Chamber and committees

In 2021, Scottish Government officials began exploring with Starlink the possibility of becoming a Reaching 100% Programme Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (R100 SBVS) supplier.

At that time, Starlink chose not to register as a provider for the scheme.

Earlier this year, officials requested a further meeting with Starlink to explore whether they might reconsider their position.

Although not currently registered as an R100 SBVS supplier, Starlink do offer commercial services across most parts of Scotland.

According to the latest Scottish Government Early Learning and Childcare census data from September 2022, 99% of 3- and 4-year-olds, and 14% of 2-year-olds, are estimated to be registered for funded early learning and childcare (ELC), and 18% of these child registrations are of children with additional support needs. The 2022 Parents’ Survey found that 85% of parents with children with additional support needs were satisfied that funded ELC meets their child’s needs.

Although we do not have data on how many hours of funded ELC these children are accessing, given these overall figures we envisage that a significant proportion of eligible children with additional support needs are currently accessing their entitlement to 1,140 hours of funded childcare. We are currently developing the ELC census and are looking to collect more information on the characteristics of children accessing funded ELC, and the hours they are registered for.

The data gaps identified by Audit Scotland relate to different elements of funded early learning and childcare (ELC). These include workforce movement, the living wage, parental demand, financial data, and the extent to which children with additional support needs are accessing funded ELC. As Audit Scotland note, providing a national overview of ELC data will require action by the Scottish Government, local authorities and other partners.

In relation to data on the movement of childcare staff between different types of provider, the Scottish Social Services Council will be publishing an analysis of staff movement within the Day Care of Children Category before the end of June 2023.

In relation to financial monitoring, the Scottish Government is working to change reporting through local financial returns to produce more detailed information on how much councils have spent specifically on the provision of funded ELC.

For information on action that the Scottish Government is already taking to improve ELC monitoring data in relation to the living wage and children with additional support needs, I refer the member to the answers to questions S6W-18994 and S6W-18992 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

Based on the existing cost estimates, the Scottish Government will have provided £2,104,833 of grant funding to support the development of the new SEEMiS Early Years system. As is standard procedure, a contingency value of £91,043 has been retained by Scottish Ministers and will only be made available under extenuating circumstances.

The following table summarises the survey work conducted by the Marine Directorate in the Firth of Clyde, between June 2021 and June 2023.

The review has now been completed and the report is currently being finalised. Following this, the report will be published later in 2023.

The recommendations of the Compliance and Enforcement Review Panel are being taken forward through the Building Standards Futures Board. The Board oversees a programme of seven work streams which collectively aim to improve the performance, expertise, resilience and sustainability of building standards verification services. Work has progressed across all work items, notably on a workforce strategy for building standards, a pilot building standards verification hub of expertise, a new compliance plan approach and a suite of digital tools to assist those using the building standards system.

Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme would be a major part of our efforts to reduce littering. The Scottish Government does not consider that section 67 of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 is relevant to any bottles or cans which have been littered and therefore no assessment has been made of its impact on the scheme.

The R100 programme remains on track to meet its current contractual completion dates. The R100 contracts are currently delivering full fibre, gigabit capable connections at pace across the length and breadth of Scotland.

For any properties beyond the reach of the R100 contract build or commercial coverage plans, the R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme – offering vouchers worth up to £5,000 – remains available to help secure a superfast broadband connection.

Our address checker at https://www.scotlandsuperfast.com shows the most recent plans and timescales for residential and commercial properties across Scotland, allowing access to the most up-to-date information.

The Scottish Government will be undertaking an economic evaluation as part of our multi-year strategy for evaluating the impact of the expansion of funded early learning and childcare (ELC) to 1,140 hours on outcomes for children, parents and families. The purpose of an economic evaluation is to compare the value of the outcomes of a policy to the overall costs of that policy, in order to determine the value for money of the programme. Details of the economic evaluation approach were published in section 6 of our Evaluation Strategy published in October 2022. Work on the economic evaluation will begin in 2023 and the final phase of this work is due to be completed in late 2025 – to allow the information from the Scottish Study of Early Learning and Childcare (SSELC) to be used in the economic evaluation.