Chamber and committees

95% of schools in Scotland have received Pupil Equity Funding in 2017-18.

As part of the Scottish Attainment Challenge, universal support is available to all local authorities and schools across Scotland to tackle the poverty related attainment gap. This support includes access to a named Attainment Adviser who will work directly with schools to help identify actions that will make the biggest impact. Access to the National Improvement Hub which contains learning and teaching tools and strategies also provides universal support.

Earlier this year all headteachers were invited to attend one of 8 regional Pupil Equity Funding events which provided an opportunity to hear from colleagues across Scotland on their work to close the equity gap. Building on the success of these, a second series of events will be held early next year. We are working in partnership with the new Regional Improvement Collaboratives to ensure once again a place is available for all headteachers.

Through the Scottish Attainment Challenge we have committed £750 million over the course of this parliament to tackle the poverty related attainment gap. This includes £120m Pupil Equity Funding in 2017-18 allocated to schools on the basis of the number of children and young people in P1-S3 known to be eligible for free school meals, a recognised proxy for families affected by poverty. Pupil Equity Funding extended the reach of the Scottish Attainment Challenge to every local authority in Scotland and provides additional resources to the majority of schools in rural communities.

The Government issued guidance on the use of Pupil Equity Funding to support schools and local authorities to work in partnership and to plan how to effectively invest the additional funds. This guidance is available on the Government website at http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Education/Schools/Raisingeducationalattainment/pupilequityfund/guidance. This sets out that Headteachers can work at an individual school, cluster or community level to address common interests. This may include, for example, how best to target the funding to address the impact of rural deprivation on the educational outcomes of children and young people.

We are committed to developing national programmes to further extend the reach of the Scottish Attainment Challenge and are engaging with stakeholders to consider the impact of rural deprivation on attainment.

The Scottish Government record and process correspondence addressed to Scottish Ministers on its Ministerial and Corporate Correspondence System (MACCS). In the last 12 months correspondence recorded and processed by Directorate is indicated in the following table.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally.

Information may be available by contacting the individual services independently to request this.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving the provision of Changing Places facilities across Scotland.

The Scottish Government works closely with PAMIS to support their campaign to increase the number of Changing Places Toilets in Scotland and have provided funding in 2017-18 for the Changing Places campaign officer position within PAMIS. Scottish Government officials also participate on Changing Places steering group which meets on a quarterly basis. We are pleased that there are now 152 Changing Places Toilet across Scotland but know more are needed. PAMIS have also introduced a portable Changing Places Toilet called the 'Mobiloo', which travels across the country, providing a Changing Places facility at a range of events.

The Scottish Government are intending to review the current building standards and associated Technical Handbook guidance on Changing Places Toilets, with a view to introducing measures to advance the number of such facilities in Scotland.

The most recent figures (from 2016) indicate a £1.26bn backlog of repairs for the total trunk road network.

The reserved nature of telecoms means that the Scottish Government cannot directly intervene in regulatory issues, such as overseeing and implementing the quality of service delivered by broadband providers. However, the Scottish Government is working hard to ensure that Ofcom, the UK telecoms regulator, takes into account the particular challenges facing Scotland and is also encouraging it to develop a more regional approach that will address more localised market failures.

Even with telecoms being reserved, the Scottish Government has continued to engage with Openreach on performance related issues, to encourage improvement. In this context, a reduction in the number of incidents in the past year has been noted.

Dumfries and Galloway Council has been notified that Scottish Ministers have decided to call in the Whitesands Flood Protection Scheme for their consideration. There has been no other recent engagement on flooding from the River Nith.

The Scottish Government published research it commissioned on Scottish pubs last year. A recommendation of that study suggested that "the evidence collected did not suggest that any part of the pub sector in Scotland was unfairly disadvantaged in relation to another." It suggested that "further dialogue between relevant trade bodies, government and other interested parties should continue before making any changes to legislation." During 2017 I have met with individual stakeholder interests. Having had these individual discussions, I now intend to convene a wider stakeholder meeting to see how we might create a more prosperous pub sector in Scotland. This will include tourism and supply chain interests.