Chamber and committees

The management of local authority schools and the employment of teachers for those schools are matters for local authorities. Therefore issues relating to teacher conduct and competence are first and foremost matters for them as employers to deal with and be satisfied with the conduct of their employees.

The General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) is the independent, regulatory body for teachers in Scotland and they are responsible for considering any complaints which are raised relating to the conduct or competence of a registered teacher. The vast majority of teachers in Scotland are doing a great job - they are a highly skilled and highly professional workforce and the Scottish Government works with the GTCS to ensure that these high levels of teacher professional standards are maintained.

This is an important appointment and it is right that we take the time necessary to identify the right candidate. The Commission on Widening Access recommended that an appointment be made by the end of the year and we are working to progress this as a matter of priority.

Since 2009 the overall CAMHS workforce has increased by 27.7%, to 976.1 Whole Time Equivalent (WTE).

Over the next five years we will be investing £150 million in mental health innovation, including £15 million to support better access to CAMHS.

Information on: a) the number of child and adolescent psychiatrists in post and: b) the number of vacant child and adolescent psychiatrist posts for each of the last five years is published by ISD Scotland and is shown in the following tables.

Table 1. Number (WTE) of child and adolescent psychiatrists in post by NHS Board each year from 30 September 2012 to 30 June 2016.

Source: Scottish Workforce Information Standard System (SWISS).

Table 2. Number (WTE) of child and adolescent consultant psychiatrists vacancies by NHS Board each year from 30 September 2012 to 30 June 2016.

Source: ISD(M)36c

Notes:

In March 2014 the definition of a vacancy changed to a post which has been cleared for advert after being through the redeployment process (internal or external advert) and remains a vacancy until an individual starts in the post. Prior to this, a vacancy stopped being classified as such at the point when the post was offered to someone and accepted. The impact of this change is a significant increase in the number of reported vacancies.

We are currently making arrangements to work in close partnership with care experienced young people and all parts of the care sector to develop realistic parameters and timeframe for the review. Further details will be announced in due course.

The Scottish Government has previously acknowledged that because there is a staggered intake of two year olds across all three school terms, the full level of uptake for each annual cohort is not known at the time when the official census is undertaken. Registration of children for early learning is also more flexible because it is not compulsory and children can therefore be registered at any time, e.g. between the date of the census and the date of publication of census data in 2015, Glasgow City Council advised the Scottish Government that an additional 861 two years olds were receiving early learning and childcare.

The statistics based on the 2015 census findings were included in the Financial Review and in the Progress Update because these are the current official statistics available.

In the longer term, we are undertaking a data transformation project to make sure the census fully reflects the early learning and childcare policy changes and user needs. As part of this process, a national consultation has been carried out with those who collate and/or use the data. Scottish Government officials are currently considering findings from this work with a view to making changes to the Early Learning and Childcare census, including on its timing.

The Government expects to review the Water and Sewerage Exemption Scheme for Charities and Community Amateur Sports Clubs in mid-2017. The review will involve representatives from the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations and the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator and will take account of the representations made to date by the sector to the Government and representative bodies.

The in-year redistribution process is underway for Academic Year 2016-17 and is an on-going feature of the current annual Further Education student support funding cycle.

The Scottish Government does not collect formal statistics on teacher vacancies. However, to strengthen the annual teacher workforce planning exercise with local intelligence, local authorities were asked to provide teacher vacancy numbers as at 21 September 2016. Head teacher vacancies are not shown separately in the information provided.

This local information was collected solely for the purpose of informing the annual teacher workforce planning exercise and we have no plans to publish it. Teacher and head teacher vacancy information is available from individual local authorities or at www.myjobscotland.gov.uk.

Neither the existing Crofting Commission (Elections) (Scotland) Regulations 2011 or the draft Crofting Commission (Elections) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2016, which are currently laid before Parliament, require disclosure checks to be undertaken on candidates.

Regulation 10(1)(e) of the principal 2011 Regulations does however provide that a person is disqualified from standing as a candidate where that person has been convicted of a criminal offence in the period of 5 years preceding the day on which the election notice is published, in relation to which the candidate has been sentenced to imprisonment for a period of 3 months or more.

Furthermore, regulation 60(2) and (3) provide that it is an offence for a person to make a false statement in any document giving consent to nomination that to the best of his or her knowledge and belief he or she is not disqualified for being elected.

The £60 million of EU Funds announced on 24 October 2016 will support over 20,000 SME's to develop and grow. The funding will focus on key sectors in each of Scotland's regions, and on businesses with a demonstrable desire and potential to grow their markets and employment.

Support to the individual business may take the form of business planning, leadership development, help is making the most of digital technology and platforms, introductions to new markets and grants for investment. The partners involved in the funding, Business Gateway, Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, will also be able to cross-refer businesses to each other so that every business can access the most suitable type of support for the next stage in its growth.