Chamber and committees

ScotRail has confirmed that, where an employee has been off on long-term sickness and has an outstanding disciplinary issue, ScotRail would seek the medical opinion of its external Occupational Health provider, who would provide an independent medical assessment of the employee and consider if they were able to attend a hearing.

We have developed core standards for mental health services with a focus on adult secondary services. These include transitions and outline an expectation that people will receive help as close as possible to home. The core standards also aim to reduce unnecessary delays in transitions and improve information sharing, including with carers and their families. The standards emphasise the importance of the continuity of care and the need for follow-up support after discharge. We will publish these standards shortly and we will work with our partners in the Standards Implementation Advisory Group to implement these.

The Scottish Government is committed to delivering the Coming Home Implementation Report recommendations to reduce inappropriate out-of-area placements and delayed discharges experienced by people with learning disabilities and complex care needs.

This includes working with the local bodies that have statutory responsibility for providing and commissioning services to ensure that the appropriate planning is in place for people who are receiving care and treatment in an out-of-area placement.

The Review of Purpose Built Student Accommodation has now concluded. The recommendations from the review are currently being considered by the Scottish Government. We will write to the group members on proposed next steps shortly.

We have developed core standards for mental health services with a focus on adult secondary services. These include transitions and outline an expectation that people will receive help as close as possible to home. The core standards also aim to reduce unnecessary delays in transitions and improve information sharing, including with carers and their families. The standards emphasise the importance of the continuity of care and the need for follow-up support after discharge. We will publish these standards in Autumn 2023 and we will work with our partners in the Standards Implementation Advisory Group to implement these.

The Scottish Government is committed to delivering the Coming Home Implementation Report recommendations to reduce inappropriate out-of-area placements and delayed discharges experienced by people with learning disabilities and complex care needs.

This includes working with the local bodies that have statutory responsibility for providing and commissioning services to ensure that the appropriate planning is in place for people who are receiving care and treatment in an out-of-area placement.

ScotRail is committed to supporting its staff and this is evidenced by its well-established Mental Health Support Policy, which covers all employees. ScotRail’s Line Managers have an important responsibility for the policy and have an extensive Mental Health Toolkit they can refer to for guidance.

The Scottish Government places great importance on sports and leisure facilities and believes everyone should have access to these services locally.

We recognise the challenging financial circumstances faced by operators in the maintenance and operating of facilities, including the increase in insurance premiums.

It is vital that partners at a local level work together to explore all avenues and approaches to support local sport and leisure facilities.

The total number of Warmer Homes Scotland referrals in process was 4429 as of 18 September 2023. Some of these are awaiting eligibility checks so the final number of eligible applications at that point will be lower. Assessments and installations will proceed at pace when the scheme re-commences as of 2 October.

Transport Scotland remains in positive dialogue with Ambassador Living (the developer for Forthview Housing Development) to reach an agreement on the use of Ferrymuir Gait as an access. This is following a legal process in order to finalise matters, which Transport Scotland hope to conclude by November 2023.

Whilst performance in 2021-22 compared to 2018-19 was broadly lower indicating the continuing impact of the pandemic on learning, there was some encouraging evidence amongst for example, P7 pupils that performance was returning to pre-pandemic levels.

ACEL data is one of a range of measures captured in the National Improvement Framework. It is important to be able to measure the impact of the education system as a whole, rather than looking at individual measures. That is why the National Improvement Framework includes ACEL data for P1, P4, P7 and S3 as part of a broader basket of key measures of attainment. This avoids, as far as possible, a situation where looking at a single measure generates perverse behaviours by becoming the single focus of activity in schools.

Local education authorities have the statutory responsibility to provide school education. To support continuous improvement in literacy and numeracy in our schools nationally, the Scottish Government is:

• Focusing on literacy and numeracy within the Scottish Attainment Challenge (SAC) which has allocated over £550m in Pupil Equity Funding directly to primary schools up until 2022-23 and is investing a total of £1bn over this parliamentary term, including direct funding for all 32 local authorities.
• Has agreed clear stretch aims within each local authority as part of the SAC which, if achieved, would narrow the poverty related attainment gap by over 7 percentage points in both primary school literacy and numeracy by 2022-23 compared to 2020-21.
• Rejoining the “PIRLS” and “TIMSS” surveys, thereby further improving the evidence base on literacy and numeracy performance.
• Taking forward the National Response to Improving Literacy (NRIL) and the National Response to Improving Mathematics (NRIM) alongside Education Scotland and ADES, drawing on the available evidence to develop focused, “teacher-relevant” packages of professional learning, guidance and support.
• Ensuring that Education Scotland provides a tailored local and school-level support offer via attainment advisers and Regional Improvement Collaboratives.
• Funding and promoting Maths Week Scotland every year since 2017, transforming public attitudes to maths and promoting the value of maths as an essential skill for every career.
• Funding additional national programmes which support high quality learning and teaching, including “Read Write Count with the First Minister”, Reading Schools and the School Library Improvement Fund.

In light of the change to the scale and scope of the project and because there is now only one landowner involved, Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) will now conduct a further round of public engagements in 2023.

FLS will work together with Trees for Life to engage with the community with a view to this exercise evidencing the community and stakeholder support that gives FLS the assurance to then submit a licence application for a Spring 2024 release.