Chamber and committees

To support the use of digital technology in schools, the Scottish Government offers to fund a high speed broadband connection via the Scottish Wide Area Network to a central point in every Scottish local authority for use by education establishments. Onward connectivity to education establishments is the responsibility of local authorities. Attainment Advisors are active in every local authority area and are proactively promoting effective practice in reducing the attainment gap. They are available to provide advice and support where necessary.

We are currently reviewing the way in which information is collected for Early Learning and Childcare registrations, and are considering the most beneficial time to capture this data.

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.

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 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.

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.

We have not had recent discussions regarding a passenger ferry service with continental Europe. While Scottish Government encourages ferry operators to keep the option of introducing a passenger service under review, there are no firm commitments regarding a service as yet. Any service would have to operate on a commercially viable basis and this would be a matter for any prospective ferry operator to consider.

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.

Professor Scott, the newly appointed Commissioner for Fair Access to Higher Education in Scotland, will be consulted as part of the review process.

As I explained in response to the same question at the budget session of the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Relations Committee you attended in December, the European Strategy line has this year been separated out to establish a new Brussels Office line. The Brussels Office line of £1.139 million added together with the European Strategy line combine to make a total of £2.049 million which is focussed on Europe and our broader engagement activity. This total includes an additional £245,000 which we have added to the European Strategy line this year in recognition of the importance of Europe and in line with our key objective of influencing the world around us on the issues that matter most in helping Scotland flourish. This combined total is therefore 23% higher than the discrete European Strategy line for 2016-17.