Chamber and committees

The Independent Review is continuing to seek views from stakeholders from across the education landscape on how a system of qualifications and assessment can uphold the rights of all learners, including those with additional support needs.

I am aware that Professor Hayward has met Angela Morgan, Chair of the Review of Additional Support for Learning Implementation, and has visited a range of schools where additional support needs have been specifically discussed. In addition, Professor Hayward has also spoken directly to young people with additional support needs.

The Review is scheduled to report to the Scottish Government by the end of May 2023.

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.

Teachers can access support and expertise to understand and meet the needs of all learners from colleagues nationally, regionally and locally. This may include Education Scotland staff, third sector organisations, Regional Improvement Collaborative teams and colleagues from their own local authorities. Within their local authority this may include; Pupil Support Staff, early learning colleagues, specialist teachers, hearing and sight impaired teachers, other class teachers, senior leadership teams, Community Learning and Development colleagues, inclusion officers and educational psychologists. When a child or young person is supported by partners out with education services, for example, social care, health or the third sector, their teachers can also liaise with these colleagues using the team around the child approach.

Re-occurring requests from teachers have been received. These are requests to further support their knowledge, understanding and practice on specific concerns relating to inclusion, additional support needs including areas on rights and equalities, relationships, wellbeing and care, inclusion, the additional support for learning process and specific areas of need for example autism, dyscalculia, dyslexia, trauma informed approaches. These requests are received in a range of ways for example:

• National networks and working groups led and facilitated by Education Scotland or the Scottish Government.
• National practitioner networks facilitated by Education Scotland.
• Teachers engaging with national professional learning programmes.
• Feedback from Regional Improvement Collaboratives and individual local authorities.

To ensure all educators can access free high-quality support Education Scotland is leading on the collaborative development of a new national Inclusion Wellbeing and Equality (IWE) professional learning framework. This framework uses four interconnecting themes and aims to provide a range of information, guidance, resources and professional learning and engagement opportunities to support the needs of educators and their learners. The four interconnecting themes are:

1. Rights and Equalities.

2. Relationships.

3. Wellbeing and Care.

4. Inclusion.

We have not undertaken any assessments regarding the affordability of nappies in Scotland and food banks do not currently publish data on nappies and other baby products. However, we will continue to work with partners to ensure that our financial offerings are maximising the support available for young families.

This includes our work to increase the value of the Scottish Child Payment to £25 per child per week and expanding it to all eligible children under the age of 16 from November 2022.

Our five family payments, including the Scottish Child Payment, could be worth over £10,000 by the time an eligible child turns 6 with Scottish support providing over £20,000 by the time an eligible child is 16 years old.

The Child Poverty Action Group estimates that low income families in Scotland will be around £28,000 better off by the time their child turns 18 as a result of more generous support and lower costs for childcare provided by the Scottish Government.

Yes. A working group, including representatives from local authorities, COSLA, the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland, Education Scotland and Scottish Government officials, has been formed to explore options for the development of an accredited qualification and registration programme for Additional Support Needs assistants. The working group is scheduled to bring forward final proposals by autumn 2023.

This information is not held centrally.

Ministerial engagements (including official visits), overseas travel, car journeys, domestic travel and gifts received are published on the Scottish Government website at: www.gov.scot/collections/ministerial-engagements-travel-and-gifts/ in line with the terms of the Scottish Ministerial Code.