Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government remains committed to Keeping The Promise by 2030, working in partnership with all partners including Local Authorities, the third sector and importantly the care community.

Through our commitment to lead from the front, the Scottish Government is working closely with Local Authorities and the third sector to create the conditions for change at a national and local level.

To support Whole Family Wellbeing we have committed to provide £32m per annum directly to local areas to build local service capacity and transform delivery of holistic family support services. Children’s Services Planning Partnerships have received their allocation for 2022-23, and are collectively responsible for deciding how to deploy this in a way which best drives change in their areas.

In addition, we are also providing up to £6m to support the work of CSPPs, including collaborative partnerships East Ayrshire, East Lothian, Glasgow City to accelerate plans and provide local learning that can be shared nationally. As well as provision of our Learning into Action Network.

The Scottish Government is committed to funding The Promise Partnership Fund of £4m per annum to support local services and organisations to Keep The Promise. Local Authorities and third sector partners are eligible to bid for this fund through the Corra Foundation.

The Scottish Government continues to support a wide range of projects and initiatives across communities in Scotland that improve outcomes for children, young people, adults and families who are care experienced and those on the edges of care.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The Prisoner Records system (PR2) does not allow data to be gathered retrospectively. On Wednesday 23 November the number of cells out of use were:

Surveyors cost incurred with the purchase of Glenprosen amount to £6,802.

This is an operational matter for Ferguson Marine (Port Glasgow) Limited.

Termination of the previous employment was undertaken by the seller, when they wound down their business and FLS has no knowledge of the costs incurred.

The fact that Forestry and Land Scotland have purchased Glenprosen, along with the price paid, are already in the public domain.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-12059 on 30 November 2022. 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

Since 2014 we have undertaken one of the most significant reforms to public services in a generation by almost doubling the entitlement to high quality, funded Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) from 600 to 1140 hours per year, for all eligible children.

The early level of the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) purposely spans early learning and childcare (ELC) and primary schooling. It is designed to support the implementation of a responsive, continuous, play-based curriculum for children from age three until the end of P1 (for most children). Key messages on the use of child-centred play pedagogy across the early level and beyond have most recently been confirmed and strengthened in 'Realising the Ambition: Being Me' (2020), the evidence-based and internationally recognised national practice guidance for the early years in Scotland.

Education Scotland is taking forward a range of activity to support the consistent and effective implementation of the ‘Realising the Ambition’ guidance, including through hosting webinars and supporting practice at regional and local levels tailored to local needs. We are aware that many Scottish Local Authorities have, or have immediate plans to implement, programmes of professional learning on play pedagogy for practitioners working in the early years of primary school.

From August 2023, all children who defer will automatically be entitled to an additional year of funded ELC.

Raising the school starting age and introducing a ‘kindergarten stage’ would represent a fundamental change in the scope of early years’ education in Scotland and a significant structural change to the provision of education, and was not part of the Scottish National Party’s manifesto for this current Parliamentary term.

The priority for this parliamentary term must be to fulfil the commitments on which this Scottish Government was elected, including building a system of school age childcare and a new early learning and childcare offer for one- and two-year olds, starting with those who need it most. These priorities are outlined in ‘Best Start: Strategic early learning and school age childcare plan for Scotland, 2022-26’, published on 6 October 2022.

While the Scottish Government does not have plans to change the age at which children start school in Scotland in this Parliament, we welcome an active debate on these issues as part of our ongoing National Discussion on Education.

The Scottish Government has decided that these functions are best located in the new qualifications body.

In reaching this conclusion we considered a range of options, including the establishment of a new small non-departmental public body solely responsible for these functions and Professor Muir’s recommendation to locate the functions within the new national agency for Scottish education.

We have sought the views of a range of organisations including nine standard setting organisations, twenty-five Awarding Bodies and a number of other public bodies including the Scottish Funding Council and the SCQF Partnership. Officials also met with other UK regulation and accreditation bodies including Ofqual and Qualifications Wales and discussed options with colleagues across the Learning, Education Reform and Advanced Learning and Science Directorates. We have also drawn on the expertise of the staff who provide those services through discussions with the SQA’s Chief Executive, staff in the Accreditation Team and members of the SQA Accreditation Committee.

On balance, it is clear that there are significant benefits to locating the functions in the new Qualifications Body, as an NDPB, providing a greater degree of independence than within the new national agency. The creation of the new Qualifications Body itself presents an opportunity to make significant changes to the relationship between the awarding and accreditation functions which will further strengthen their independence from one another. We will develop these as part of the Education Reform Bill to be introduced to Parliament next year and as part of the Target Operating Model for the new body.

This decision will ensure the continued provision of a service which is of vital importance across a wide range of sectors of the Scottish economy.

The Iterative Plan Review Process (IPR) is ongoing and officials have completed an initial review of the assessments conducted for the Sectoral Marine Plan for Offshore Wind Energy (SMP-OWE) adopted in 2020. This initial review identified which aspects of the assessments are likely to be affected by the ScotWind and clearing process results. The full review is estimated to take around 12 months and a final programme for the review process will be fixed in the coming weeks, taking into account the findings of the initial review. Officials at Marine Scotland Directorate will hold a series of stakeholder engagement events and statutory consultation as part of the re-assessment process.