Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-06244 on 26 January 2017. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

Scottish Ministers have made it clear that Highlands and Islands Enterprise will continue to be locally-based, managed and directed providing dedicated support to the local economy. The new arrangements will protect the unique service that HIE delivers for our Highland and Island economies and will enhance the support that is available to businesses, employers and communities across the region. This move will not negatively impact delivery of the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband contract or our commitment to deliver 100% superfast broadband by 2021.

For the 2011 census the information received from certain local authority run centres could not be assigned to a local authority as during the quality assurance process, the identification number provided by the centres involved had been deemed invalid. This resulted in 395 registrations being excluded from the census results.

The census process has changed since 2011 and this problem can no longer occur. We conduct a pre-survey prior to the main census in September, checking which centres should be involved in the census, and returns are now validated by the local authorities.

The Scottish Government has not assessed the cost of collecting nursery registration information at the start of each new term. Currently the data is collected from Early Learning and Childcare centres and although we do not have a cost for them to complete the census, it is estimated that it costs local authorities £27,000 for their involvement to validate the data collected. We are currently reviewing the timing of the Early Learning and Childcare data collection, and are considering the most beneficial time to capture this information.

Through the Scottish Attainment Challenge the Scottish Government is focused on achieving equity in the educational outcomes of children and young people, with a particular focus on closing the poverty-related attainment gap.

From April, £120 million will be allocated directly to schools on the basis of the numbers of children and young people in P1-S3 known to be eligible and registered for free school meals. This is on top of the existing £50 million that will continue to provide targeted support for those authorities and schools supporting children and young people in greatest need. These two funding streams, which total £170 million for 2017-18, contribute to our commitment to allocate £750 million during the course of this Parliament through the Attainment Scotland Fund.

Our funding to date has already supported the recruitment of 160 full time teachers across the Scottish Attainment Challenge Local Authorities and Schools Programme.

Our commitment to increase free early learning and childcare to 1140 hours by 2020 is this government’s most transformative infrastructure project. Work has already started to plan for this expansion and we will continue to work with our partners as we take forward our ambitious pledge. This is being supported with additional resource with the Scottish Draft Budget 2017-18 allocating over £60 million in new investment to support the expansion of Early Learning and Childcare entitlement.

We are in regular dialogue with all local authorities, and their representative bodies including COSLA and the Scottish Local Government Partnership, as part of our commitment to taking forward our key education priorities. We have been proactively engaging through existing forums and created new groups to allow for direct and regular engagement.

The Scottish Government takes the issue of violence in schools very seriously.

We recognise that any violence towards staff or pupils is unacceptable and we are working with schools and local authorities to actively tackle serious indiscipline and violence.

The latest Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research did not indicate significant issues with violence in schools and showed that the overwhelming majority of staff found pupils well behaved.

Scottish Government is investing significantly in various violence reduction and preventative approaches, such as Mentors in Violence Prevention and No Knives Better Lives, with children and young people across Scotland as part of a wider strategy to promote positive relationships and behaviour.

Online materials have recently been published giving teachers and school leaders access to effective interventions based on practice examples from around Scotland. This suite of materials will be continuously updated and refreshed with examples of successful approaches, including those based on the best available international evidence.

The funding allocated by Scottish Government for each local authority in the second tranche of early learning and childcare (ELC) trials is as follows:

Further information on the trials can be found at: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/People/Young-People/early-years/ELCTrials/ELCTrials

The Scottish Government is fully committed to protecting Scotland’s relationship with Europe and we are exploring all options available to achieve this. Last month we published a detailed set of proposals in “Scotland’s Place in Europe”. We have been engaging consistently, and in good faith, with the UK Government through the new JMC(EN) forum - the next meeting of which will be this Thursday [19^th January] where we will discuss the proposals in ‘Scotland’s Place in Europe’. Scottish Government Ministers have furthermore been working closely with Ministers in Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as meeting with heads of administration from Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. There has also been a programme of engagement with other EU member states and institutional partners to raise awareness of the way Scotland voted and our determination to retain our relationship with Europe. Ministers have also undertaken a number of community engagements to meet with other EU nationals, hear their concerns and (as far as possible) offer reassurance and Official-level engagements continue.

This work is currently resourced by the Culture, Tourism and External Affairs portfolio and the new combined total of the European Strategy line and the Brussels Office line is 2.049 million. I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-05925 on 19 January 2016 for further budget explanation and to the official report of the EEAC Committee of 22 December 2016.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at:http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

In October 2016, I announced an independent Review of Further and Higher Education Student Support. The review will consider all relevant data and assess the effectiveness of the current system, making recommendations for beneficial change to ensure all students have access to a fair and effective package of appropriate support.