Chamber and committees

Codeclan was a private sector enterprise and its financial stability was the sole responsibility of its management and board of directors.

The Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise worked intensively with CodeClan to explore every possible option to secure a sustainable future, including commissioning the support of private sector consultants.

Ministers are legally bound by subsidy control rules which set clear thresholds on the level of public funding that can be injected into private businesses. In this case the sum required to place the business on a stable footing significantly exceeded these thresholds, with no guarantee of future viability.

The Scottish Government is currently considering next steps and will update the Scottish Parliament later this year.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on how many third sector partners are providing Community Link Worker programmes within Health and Social Care Partnerships, across Scotland.

The recent teacher pay deal is the largest in twenty years and was made against a challenging financial backdrop. It is in that context that we have had to review funding commitments across the programme.

We continue to value the importance of professional development for teachers as demonstrated by the range of professional learning and leadership programmes provided by Education Scotland and detailed on their website Education Scotland | Professional Learning and Leadership . In addition, we are investing £800,000 this year in the Into Headship programme to support future school leaders.

We are open to considering reinstating funding for masters-level learning for teachers should future budget provisions allow.

Details on local authority funding allocations and the number of additional staff recruited are available on the Scottish Government website at the following link: Teachers - Schools - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Details of the upcoming summit have been confirmed with the Education, Children and Young People Committee.

In order to provide opportunity for sufficient depth of discussion across core topics, a multi-stage approach is planned, with the first taking place on 5th September. This will be followed by further stages in October and November 2023. This events follow the Head Teacher’s taskforce, which convened in June to focus on the issues surrounding school exclusion.

The approach as outlined will allow for progress to be informed by the most up-to-date data following the publication of the Behaviour in Scottish Schools research in autumn.

The Scottish Government has published guidance for teaching staff which focuses on supporting positive behaviour and includes advice on prevention and de-escalation of incidents.

The latest iteration of our longitudinal Behaviour in Scottish Schools Research will report in the Autumn. The research informs the development of policy, guidance and support by providing a clear and robust picture of current relationships and behaviour in schools, and of policy and practice in this area.

Future developments will also be informed by discussions from the Head Teacher’s taskforce on school exclusion and the forthcoming summit on relationships and behaviour in schools. A multi-stage approach to the summit is planned, with events already having taken place in September, with more planned in October and November. These events will focus on practical support at classroom, school and local level to make a difference on relationships and behaviour.

There is a wide range of support material and resources on Education Scotland’s National Improvement HUB . Education Scotland have also provided professional learning through training the trainer models, and webinars. The resources are designed to address the behaviour of vulnerable children and young people whose behaviour is unregulated and results in significant challenges for themselves, practitioners and their peers.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. We have therefore sought information from the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS).

GTCS advised that they process applications by country of qualification as opposed to the location of the applicant and have therefore provided information based on the origin of the qualification (Scotland, rest of UK, international) rather than the location of the applicant.

Qualified in Scotland (hold a recognised teaching qualification from an accredited Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programme)

Applicants are invited to apply between November and February in the final year of their programme. The application process concludes when the ITE pass lists are received from Higher Education Institutions (through June and the start of July). Individuals are then added to the Register of Teachers once the applicant has paid their annual registration fee. In this cohort, 2,767 applications were concluded for the start of the 2023-24 academic year.

Qualified outside of Scotland (QoS)

GTCS use the same process for all QoS applications no matter where the applicant is currently domiciled, as their assessment process focuses on the qualifications held.

GTCS receive 1,300 applications from individuals who have qualified as teachers outside Scotland on average each year. They carry out individual assessment of these applications to ensure that their qualifications meet their standards.

For applications received where the qualification gained is from a country outside Scotland but within the UK, it is currently taking 10 weeks from the date of submission of the complete application (where all required documents are included) to individual assessment by a Case Officer.

For applications received where the qualification gained is from a country outside Scotland and outside the UK, it is currently taking 5 months from date of submission of the complete application (where all required documents are included) to individual assessment by a Case Officer.

The Scottish Government has provided £145.5 million in this year’s budget to ensure local authorities:

• Maintain teacher numbers at 2022 census levels, as published in the Summary School Statistics in December 2022.
• Maintain pupil support staff numbers at 2022 census levels, as published on 21 March 2023 based on the data collected from local authorities in September 2022.

£100 million of this funding is distributed to local authorities as part of the 2023-24 General Revenue Grant. The remaining £45.5 million will also be distributed to local authorities following confirmation that these conditions have been met. The allocation of this funding, by local authority, is as follows.

The Independent Panel on Career Pathways for Teachers was established in August 2018 in response to a request from the Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT).

The final report of the Panel published on 30 May 2019 set out 10 recommendations aimed at developing and supporting new flexible and exciting career pathways for teachers and headteachers.

The Scottish Government remains committed to working with the SNCT and partners to progress these ambitions.