Chamber and committees

The Scottish Attainment Challenge provides both targeted support through the Attainment Scotland Fund and universal support available right across Scotland. Up to 133 secondary schools are being supported by Scottish Attainment Challenge funding following the recent expansion of this programme, while a further 43 have received funding to support innovative projects through the Attainment Challenge Innovation Fund.

From financial year 2017-18 the additional £100 million per annum that will be raised each year from our Council Tax reforms will be allocated directly to schools. It is likely that the vast majority of publicly funded schools will receive funding.

The Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme publishes predicted speeds that premises have access to on the Digital Scotland postcode checker. These speeds are calculated based on the infrastructure in place, namely the distance between the cabinet and the individual premises served, and the rate at which speeds decrease on copper lines over distance. The actual speeds that premises receive will vary due to a number of factors ranging from technology constraints, the nature of the service being delivered by the internet service provider, and the equipment being used by customers to access the network.

Curriculum for Excellence provides significant flexibility, within broad national guidelines, for teachers to develop lessons which best meet the needs of individual learners. This is a key characterisation of Scotland's education system. Relationships, sexual health and parenthood education remains an integral part of the health and wellbeing area of the curriculum in Scotland. The Scottish Government published statutory guidance, Conduct of Relationships, Sexual Health and Parenthood Education in Schools, in December 2014 which applies to all local authorities in relation to education about sexual matters provided in the schools they manage.

Teacher vacancy statistics have not been published since 2010 following results of a user consultation on proposals to cease a number of education data collections in order to minimise the response burden on schools and local authorities.

There was no commercial rollout out of fibre broadband planned for Shetland prior to the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme.

Commercial coverage across the Highlands and Islands would have been 21% had the Scottish Government not intervened. BT was the only infrastructure provider deploying commercially in the region at the time of the 2012 Open Market Review.

We have no plans to publish vacancy details.

The Scottish Government does not consider that the original target of the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband programme with BT was too low.

The approach taken across both contracts was to maximise fibre broadband coverage within the available budget. This delivered higher than anticipated coverage across the board, with 95% of premises having fibre access, compared to just 66% through commercial investment.

Having a policy which contains a blanket rule, such as an age cap, is justifiable under the European Convention of Human Rights, provided that it is shown to be a rational and proportionate response to a particular aim of the policy.

The Scottish Government is satisfied that setting an age cap of 60 in relation to student maintenance loans is a rational and proportionate way to meet the aim of providing a student support system which is balanced and sustainable.

An Equality Impact Assessment (EQIA) was conducted as part of the policy review process that led to this increase. Going forward, it will be refreshed as required to assess the on-going impact of the new policy and to take into account any relevant matters, such as further increases in the state pension age. In addition, the Programme for Government commitment to review the entire system of student support to make sure that it is fair and effective, will look at student loans and will include an EQIA.

In October, the Scottish Government published its Fairer Scotland Action Plan, which contains 50 concrete actions the government will take in this parliamentary term to tackle poverty and inequality. This is a cross-Scotland plan, based on 200 Fairer Scotland conversations held across the country. This plan will provide a range of support to people, no matter where they live – for example, on tackling the poverty premium, helping low income parents with a range of support, addressing discrimination in employment, and promoting flexible working.

In terms of SIMD specifically, it is an area based measure for identifying people and households that are deprived, therefore an area which is identified as in the 20% most deprived will identify those individuals and households living in that area. SIMD identifies deprivation issues across the whole country.

Whilst the 20% most deprived areas for Scotland are commonly used in inequality analysis, this is only one way to look at deprivation in Scotland. Not all households experiencing deprivation live in the most deprived areas and likewise not every household living within a more deprived area experiences deprivation.

Therefore, Scottish Government policies are based on a wide range of resources to identify issues associated with poverty and deprivation. The SIMD team will be delivering training to policy and research analysts across all public sector organisations, including those in the Scottish Parliament, to use the full extent of information from SIMD and other government statistics in evidence gathering.