Chamber and committees

Education Scotland is currently creating a new suite of Polices and Strategies, this include a complaints procedure.

Education Scotland is accountable to Scottish ministers, the Director-General for Learning and Justice and to the Scottish Parliament and its committees.

At 30 June 2011, HMIE had 82 Inspectors; 10 Assistant Chief Inspectors; four Health and Nutrition Inspectors; and nine Assistant Inspectors involved in inspections.

As of 1 July 2011, when we became Education Scotland, we had 80 Inspectors; nine Assistant Chief Inspectors; four Health and Nutrition Inspectors; and eight Assistant Inspectors. Since then, the figures have reduced further so that at 30 September 2011, Education Scotland had 73 Inspectors; six Assistant Chief Inspectors; three Health and Nutrition Inspectors, and seven Assistant Inspectors.

Inspectors were deployed for a total of 4,404 days to carry out school inspections during 2010-11. This figure does not include pre-school inspections as, in the main, seconded pre-school practitioners carried out inspections in this sector.

I announced on 14 October 2010 that both Learning and Teaching Scotland and HM Inspectorate of Education provided important support, inspection, practical materials and guidance to schools, colleges and early years provision. The introduction of curriculum for excellence made it the right time to bring these two bodies together.

Following the autumn programme of support to which S3W-33713 referred there are no further planned postponements of inspection activity to assist with the implementation of Curriculum for Excellence. Support for Curriculum for Excellence is a major part of Education Scotland’s remit and is embedded within its programmes of activity planned.

The Official History of North Sea Oil and Gas by Professor Alex Kemp, published on 4 September 2011, provides an in-depth analysis of the development of UK policies towards North Sea oil and gas industry from the early 1960’s to 1993. Professor Kemp reports that the work of the Offshore Supplies Office lead to an increase in the share of the UKCS (UK Continental Shelf) market obtained by British industry and many companies obtained benefits which enabled them to flourish both domestically and overseas in later years. The publication cites the development of sub-sea technologies as a particular success story.

Scottish Government and its enterprise agencies continue to support the growth and development of Scotland's supply chain capability, both domestically and internationally and help to ensure that businesses seek and develop opportunities in new and emerging sectors such as offshore wind.

The Scottish Government has had a number of discussions and communications with the European Commission on aspects of the wide ranging Stockholm Programme, which was agreed by heads of government at the European Council in December 2009. A written submission was sent to the commission during the development phase of the programme, in March 2009, which was copied at the time to the Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament. Most recently, Scottish Government officials met with the commission in May 2011 to discuss the Procedural Rights Roadmap and the Victims' Roadmap, which are included in the programme. The Cabinet Secretary for Justice met with the Vice President of the Commission, Viviane Reding, in Luxembourg in June 2011 during which aspects of the Stockholm Programme were discussed.

The Scottish Government will introduce a victims and witnesses bill during this parliament.

Payments made to innocent victims of violent crime are made under provisions of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme. This scheme applies in Scotland, England and Wales and is founded on the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act 1995.

In his Explanatory Memorandum to the European Scrutiny Committee the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Justice Lord Bach stated that the UK is fully compliant with the EU directive relating to compensation for victims of crime.