I meet quarterly with the COSLA Spokesperson for Children and Young People, Chair and attend further meetings and events where COSLA is represented, and meet directly with Councillors across Scotland to discuss mutual areas of interest. In the period since my appointment I have met with COSLA eight times, in a range of settings. In addition, officials across the Education & Skills portfolio are in constant contact with COSLA officials, frequently engaging on a daily or weekly basis and it is not possible to collate the total number of such engagements.

Getting it Right for Every Child is Scotland’s national approach to improving outcomes for children and young people. We are committed to investing £500m in Whole Family Wellbeing to improve holistic family support so that families get the right support, in the right way and at the right time. The GIRFEC approach is not directly comparable to the Early Help Scheme.

As set out in answer PQ S6W-20065 Local Authorities are expected to have robust processes and guidance for children who do not attend school from the first day they are absent until they are re-engaged with education. I have expressed concerns about the impact of COVID-19 on attendance and have asked Education Scotland to undertake work to better understand the current barriers and challenges experienced by schools, children and young people and their families and which influence school attendance, and to provide clear examples of effective strategies that are supporting improved attendance, and clarity on what further support or intervention is required in areas where attendance is not improving. I am welcome to learning from approaches to improving attendance from elsewhere.

The Scottish Government has provided funding to Age Scotland, as a strategic partner, to support a range of housing related work in 2023-24. As part of that work Age Scotland is planning a piece of qualitative research with older people to improve the evidence on older people living in private rented sector.

Last year the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) and the Scottish Government commissioned research on the priorities for change of low-income renters in the private rented sector. This included older renters and explored tenants’ rights and adaptations in the private rented sector. Last year, the Scottish Government's Housing and Dementia Forum published a report on housing needs of people with dementia in Scotland including private renters.

Nationwide Foundation’s RentBetter Project, of which a Scottish Government Analyst is an advisory group member, are doing research which is examining the impacts of private rented sector reform on landlords and tenants, including changes to and knowledge of tenants’ rights, including older tenants.

The Scottish Government has also consulted recently on adaptation in the private rented sector as part of their New Deal for Tenants Consultation, and on the principles for a tenure-neutral accessible housing standard as part of this summer’s consultation on Enhancing the accessibility, adaptability and usability of Scotland’s homes.

In accordance with the Education (Scotland) Act 1980, the provision of education is the responsibility of local authorities, meaning that each of Scotland’s 32 local authorities are responsible for ensuring young people in their area receive adequate provision of school and pre-school education; including in STEM subjects.

The Scottish Government leads on national policy, as set out in the STEM Education and Training Strategy, and helps to fund a series of national programmes which local authorities and schools can access. This includes:

• the Raising Aspirations in Science Education (RAiSE) programme which has been in place since 2016 and is delivered in partnership with the Wood Foundation and Education Scotland. The programme aims to improve primary teacher confidence in delivering inspiring science learning.
• the Scottish Schools Education Research Centre (SSERC) which is a local authority shared service, available to all education authorities in Scotland. SSERC offers STEM professional learning courses for early years, primary and secondary teachers as well as technical support staff.

Local authorities are also involved, either directly or indirectly, in other STEM education development programmes supported by the Government including Maths Week Scotland and a professional learning programme for computing teachers.

In addition, the Education Scotland STEM Team work with local authorities to support a range of initiatives to encourage STEM leadership in the classroom, promote greater equality of access to STEM subjects and build on effective practice in STEM education. For example, grants have been provided by Education Scotland to Milnathort Primary School to help them develop a conceptual approach to teaching numeracy and Campsie View School has received funding to develop STEM teaching skills for young people with additional support needs.

Scottish Government does not collect the data requested. However the Scottish Advisory Panel for Outdoor Education (SAPOE), which is the forum for Local Authority representatives to consider and debate best practice in the development and safe delivery of Outdoor Learning, conducted a survey exercise earlier this year to gather a range of data and evidence relating to outdoor centres. SAPOE can be contacted at [email protected] .

As pay negotiations are a matter for local authorities as the employer and trade unions representing the local government workforce, the Scottish Government has no role in negotiations in relation to equal pay claims.

Whilst the Scottish Government remains committed to working in partnership with local government to ensure equal pay policies apply across the public sector, the information requested is not routinely gathered or held centrally by the Scottish Government. Information of this nature can be obtained by approaching individual local authorities or COSLA accordingly.

The ETSU steering group comprising of the four Governments of the UK is considering, under the lead of the UK Government, how best to take forward the recommendations of the WSP report .

Until this work concludes, ETSU-R-97 should continue to be followed by applicants and used to assess and rate noise from wind energy developments.

Scottish Government officials continue to engage with UK Government officials on this work.

Since January 2022, the primary focus of the Caledonian System has been on reaccreditation with comprehensive material provided to the Scottish Advisory Panel on Offender Rehabilitation (SAPOR) earlier this year. Accreditation is an important step in independently re-checking the current programme design prior to further roll out. There has also been work servicing demand for training from existing delivery sites with a series of training events now set through to 2024. An Outcomes Monitoring Report has been compiled and will be published shortly which will look at: change in men’s beliefs, attitudes and behaviour; change for women who engage with the programme around safety, empowerment, and wellbeing; and the extent to which the wellbeing of children improved and the risk of harm to children reduced.

Since January 2022 there has also been work within the Scottish Government to conclude a procurement exercise to secure a licence arrangement for use of the SARA-V3 risk assessment tool. This tool is embedded in the Caledonian System and is also used by justice social work and other professionals in assessing the risk posed by domestic abuse offenders across all of Scotland. For the first time this has been procured on a long-term (5 year) basis, providing certainty for ongoing delivery and securing savings on the annual cost of the licence. Conversation is also continuing direct with individual local authorities about readiness for any further roll out of the Caledonian System to new geographical areas.

We continue to work in partnership with local authorities and COSLA on delivery plans to ensure every school-aged child has access to a digital device by the end of this parliamentary term in 2026.

This work includes consideration of procurement processes and other costs related to devices, as well as developing a digital strategy for education to help ensure that digital provision supports the wider aims of the education system.

Inspiring Scotland through the ‘Support in the Right Direction’ (SiRDS) programme, provides access to independent advice and advocacy in 31 local authorities, with a forthcoming scoping project tasked with identifying a SiRD partner to offer services in the Moray area from FY 2023-2024. SiRDS is supporting over 9,000 people and families.

The Scottish Government funds the Personal Assistant Network Scotland (PANS) , which is a Personal Assistant (PA) national membership organisation offering a free photo ID card as well as advice. PANS has also helped to promote the first ever online PA handbook which provides valuable information for PAs.