Chamber and committees

At 29 November 2016 the sign up rate stood at 71% of primary schools [1,487 primary schools]. This means that 631 schools (29% of schools) had yet to sign up to the Challenge.

This is an encouraging sign up rate for a voluntary initiative, launched into schools for the first time in August this year. The Scottish Government and Scottish Book Trust will continue to take steps to encourage even more schools to take part. Scottish Book Trust will carry out further promotion to schools early in the new term. The Book Trust will also provide support to any further schools who choose to sign up between now and the spring term, helping them to take part during the remainder of the first year of the challenge. Finally, Scottish Book Trust will evaluate the first year of the Challenge. This will include efforts to seek feedback from schools who decided not to participate in the initial year, as well as those who did. All schools and local authorities will be contacted in the lead-up to “Year two” of the Challenge in order to invite them to participate in academic year 2017-18.

The First Minister’s Reading Challenge is designed to complement and support the investment already going into schools. This means that schools participating in the Challenge do not receive dedicated Reading Challenge funding. Those schools who sign up to the Challenge receive a free teachers pack which includes copies of the “100 places to start your reading journey” booklet. They can also order “Reading Passports” for their classes via the Reading Challenge website, which are also provided free of charge to the school. To date, a total of 190,560 Reading Passport” have been ordered, as well as 2,032 Gaelic Medium Education Reading Passports.

Within the Challenge, there is also a project called ‘Inspiring Classrooms’. This allows registered schools to apply to secure a small grant to pay for an author to visit their school and to buy books for the children taking part.

Librarians who register for the Reading Challenge are supplied with promotion materials and literature. To date, a total of 183 librarians have registered via the website. Librarians are encouraged to make links with their local schools, with the aim to further widen access to books. This complements a range of wider investment and support provided to public libraries alongside the Reading Challenge initiative. This includes the Public Library Improvement Fund (£450,000 in 2016-17). It also includes the partnership between the Scottish Government’s Read, Write, Count campaign and public libraries. In February 2016 300 Scottish libraries shared an allocation of £90,000 to pay for new book P1-P3 stock and to supplement existing displays. A further £108,000 was invested to provide Read, Write, Count book packs and stands to libraries in more deprived areas.

Scottish Book Trust provide free resources, outreach and advice to all schools on reading for pleasure. This includes support to those schools who are not signed up to the Challenge. General advice and support, as well as various materials on reading for pleasure and parental engagement, are available to schools through the Scottish Book Trust and Education Scotland websites.

The Scottish Government is allocating £750 million during the course of this Parliament, through the Attainment Scotland Fund, to tackle the attainment gap. This funding, provided to schools signed up to the FM Reading Challenge as well as schools yet to sign up, target resources at the children, schools and communities most in need.

Schools in all 32 local authorities have now signed up for the Reading challenge.

Table 1 shows the percentage of schools signed up to the Reading Challenge, broken down by Local Authority.

Table 1

The list of schools is changing on a daily basis and the data is not shared on a routine basis with Scottish Government. This means that it is not possible to provide details of individual schools as part of this answer. If you would like to find out more information about schools that have signed up to the Reading Challenge please contact the Scottish Book Trust at:

First Minister’s Reading Challenge

Scottish Book Trust

Sandeman House

Trunk’s Close

55 High Street

Edinburgh

EH1 1SR

A Scottish Book Trust Outreach Coordinator provides dedicated support to all schools to engage with the Challenge and to share good practice between schools across the country. Case studies are currently being gathered and will be shared with those schools who are not participating in the Challenge in this initial year, as well as with participating schools.

Scottish Book Trust provides a range of free resources, outreach and advice to all schools on reading for pleasure. This includes support to schools who are not signed up to the Challenge. General advice and support, as well as various materials on reading for pleasure and parental engagement, are available to schools through the Scottish Book Trust and Education Scotland websites.

Through the Scottish Attainment Challenge Fund, the Scottish Government is allocating £750 million during the course of this Parliament to tackle the attainment gap, targeting resources at the children, schools and communities most in need.

The meeting between the Minister for International Development and Europe and the UK Immigration Minister is scheduled to take place on 7 December 2016.

The Scottish Funding Council has already responded to the question, providing the information requested.

We have considered all of the recommendations made in Professor MacGregor's final report in detail.

The Programme for Government 2016 made clear that an updated package of support would be available to eligible taught postgraduate students in academic year 2017-18, and Ministers will announce further details of this soon.

In addition, consideration of the implementation of recommendations made by the review will involve all key stakeholders in the higher education sector in Scotland.

Part-time further education (FE) students at college can benefit from access to record levels of support, with this year’s (2016-17) budget of £106.2 million in college bursaries, childcare and discretionary funds representing a real-terms increase of 30% since 2006-07.

In 2013-14 the FE student support budget was £102.8 million, rising to just over £104 million in 2014-15, and £105.3 million in 2015-16.

Furthermore, the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) programme eligibility criteria was extended in January 2016 to include part-time FE college courses.

The Scottish Funding Council (SFC) publish the data requested on the completion rates for part-time college students in their annual ‘College Performance Indicators’ publication. Academic Year 2014-15 is the latest year for which the SFC hold data.

College completion rates for student enrolments on part-time recognised qualifications 2013-14 to 2014-15

Source: Scottish Funding Council, ‘College Performance Indicators’

Note: Completions include Completed Successfully and Partial Success

The Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) administer the Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA) which is a needs led funding award based on demand. DSA helps support equality of access to higher education for individual students.

To be eligible for DSA, students must meet the eligibility conditions as set out in the Students’ Allowances (Scotland) Regulations 2007 (as amended).

The reason an application for DSA may be rejected will be due to a combination of factors. These include:

• Not meeting the residence conditions as set out in the above regulations.

• Undertaking an ineligible course.

• Undertaking a course at a private training provider which has not been designated as eligible for support from SAAS.

• Undertaking less than 50% of a full time course.

No incident of abuse experienced by convenience store staff, physical or verbal, should be tolerated. Alongside the Scottish Crime Report 2016, the Scottish Grocers’ Federation in partnership with the Scottish Business Resilience Centre has published helpful and useful guidance for its members on a range of crime prevention measures.