Chamber and committees

The £53 million announced as a saving was intended to support additional employability activity around child poverty in 2022-23. At a time of acute labour shortages, historically low unemployment and soaring inflation, we have taken the view that we must prioritise money in people’s pockets now over spending on employability which is unlikely to result in immediate benefits for individuals, but this is not a decision we have taken lightly. However, this decision will not result in services people are already accessing being reduced. We have maintained our core investment in employability this year, with over £82 million available to ensure those who require support will continue to receive it.

Our commitments in Best Start Bright Futures were made over the lifetime of the plan. Whilst this decision will have an impact on the numbers we aimed to support this year, our commitment to ensuring employability plays its part in tackling child poverty remains. Employment outcomes are subject to a time lag depending on the length of time an individual requires support. In addition, our services are voluntary, demand led, and based on the principle of supporting people into the right job at the right time – low quality jobs that are quickly gained will not necessarily lead to an increase in household income and a reduction in poverty.

Remobilisation of Dermatology services within NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde (GGC) is continuing across all sites.

In common with many other specialties, services have experienced workforce challenges; however, the dermatology multidisciplinary team are working together to maximise service delivery.

Urgent referrals continue to be prioritised on clinical grounds, while the service is making every effort to work towards a reduction in the maximum waiting times for routine patients.

The GGC Dermatology service are also working nationally with colleagues in the Centre for Sustainable Delivery on new ways of working, with developments in the use of technology to support patient care.

At COP26, the Scottish Government pledged £2m to address loss and damage and in doing so became the first government in the Global North to explicitly pledge such finance. £1.7m of the £2m is now allocated and supporting projects in Bangladesh, the pacific and Malawi; as well as funding research to contribute to the global evidence base for practical action.

In addition to loss and damage funding, Scottish Government provided £250,000 from our Climate Justice Fund (which we trebled at COP26 to £36m) to the humanitarian efforts in Pakistan and we are also currently tendering for our flagship “Climate Just Communities” programme, which will commit £24m to our partner countries of Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia building resilience through engagement with marginalised communities using a participatory design and implementation approach.

The National Fertility Group make recommendations to Scottish Government on eligibility criteria for NHS IVF Fertility Treatment. The criteria are kept under constant review by the Group.

Education Scotland recognises the effects of the pandemic on learning and those who work in education. This is why Education Scotland continues to undertake a wide range of programmes to provide additional support for learners and educators alongside all the other work being done by Education Scotland.

HM Inspectors of Education resumed the routine programme of early learning and childcare settings and school inspections in August 2022. The programme had been paused since March 2020 due to the pandemic. HM Inspectors of Education have provided advice to schools and settings outlining how they will reflect the COVID-19 context during inspections.

Education Scotland’s regional improvement teams worked with Regional Improvement Collaboratives (RICs) and local authorities to provide bespoke support throughout the pandemic and continue to do so. An example of this is the ongoing work of Attainment Advisors to support effective use of Pupil Equity Funding and a range of professional learning activities to support schools to close the poverty related attainment gap. It may be helpful to be aware of two recently published resources which add value to schools and local authority work in relation to equity and excellence: Scotland's Equity Toolkit: supporting recovery and accelerating progress (education.gov.scot) and Pupil Equity Funding: Looking inwards, outwards, forwards (education.gov.scot) .

A programme on Self-evaluation for Continuous Improvement which focuses on effective self-evaluation, a closer look at HGIOS?4 (How Good is Our School?, version 4) quality indicators, use of data for improvement, evaluative writing skills and supporting improvement conversations has been delivered to approximately 700 colleagues from the eight local authorities within the West Region between October 2021 and June 2022. Plans are in place to roll this out across other regional areas during 2022-23.

Since the launch in March 2022 Education Scotland staff have been implementing the refreshed Scottish Attainment Challenge: Framework for Recovery and Accelerating Progress. Officials have worked collaboratively with local authorities to support development of local Stretch Aims, including work with schools to ensure a shared understanding of this new approach. In line with the new Framework, Education Scotland has introduced a model of universal, targeted and intensive support. Through this new approach local authorities and schools can access additional bespoke support aimed at accelerating progress with key improvement priorities.

Officials from Education Scotland have worked across local authority areas to support curriculum development during the recovery phase so that schools can meet the needs of all learners. This has included work with Headteachers on Interdisciplinary Learning, reflecting on how children and young people learned through the pandemic, and sharing the child-centred and developmentally appropriate curriculum design approach set out in Realising the Ambition: Being Me .

The National eLearning Offer (NeLO), which was developed to support remote learning while school buildings were closed, continues to support those who may be learning remotely for any reason and offers educators with resources for use in classroom settings as well. Nearly 2,000 learners have been enrolled for Study Support sessions alone this term. NeLO offers thousands of live, interactive and recorded resources for educators and learners at all levels.

Furthermore, Education Scotland continues to provide mental health and wellbeing support for the education workforce (including schools, Community Learning and Development, and early learning and childcare settings). This support includes coaching, supervision spaces and support specifically for post-probationary teachers in the early stages of their career. This package of support has been welcomed by teachers and practitioners (92% of respondents to the Workforce Support post programme evaluation rated the quality of Workforce Support received in 21-22 as ‘good’ or ‘very good’).

Taking the ongoing challenges settings and schools face in dealing with COVID-19 and stakeholder views into account, HM Inspectors of Education did not resume the routine early learning and childcare (ELC) and school inspection programme as originally planned last academic year.

HM Inspectors of Education invited ELC settings and schools to “self-select” to take part in recovery visits during the remainder of the academic year.

Overall, 164 settings and schools self-selected for a recovery visit. Due to local circumstances, including the impact of COVID-19, some recovery visits did not proceed as planned. Between March and July 2022, HM Inspectors of Education visited 148 schools and ELC settings.

The aim of the recovery visits was to learn from settings and schools about their own current priorities as they responded to the impact of the current pandemic, what was working well and the challenges education practitioners faced. The visits were tailored to the needs of each school or setting and included both online meetings and face-to-face activities.

The Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006, ensures that action can be taken if the welfare needs of greyhounds are not being met. This applies whether the dogs are still racing or retired. Part 2 of the Act applies to all persons responsible for animals, including breeders, trainers and owners of racing greyhounds.

The Scottish Government strengthened this Act via the Animals and Wildlife (Penalties, Protections and Powers) (Scotland) Act 2020 so those found guilty of cruelty offences now face up to five years imprisonment and unlimited fines.

The Scottish Government has gone further, announcing on 06 October (S6M-05949 – Greyhound Racing in Scotland ) that greyhound racing would be included in the planned consultation on extending licensing legislation to animal care services which may include dog training, walking and grooming services.

We provided an additional £9m to NHS Boards in 2021-22 to address waiting lists for Psychological Therapies. It is encouraging to see this reflected in a consistent and sustained reduction in waits of over 52 weeks over the past year and a more recent reduction in over 18 weeks waits in the most recent quarter.

In addition, we have commissioned the National Autism Implementation Team (NAIT) to carry out a feasibility study to investigate a National Clinical Pathway to benefit adults diagnosed with ADHD. Adult Neurodevelopmental Pathways are being piloted in four Health Boards to support a single diagnostic pathway for ADHD and Autism. The pilot started in January 2022 and will run for 12 months.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-09259 on 4 July 2022. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers