Chamber and committees

Skills shortages are reported in the Employer Skills Survey and cover all levels including senior management, not just those leaving education. In the 2017 Survey, 6% skill shortage vacancies were reported, this is unchanged from 2015.

College headcount has reduced since 2007 primarily because the Scottish Funding Council de-prioritised short courses which did not increase employability or lead to progression. Short courses that do lead to work or progression are still funded.

Colleges' focus remains on delivering places and courses which contribute to people's skills, needs and our economic ambitions. In 2017-18, an estimated 95.5% of learning hours were delivered on courses that led to a recognised qualification – a 6.8 percentage point increase since 2006-07.

The Scottish Government continues to provide an additional £88 million to support teacher numbers and has undertaken a range of initiatives including the Teaching makes People Campaign, and the offer of STEM bursaries to attract career changers into priority Stem subjects. We have increased student teacher intake targets for the seventh year in a row.

Since 2016, 11 alternative route programmes into Initial Teacher Education were announced with an additional two added since 2016. We expect the number of graduates from these programmes to exceed the target that was set when first announced, which was to support more than 200 new teachers to join the profession in Scotland.

The actions we are taking on teacher recruitment are working. Statistics published on 11 December show teacher numbers increased for the third year in row - rising to 51,959 in 2018, up 447 on the previous year. Student teacher intakes have increased for the third year in a row and teacher vacancies have reduced from last year.

The Scottish Government welcomes the Fraser of Allander Institute analysis which highlights the continuing improvement in Scotland’s business research and development (BERD) performance including the fact that at £1.25bn, BERD expenditure is at an all-time high and that over the period 2016-17 to 2017-18 it increased in real terms by almost 14% compared to 3% for the UK as a whole. Nonetheless, we agree with their assessment that BERD activity should be more evenly spread across the Scottish economy and are taking steps to achieve this.

For example, we are increasing support for business R&D grants by £45m over the next three years, an increase of almost 70%, taking forward a range of innovation investments through City Region Deals and enabling a network of Regional Economic Partnerships that will engage the private sector on key growth issues including BERD.

We recognise enterprise and entrepreneurship education as being key to future economic growth. Enterprise and employability skills are embedded within Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) and are referenced in the core curriculum document “Building the Curriculum 4: Skills for Learning, Skills for Life and Skills for Work”: https://education.gov.scot/Documents/btc4.pdf .

Through Curriculum for Excellence (CfE), schools and local authorities have the flexibility to develop and deliver a curriculum which best suits their local needs and circumstances, including enterprise education. Further guidance to schools is provided by Education Scotland via its “Enterprise in Education” resource available on the National Improvement Hub: https://education.gov.scot/improvement .

We have provided £250,000 funding this year to support the development of enterprise skills through Scotland’s Enterprising Schools (SES) - Scotland’s national platform to develop enterprising mind-sets in schools, which supports all partners involved in school enterprise. It aims to build the capacity of teaching professionals by equipping them with the understanding, skills and access to the required information, knowledge and training that enables them to confidently embed enterprise within the curriculum. SES has delivered professional learning sessions, raising awareness of the resources available, in all 32 local authorities and, in December 2017, was awarded the Professional Learning Award by the General Teaching Council Scotland. More information about SES can be found at: https://enterprisingschools.scot/ .

Developing the Young Workforce, Scotland’s youth employment strategy, aims to ensure all young people develop skills to support securing positive destinations, and undertake relevant work-related learning as part of their curriculum from 3 to 18. New standards and guidance materials have been developed, with the aim of enhancing learners’ career education and the development of employability and career management skills. This includes developing an understanding of enterprise, entrepreneurship and self-employment. The key documents can be found at: https://education.gov.scot/scottish-education-system/policy-for-scottish-education/policy-drivers/Developing%20the%20Young%20Workforce%20(DYW) .

Statistics published on 11 December 2018 show teacher numbers increased for the third year in row - rising to 51,959 in 2018, up 447 on the previous year. There are now more teachers than at any time since 2010, and the ratio of pupils is at its lowest since 2013.

Data pertaining to Scotland’s performance relative to comparator OECD countries will be released on 6 th February 2018.

Between 2007 and 2017, Scotland’s productivity has increased by 5.7% in total, or 0.6% per year on average. This compares to a UK increase of 1.9% in total, or 0.2% per year on average. Regionally, Aberdeen and Edinburgh are second and third only to London.

Despite Scotland’s strong performance relative to the UK, the UK and Scotland’s productivity growth has been less strong relative to OECD member states. A range of factors influence the relative ranking of productivity over time, including: real productivity growth in Scotland and other OECD countries, changes in purchasing power parity exchange rates and inflation rates.

In order to counter the effects of UK Government policy, such as leaving the European Union and an imposition of a decade long period of austerity, the Scottish Government has established a number of initiatives to boost productivity.

These initiatives include the creation of Scotland’s National Investment Bank, the development of a Future Skills Action Plan and the establishment of the National Manufacturing Institute for Scotland. These will provide the investment, skills and jobs required for Scotland to lead in the 21 st century.

The figures quoted are from the National Household Survey. However the same survey also reports that 87% of adults who have used schools i.e. those who have children in school, were very or fairly satisfied with the quality of local schools in 2017. This satisfaction rate has also remained more stable over time than that of the wider population. Nevertheless, the Scottish Government is determined to continue to secure educational improvement, and that is why we introduced the National Improvement Framework and Improvement Plan for Scottish Education in 2016. One of the Framework's drivers of improvement is parental engagement, which aims to enhance parental and family involvement in the life of the school - we know that this has a positive impact on children and young people's attainment and achievement.

The annual Delayed Discharge census, published on 11 September 2018 shows that NHS Grampian recorded 8,600 bed days lost to delays in Mental Health specialties , putting them 5th highest of any Health Board in Scotland.

The three Health and Social Care Partnerships in Grampian are all good performers in relation to delayed discharge, making innovative use of care home and housing supply to provide step-down intermediate care in more homely settings. Aberdeen City is one of the most consistent performing partnership, with continual downward trends for the last 2 years.

Many partnerships, including those in Grampian are reporting that they are seeing a greater level of frailty and complexity in the patients experiencing delays, many of whom will have dementia, or other mental health conditions.

The Economic Activity and Location Impact study was published in 2008. Investments such as the AWPR/B-T project are vitally important to the regional economy which has been impacted in recent years from the challenges facing the oil and gas industry.

While no further work of this nature has been carried out specifically for this project, the rise in the oil price from 2016, coupled with restructuring in the North Sea industry, has provided a boost to confidence and activity in the sector which we would expect to have a more positive impact on the regional and national economy. In addition, economic performance in the north east has been relatively strong recently with employment, economic activity rate and output per head all above Scottish average showing recovery since oil price drop.

Once the AWPR B/T project is fully open to traffic Transport Scotland will progress a formal evaluation of the project, in line with Scottish Trunk Road Infrastructure Project Evaluation (STRIPE) Guidance. The evaluation will be carried out to assess the impact of the scheme by comparing conditions after opening with forecasts made during scheme design and development.

The main areas evaluated will include: scheme objectives; operation; environment; safety; economy; integration; accessibility and social inclusion; and cost to government. Transport Scotland closely monitors the results of evaluation to learn lessons and ensure that there is a continuous improvement in the design and development of roads projects. Once completed, STRIPE Evaluation reports are published on Transport Scotland’s website.

The estimates of future economic and employment benefits that would arise from the opening of the AWPR are taken from the findings of an Economic Activity and Location Impact study carried out by economists when proposals were being developed for the project.

The study methodology involved a combination of desk research, consultations and face to face surveys with sample businesses throughout the study area. This information was used to provide estimates of the additional income and employment which would be created for identified market sectors. The calculations for these estimates took account of: the value of sales and costs in the study area economy for each identified market sector; the level of sales required to support each job in each market sector; the average change in sales and costs across sampled businesses within each sector; the increase in employment associated with the increase in sales; the expected timing of the realisation of benefits following opening of the AWPR; and the total value of the increased income to the study area over a 30 year assessment period.

As outlined in the answer to question S5W-19431 on 22 November 2018 the options appraisal is still underway and therefore no decision has been made on where the neonatal intensive care units will be located. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .