Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to delivering a Net Zero, Wellbeing economy and a highly skilled workforce is critical to this ambition. Our National Strategy for Economic Transformation is clear that we must adapt our education and skills system to become more responsive and agile so that it can deliver on our key priorities.

The Scottish Government are committed to working with COSLA, ADES and our partners to deliver improvements in additional support for learning implementation and to ensure meaningful change for children and young people through our Additional Support for Learning Action Plan. The most recent ASL Action Plan update published in November 2022 confirms the progress made on this commitment, including that any updates will be made as part of the next review of the national performance framework.

Ministers are required by statute to review the National Outcomes within five years of their previous publication. The next statutory review of the National Outcomes is underway. Public consultation began on 14 March 2023 and the review is expected to conclude during term 3 of Parliament (2023-24).

The action plan update confirms that this work will be informed by the development of the national measurement framework. Work continues on the development of this, as was confirmed in the answer to question S6W-15807 on 22 March 2023. 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 .

The Scottish Government will continue to report on the progress of implementation of the ASL Action Plan through formal progress reports. The next progress report is due to be published in May 2024.

a) Information on care home residents is reported on through the Care Home Census, published by Public Health Scotland (PHS). Information is published on a rolling 10-year basis; therefore, the figures below have been sourced from multiple Care Home Census publications. This includes historic extracts of publications from NHS Information Services Division, prior to the creation of Public Health Scotland. The Care Home Census was not run in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Table 1: The estimated number of care home residents aged 65+ years, 2007 – 2022

The Scottish Government is committed to delivering a Net Zero, Wellbeing economy and a highly skilled workforce is critical to this ambition. Our National Strategy for Economic Transformation is clear that we must adapt our education and skills system to become more responsive and agile so that it can deliver on our key priorities.

Published in 2020, the Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan (CESAP) provides a framework for green skills planning and investment across priority sectors directly affected in the transition to net zero: Energy, Construction, Transport, Manufacturing and Agriculture and land-use.

The Scottish Government’s Making Scotland’s Future programme brings together public sector partners, including Skills Development Scotland, to support the manufacturing sector. The workstream intersects with CESAP and has identified the skills implications of the transition to net zero for the manufacturing sector including the rise in demand for data and digital skills, increased need for design, analytical and technical skills on top of the requirement for resilience and adaptability in the face of technological change.

SDS is working alongside the National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) to support industry including SMEs which make up 97% of the manufacturing business in Scotland. NMIS supports businesses to define their skills needs and support the transition to net zero, as well as providing training and professional development courses.

SDS have also commissioned Ekosgen to work up an evidence base for energy skills in the Inner Moray Firth to support the ScotWind project in the area. The piece commissioned by SDS was to explore the existing skills in the area and where gaps would be in supporting the project. This work was carried out alongside work which has been undertaken by the Scottish Offshore Wind Energy Council, who have produced a skills roadmap to understand the skills needs to support the likely increased demand for Scotland’s potential offshore wind energy.

This work will support the development of a Just Transition Plan for the Manufacturing Sector.

I will have lead responsibility for the proposed Wellbeing and Sustainability Bill.

As set out in our 2022 Waste and Circular Economy Route Map consultation, we intend to set new circular economy targets for the period to 2030, which go beyond weight-based criteria.

We must ensure that any future targets correspond to our Environment Strategy and overall vision for a circular economy, alongside the four underpinning principles we set out in the consultation. These key principles included focus on achieving net zero by 2045 and the delivery of a sustainable international material footprint.

Our final Route Map is due for publication later in 2023.

The Scottish Government's role is to monitor the Schemes' compliance with the Tenancy Deposit Scheme Regulations 2011 and is not involved in the business operations of the Schemes. The Scottish Government therefore does not hold information on when SafeDeposit Scotland (SDS) first implemented the estimated response time. SDS monthly reporting call centre activity data indicates improvements in response times to both calls and emails from November 2022 onwards. Latest monthly reporting for March 2023 gives the average answer time for calls as 10 seconds, and 8 minutes for emails.

The Scottish Government remains committed to delivering Anne’s Law which will support the rights of people living in adult care homes to connect with their loved ones.

At Stage 1 of the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill, evidence was heard from seven committees and many individuals and representatives on a wide range of topics. An extension will allow the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government the necessary time to consider all of the evidence to best inform the development of Anne’s Law and the Bill.

Meantime, the Scottish Government has already utilised existing powers to adopt the core foundations of Anne’s Law through the development of two new Heath and Social Care Standards introduced in April 2022.

The new Standards established that people living in care homes should have the right to see someone who is important to them, even during an outbreak and be able to name a person or persons who can directly participate in meeting their care needs. The Care Inspectorate now refer to these Standards when registering, inspecting and supporting care homes.

In addition Public Health Scotland COVID guidance now reflects that three named visitors can visit a resident, one per day, in the event of an outbreak, and essential visiting for end-of-life care and distress should always be supported, regardless of the circumstances.

The strengthened Public Health guidance and the new Standards have helped to minimise disruption to visiting, with 99% of adult care homes reporting that they are supporting indoor visiting.

During the extension to Stage 1 of the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill the Scottish Government will continue to work with care home providers, relatives and organisations to develop the detail of Anne’s Law and prepare for its implementation.

In addition to the November 2022 update to the Additional Support for Learning Review Action Plan, Education Scotland have been leading on a national engagement programme for pupil support staff, which sought the views of the workforce, parents and carers.

The 4-month consultation element of the programme closed in early March 2023. Over 2,500 survey responses were received from staff in all 32 local authorities. Work is still ongoing to capture the views of parents and carers. Analysis and evaluation of the programme responses is in progress and the programme report is scheduled to be completed by July 2023.

There are no plans for any court closures during the current parliamentary session. The current court model provides appropriate access to justice for Scotland’s communities.

The management of the court estate is an operational matter for SCTS. SCTS have stated that there is no current evidence to support any further court closures following the most recent court closures in 2015.

Court locations can only be closed following the approval of the Scottish Parliament.