Performance venues throughout Scotland make an important contribution to the cultural, social and economic life of Scotland. We have regular contact with Creative Scotland, Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), and representatives of the music industry, as part of our on-going work to ensure that we understand the challenges and opportunities that the industry in the Highlands and Islands region, as well as across Scotland, face.

Many grassroots venues in the Highlands and Islands received support through the Scottish Government COVID-19 Emergency Funds, including Gellions Bar, Hootenanny, The Tooth & Claw, Aros Centre and The Sound Archive through the Grassroots Music Venue Stabilisation Fund.

HIE has supported a number of venues in the region and has directly supported venues to look at how they collaborate. HIE also support organisations, such as the Touring Network, a collaborative membership organisation that supports promoters in the region. HIE is also considering how digital tools and changing business models can support venues by generating new revenue streams.

More generally, grassroots music venues in Scotland can apply to Creative Scotland funds for specific projects and programmes of creative work.

Officials and our Enterprise Agencies are open to dialogue with potential inward investors in the lithium refining sector and we are committed to exploring all commercially viable proposals to establish lithium refining capacity in Scotland.

The Scottish Government have invested £16m per year in order to ensure that children and young people have quick and effective access to support for their mental health and wellbeing through counsellors in schools. Local authorities provide six-monthly reports to the Scottish Government on this commitment. The reports confirm that the overall picture on improving children and young people’s outcomes is positive.

A summary of the reports can be found here: Access to counsellors in secondary schools and children and young people’s community mental health services – summary reports - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . We will publish a summary of the 2022 reports in the coming weeks, which will include the number of counsellors local authorities reported were in post.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of critical minerals for the future prosperity of Scotland.

Critical mineral mining relates to powers reserved to the UK Government, and the Scottish Government is supportive of the UK Critical Minerals Strategy. This sets out the UK’s vision and actions to improve the resilience of its critical mineral supply chain through signposting financial support opportunities for UK critical minerals businesses.

The Scottish Government is committed to working with the UK government to explore the potential reserves of critical minerals in Scotland and to ensure their secure and sustainable supply.

Codebase, the operator of Scotland's Techscaler network, has acquired CodeClan’s training materials and other assets.

The Scottish Government has agreed to provide financial support to Codebase for the explicit purpose of allowing students who have paid for courses to complete their studies. Guidance has been issued to students and operational arrangements are being finalised.

The Scottish Government’s vision for Scottish education is excellence and equity and ensuring that every child has the same opportunity to succeed regardless of their social circumstances or support needs.

The school’s approaches to closing the poverty related attainment gap and achieving excellence and equity for all children and young people form a key part of every school inspection.

HM Inspectors consider the quality of education provision and how well schools are meeting the needs of all children and young people including those children who require additional support and are entitled to free school meals.

HM Inspectors are provided with key information about the school. This includes the number of children with additional support needs, the nature of those needs, the percentage of children living in each area identified in the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation and the percentage of children and young people entitled to free school meals.

When evaluating the quality of education provision, HM Inspectors take account of the school's specific circumstances. They look closely at the needs of individual learners and groups of learners with additional support needs and those affected by poverty. They evaluate how well the school is supporting children and young people by looking closely at their support plans, observing learning and teaching and speaking to them. HM Inspectors consider the extent to which schools promote equity of success and have raised attainment and achievement for all children and young people, including those who are most disadvantaged.

Table 1 provides the number of school leavers who left school with one or more National Qualification(s) at Scottish Credit and Qualification Framework (SCQF) Level 6 or better from 2012-13 to 2021-22. This covers attainment in National Qualifications such as Highers and Skills for Work.

The figures are taken from the Summary Statistics for Attainment and Initial Leaver Destinations publication and cover the attainment of leavers from mainstream, publicly funded schools.

Table 1: Number of school leavers with one pass or more at SCQF Level 6 or better, 2012-13 to 2021-22

I will lead the summit on behaviour and relationships in our schools, with the first stage of the taking place on 5 September. The views and experiences of school staff will be central to the summit process, which is focusing on practical support at classroom, school and local level to make a difference on this issue.

A multi-stage approach to the summit is planned to ensure the issues are considered in detail and to allow the later stages of the summit to benefit from the latest data following the publication of the Behaviour in Scottish Schools research. This research will provide a robust national picture in relation to behaviour in Scotland’s schools when it publishes in Autumn this year.

As well as our plans for the summit, I convened a Headteacher taskforce which includes representatives from across the education sector. The taskforce met in June and we considered the issue of school exclusions and consequences. We will use these discussions to inform our approach to the summit.

I will continue to update Cabinet colleagues in the usual manner.

Since 2015, CodeClan have received a total of £3.03m from Scottish Government.