Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government provides core funding to the Scottish Traveller Education Programme (STEP) including the eLearning and Traveller Education Scotland (eLATES) programme which provides distance learning with “anytime, anywhere” access via the internet.

Within STEP’s remit was the production of guidance for local authorities, schools and support services Inclusive Education Approaches for Scotland’s Travelling Communities within the context of interrupted learning which was published in March 2011. The guidance was disseminated through the Traveller Education Network (TNET) in which 22 Scottish local authorities are members of and is now available as an online resource at:

http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/publications/i/publication_tcm4651543.asp.

Furthermore, the Scottish Government believes that all children and young people should benefit from an education system that is engaging, relevant, tailored to their needs, and best prepares them for their future lives irrespective of their social, economic or ethnic background. Certainly the education system in Scotland, Curriculum for Excellence, supports this aspiration. The system puts the learner at the centre of the curriculum which will lead to improved quality of learning and teaching and increased achievement and attainment for all children and young people, regardless of where that learning takes place.

The Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004, (as amended), provides the legal framework for identifying and addressing the additional support needs of children and young people who face a barrier, or barriers, to learning including Gypsy/Traveller children in Scotland. The Act aims to ensure that all children and young people are provided with the necessary support to help them work towards achieving their full potential. It also promotes collaborative working among all those supporting children and young people and sets out parents’ rights within the system.

HMIe also produced a publication in 2005 which builds on self evaluation guidance given in How good is our school?, entitled Taking a closer look at: Inclusion and Equality – meeting the needs of Gypsies and Travellers. This guide can be used by schools to evaluate the quality of their approaches to inclusion and equality relating to Gypsy/Travellers, and also provide examples of best practice.

The Scottish Government takes seriously our responsibility to equalities and inclusion. For example, to help shape the Scotland-wide games legacy plan, A games legacy for Scotland, we consulted widely and held a series of public meetings across the country to which all groups and individuals were invited to contribute. Two of the five underpinning principles of the legacy plan are around ensuring equality and enabling diversity.

We continue to work with partners to look for opportunities to ensure that the voices of all of Scotland’s diverse communities, including the Gypsy/Traveller communities, are heard during the planning through to the delivery stages of the Commonwealth Games and Homecoming 2014.

The Scottish Government has no plans to conduct a national needs-based analysis focused on Gypsy/Traveller communities

Assessment of housing need by local authorities is carried out through a Housing Need and Demand Assessment (HNDA). Scottish Government Guidance on this was issued in March 2008 and refers local authorities to UK Government Guidance Gypsy and Traveller Accommodation Needs Assessment Guidance Communities and Local Government, October 2007.

Many Scottish local authorities have commissioned additional research into the accommodation needs of Gypsies/Travellers within their areas, as part of preparing their Local Housing Strategies.

Guidance on preparing Local Housing Strategies, issued by the Scottish Government in June 2008, includes advice on how to assess the needs of all minority ethnic communities.

I have been clear that following the tragic incidents at both Tomintoul and Crieff, current arrangements for handling rest breaks in the Scottish Ambulance Service cannot remain in place as they are not in the interests of the public or of our hardworking and dedicated ambulance staff.

Urgent talks are currently ongoing between management and staff within the Scottish Ambulance Service with a view to preventing any further incidents where rest breaks are seen as affecting response times in emergencies. I am being kept fully informed of progress with these talks and have urged both management and the trades unions involved to resolve this untenable situation as quickly as possible.

GMB are represented in these ongoing talks.

The Scottish Government guidelines on managing unauthorised camping aim to help the police and local authorities to develop their own strategies for managing encampments.

The guidelines discuss the importance of suitable site provision for Gypsies/Travellers as an alternative option to unauthorised camping. The guidelines also set out the relevant legislation and powers available to local authorities and the police. Please find the following link to the guidelines for your information:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/publications/2004/12/20417/48825.

Further, the Police role in the management of unauthorised encampments is clearly specified within the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland (ACPOS) guidance on the issue.

The estimated total population of Gypsy/Traveller communities for Scotland is 2,120. Estimated figures by local authority areas are shown in the table below.

(a) The estimated household figures in the table are based on a count undertaken by the Scottish Government in July 2009.

(b) The average household size across all council/registered Social Landlord sites was 3.1. This average of 3.1 has been applied as a working assumption to the number of caravans on unauthorised encampments and private sites to estimate the total population of Gypsies/Travellers living on sites in Scotland.

The Scottish Government does not record information for the same time periods specified in this question and so that information could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

The Scottish Government records and publishes statistics on our performance in meeting the 20 working days target, set by the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, in our FOI Annual Reports and Quarterly Statistics Bulletins on the Scottish Government website at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/FOI/Reporting. These contain details of the number and percentage of requests answered within each calendar year, regardless of when they were received, where we did not provide a substantive response within 20 working days. This information is set out in the following table:

Response After 20 Working Days

Between 5 May 2011 and 4 July, when this question was tabled, the Scottish Government received 227 freedom of information requests. As at 4 July, 130 of these requests had been answered and of the 97 remaining only five were past the 20 working day deadline set by the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. So in this period only 2% of the government’s requests were not answered on time, which compares very favourably with other public authorities.

The Scottish Government is already committed to a formal annual review of the overall performance and management of the Scottish Ambulance Service, as well as the delivery of targets agreed for the organisation. The next of these regular review meetings, which are held in public, will take place on 10 October 2011.

At that review I will also be meeting with management and staff side representatives to discuss issues including the quality of clinical care and partnership matters in relation to how the Scottish Ambulance Service performs and operates.

The performance and management accountability arrangements for the Scottish Ambulance Service are set-out in a broad framework which can be found at:

http://www.scottishambulance.com/AboutUs/Default.aspx.

The Scottish Executive is not specifically measuring the impact of the recession on the Gypsy/Traveller communities.