are finding it particularly difficult to balance childcare and work at the moment, and to support families at this challenging time we have updated our Parent Club website with some useful links and simple suggestions to engage children in meaningful play based learning.

Education Scotland has also produced resources for parents and carers who are supporting young children learning at home (available on the Scotland Learns website ). These are complemented by a range of resources for early learning and childcare practitioners delivering support for learning at home. Links to the national e-learning offer (including Dug’s Den ), Scotland Learns practitioner resources and curriculum support can be accessed through a single page on the Education Scotland website .

In addition, the Scottish Government’s COVID Education Recovery Group have established a new subgroup on Parent and Family Support. This group will review all of the measures in place to support parents and families during this difficult time and evaluate the need for any further action.

All viruses mutate over time and there are many variants of SARS-CoV-2 in circulation. This answer focuses on variants of concern discussed recently.

With respect to VOC 202012/01 there is no evidence currently that the new strain infects or affects young children differently. Evidence presented to the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies shows that the age distribution of those with the new variant is essentially identical to that seen with the previous strain. This evidence is available online at www.gov.uk/government/publications/investigation-of-novel-sars-cov-2-variant
-variant-of-concern-20201201

While cases of the new variant are increasing in all age groups, the rate of increase is slightly lower in children under 5 and, compared to other age groups in Scotland, children under 5 continue to have far fewer diagnoses of COVID-19. Public Health Scotland are continuing to closely monitor the new variant of this virus, its severity and its transmissibility between children and from children to adults. While increased transmissibility is thought to be a feature of this variant, increased severity and hospitalisations are not. Any additional mitigations that can be put in place will be communicated straight away.

With respect to variants found in South Africa and Brazil, there is currently no data to inform whether the age distribution might be different.

The Scottish Government COVID-19 Advisory Sub-Group on Education and Children’s Issues considered the risks of a return to education across all stages, in the context of the Variant of Concern 202012/01, in an extraordinary meeting held on 31 December. The advice from the sub-group was that schools and early learning and childcare settings should remain closed to all but the children of key workers and other priority groups beyond 18 January on a precautionary basis, and that there should be a fortnightly review of that decision.

The review of risk to early learning and childcare staff and children will take a 'four harms' approach to help ensure that the transmission risk is taken into account while the impacts on the other harms are kept to a minimum. The three other harms are: the wider impact that the virus is having on health and social care services; how the restrictions are impacting on our broader way of living and society (including the negative effects on child development and inequality); and the effect of the restrictions on our economy (including the ability of parents to work and the sustainability of childcare businesses).