Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government, through our initiative for responding to redundancy situations, Partnership Action for Continuing Employment (PACE), has provided continuous support to assist the workforce of Stoneywood paper mill, in Aberdeen.

On 22 September 2022, PACE information was supplied to the administrator, Interpath Advisory, for distribution to the workforce immediately following the announcement of redundancies, to facilitate their self-referral to PACE services. As previously advised, a PACE support and employment event took place on 29 September, which was attended by approximately 136 individuals, followed by a Jobs Fair on 10 October, which was attended by approximately 500 individuals. Additional PACE support has also been routinely provided to the retained Arjowiggins staff, which included onsite delivery on 11, 24 and 31 January 2023. Further on site delivery may take place with retained staff, should demand be confirmed.

The Scottish Government has not carried out an analysis of the impact that citations for jury service may have on the wider economy.

The report shows that staff across schools are committed to promoting positive relationships within an inclusive environment and seek to prevent and address bullying.

We take the findings of the report very seriously and have put in place a range of actions immediately to respond. We have begun a review of our national anti-bullying guidance, Respect for All, and have established a working group of key stakeholders to support us in this.

HM Inspectors will undertake a second phase of the thematic inspection which will look at good practice in how schools are responding to bullying. Education Scotland will publish this report later this year. The findings will inform our future work.

We are engaging with the Teachers Panel and with teaching unions to discuss their experiences and how we could better support schools and pupils. The fifth wave of our Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research started in February and will provide a robust national picture of current relationships and behaviour. We will use this research and engagement with stakeholders, including the Scottish Advisory Group for Relationships and Behaviour in Schools, to inform the development of further future policy, guidance and support for schools and school staff.

Information on the deferral rate for disabled students entering Higher Education is not held by the Scottish Government.

UCAS collect and publish information each year on the number of applicants, applications and acceptances for UK providers. As part of their releases, UCAS publish the number of acceptances who defer entry to a later year split by Domicile, Age and Gender, in their interactive dashboard. Deferral rates for those with a Disability Declared are not included.

UCAS Undergraduate end of cycle data resources 2022 | Undergraduate | UCAS

UCAS do publish the number of acceptances with a Disability Declared overall. This shows in the 2022 cycle, there were 6,535 Scottish domiciled acceptances with a Disability Declared, 17.5% of all Scottish domiciled acceptances.

The strategic assessment for NHS Lanarkshire’s National Treatment Centre was submitted to the Scottish Government Capital Investment Group (CIG) in November 2022. As with all strategic assessments, this was noted by the CIG, and NHS Lanarkshire have been asked to move to the next stage in the planning process and to develop an initial agreement for the new facility, which is now underway.

I last met with the Chair of the BMA Scotland Committee on 11 January to discuss their request for a national conversation, and met with Chair of the BMA Scottish Junior Doctors Committee on 15 December to discuss their concerns around pay for Junior Doctors.

In addition I wrote to the Chair of the BMA on 21 February offering to meet with both him and the Chair of the BMA Scottish Junior Doctors Committee to discuss further.

The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) is an annual, large-scale social survey which asks people about their experiences and perceptions of crime in Scotland. It includes a module on sexual victimisation, which produces estimates of adults’ experiences of different types of sexual assault. At present this does not include a question on experiences of violence during what began as consensual sexual activity.

We are currently progressing set up of a new multi-year run of the SCJS, following a recent re-procurement exercise. As part of this ongoing work we will consider in 2023-24 whether a question on this specific topic could be added to the above module. Given the subject sensitivity, this requires careful consideration and testing prior to any roll-out, to ensure such a question is understandable, accessible and doesn’t place undue stress on survey respondents.

Such a change would build on the continuous improvements being made to the survey, whereby we are currently cognitively testing and piloting a new survey module on Partner Abuse and new and updated questions on Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG). These areas were identified as a key priority by survey users in last year’s consultation .

As stated on 8 March in the Chamber in response to a parliamentary question (S6O-01978), a revaluation statistical summary report, which will include information broken down by property class, is expected to be published in 2023-24 once final values for the revaluation have been made available. It is intended that this report will be available in the Spring.

The answer to the oral parliamentary question is available on the parliaments website, the Official Report can be viewed at: https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/official-report/search-what-was-said-in-parliament/meeting-of-parliament-08-03-2023?meeting=14190

The Scottish Government does not hold this data. Court operational matters, including the system and arrangements for jury service, fall within the remit of the independent Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS).

The Scottish Government and Marine Scotland do not hold information regarding discarded drilling material.