Chamber and committees

The Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022 (Commencement No. 1) Regulations 2023 were laid before the Scottish Parliament on 16 June 2023. These regulations will bring into force most of the provisions in the Good Food Nation (Scotland) Act 2022 that relate to the national Plan. These include sections relating to the preparation of the Plan and the requirements for inclusive communication, which enables us to go out to public consultation on the first national Good Food Nation Plan this summer.

Other sections that will come into force this December relate to giving Parliament the chance to have its say on the Good Food Nation Plan and will begin the cycle of reporting and reviewing of future Good Food Nation Plans. Finally, Section 6 which relates to the effect of the national Plan, will be commenced in separate regulations at the time of the publication of the final Plan in late 2024.

It remains the Scottish Government's intention to undertake public consultation on the Good Food Nation Plan this summer and to then lay the draft national Good Food Nation Plan before Parliament in 2024. We expect the final version will be published later in 2024, when the Food Commission is to be established. Good Food Nation Plans that are to be prepared by Local Authorities and Health Boards will follow in 2025.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-18944 on 21 June 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 does not yet have complete data for the Young Patients Family Fund for period 2022-23 and are committed to working with Health Boards to achieve this.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-18980 on 21 June 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

Work is underway now and the current timescale for development completion of the SEEMiS Early Years IT platform is Jan-Mar 2024. The actual system “go live” date is yet to be decided, with an options appraisal currently underway and scheduled for Project Review Board consideration over summer 2023.

The University of Strathclyde, through a PhD project co-supervised with Marine Directorate staff, is involved in data collation and stock assessment modelling for demersal fish stocks in the Clyde. The project uses fisheries-dependent data (from logbooks for landings), routine Marine Directorate on-board observer sampling data (for fish not officially landed), and fisheries-independent data from the Scottish West Coast groundfish survey. The PhD project is in the writing-up phase, aiming to submit at the end of the summer 2023.

The Scottish Government does not yet have complete data for the Young Patients Family Fund for the period 2022-23 and are committed to working with Health Boards to achieve this.

For the latest data I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-17130 on
‎ 17 May 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

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-18944 on 21 June 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

We have committed to building a system of school age childcare, providing year-round childcare for families on low incomes. As announced by the First Minister on 3 April ( Expanding school age childcare - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) ), in 2023-24 we are investing £15 million in delivering funded school age childcare through our early adopter communities and wider test of change projects.

Throughout the 1140 expansion we have sought to improve conditions across the private, third and childminding workforce delivering funded ELC, including through our investment to support sustainable rates to be set at a level to enable payment of the real Living Wage to those workers delivering funded ELC . Evidence from the Financial Review of the ELC Sector highlights that when the ELC expansion began around 80% of practitioners and 50% of supervisors in private and third sector settings delivering the funded ELC were paid an hourly rate below the real Living Wage. In contrast, our 2021 Financial Sustainability Health Check indicated that 88% of funded ELC providers in the private and third sectors intended to pay the real Living Wage to all their staff from August 2021.

As set out in the supporting Funding Follows the Child and National Standard Contracting Guidance it is expected that within the contract terms and conditions for funded providers local authorities will set out expectations regarding payment of at least the real Living Wage to all childcare workers delivering the funded hours.

In partnership with the sector and local authorities, we have taken important steps to improve our understanding of real Living Wage progress, and to support providers to deliver higher pay and Fair Work. To support this we have established a real Living Wage and Fair Work Implementation Group to explore implementation challenges and potential solutions to help all childcare providers become real living wage employers. The first meeting of the Group took place on 15 December 2022. The group is due to reconvene shortly.

We are also collecting further information regarding the payment of the real Living Wage as part of our update of the Financial Sustainability Health Check; and through the joint Scottish Government and COSLA Review of Sustainable Rates. Both of these reports will be published this Summer.