Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is considering funding arrangements for student allied health professions as part of the ongoing Allied Health Professions Education review.

Work to preserve and increase the stock of grey partridge has traditionally been led by shooting interests such as the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust (GWCT).

GWCT lead on the PARTRIDGE project in the UK, supported by the EU via the Interreg North Sea Region programme. It show-cases how new and improved management solutions can improve biodiversity and ecosystem services at 10 demonstration sites across the region. There are two demonstration sites in Scotland at Balgonie Farm in Fife and Whitburgh Farms in East Lothian promoting land management techniques specifically to benefit grey partridge https://northsearegion.eu/partridge/ .

More widely, the protection of Scotland’s biodiversity is a key priority for the Scottish Government, and we are committed to doing more to safeguard our species and habitats. Our high level Statement of Intent on biodiversity, published in December 2020, signalled our ambitions for biodiversity in Scotland, and the development of a new post-2020 biodiversity strategy. We have committed £7 million to date to the Biodiversity Challenge Fund and recently launched a new £10 million Nature Restoration Fund to help finance projects that support nature recovery and address climate change. Action to restore biodiversity is also central to our Green Recovery from Covid-19.

On 15 June 2021, the Advisory Sub-group for Education and Children’s Issues provided advice on whether groups of parents should be permitted to attend ELC settings for outdoor events such as nursery graduations. Their advice was that groups of parents and carers should not attend end-of-year events in Early Learning and Childcare settings, whether indoors or outdoors. This was a carefully considered decision that weighed up all of the risks involved to safeguard public health.

In relation to the Fan Zone Scottish Ministers have undertaken significant consultation with public health officials and clinicians who have provided advice throughout development of Glasgow City Council’s proposal. The Fan Zone provides an outdoor, highly regulated space for fans to watch the tournament. Although there will be up to 3,000 people in attendance per session, this is in a large, outdoor space with normal capacity for up to 80,000 people. Necessary physical distancing and hygiene measures are in place. In addition, there is comprehensive stewarding, cleaning and contact tracing provisions in place and everyone attending are encouraged to take a lateral flow test prior to the event. Rapid lateral flow test kits are being mailed to all visitors to the Glasgow Fan Zone. This move is part of a series of measures to help reduce the risk of transmission before and after the event.

The OCTAVE trial funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) is a collaborative project involving the Universities of Birmingham, Glasgow, Oxford, Liverpool, Imperial College London and Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. This research work is investigating the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines being used in the UK in 2021 in up to 5,000 people from certain clinically at-risk patient groups who have impaired immune system function through underlying disease or drug treatment.

Further information is available here:

• Vaccine responses studied in patients with impaired immune systems – UKRI
• University of Glasgow - Research - Coronavirus research - OCTAVE to study vaccine responses in patients with impaired immune systems .

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) constantly review all published and unpublished data to inform vaccination policy recommendation. The JCVI have reviewed data already on this topic and will do so in an on-going basis.

The Scottish Government stays up-to-date on all national and international developments regarding COVID-19, and are continuing discussions on a 4 Nations basis regarding development and possible use of new COVID-19 vaccines.

The approval of medicines is a reserved matter and all approval is managed by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

On 28 May, the MHRA approved the single-dose Janssen vaccine for use in the UK for adults aged 18 and over, and we anticipate receiving some stocks of the vaccine later this year. As with all new COVID-19 vaccines, we anticipate that the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) will provide a recommendation on how the Jansen vaccine should be deployed. The UK Vaccine Taskforce has secured 20M doses, of which Scotland will receive a proportionate share.

The Novavax vaccine is also reporting encouraging results from stage 3 clinical trials (90% efficacy in the US study). If the vaccine is successful in trials and the MHRA assesses it as appropriately safe and effective for use, the UK will be able to access 60 million doses and Scotland will receive a proportionate share. However the timetable for supply is not clear as the supplier requires to implement a significant increase in manufacturing capacity.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-01396 on 12 July 2021. 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 .

At present we are awaiting Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) advice on whether all those aged 12 to 15, and all 16 and 17 year olds should be offered COVID-19 vaccination – and once we have this we will be preparing policy guidance as to how we will operationalise this for Scotland. No 16-17 year olds outwith the previously identified JCVI priority groups will have vaccination prior to the pending JCVI advice.

The number of people who died of infectious diseases in each of the last five years are shown in the following table. These figures are available on the NRS website up to 2019. Data for 2020 will be published on 17 August 2021. This data can be accessed at: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files//statistics/vital-events-ref-tables/2019/vital-events-19-ref-tabs-6.xlsx

The Scottish Government has made significant progress in addressing injustices in land ownership, specifically through the 2016 Land Reform Act. However, we recognise that there is more to do and are committed to land reform on an ongoing basis. As set out in our manifesto, we will introduce a new Land Reform bill in the current session.

Everyone has a stake in Scotland’s land and everyone should benefit from Scotland’s land. In September 2017, the Scottish Government published the Scottish Land Rights and Responsibilities Statement, the first of its kind anywhere in the world. Taking a human rights approach, it sets out a vision of a strong and dynamic relationship between Scotland’s land and its people, where our land contributes to a modern and successful country and where land rights and responsibilities are recognised and fulfilled.

We have also committed to double the Scottish Land Fund to £20 million per year by the end of this Parliament to provide further support to communities wishing to acquire assets. We look forward to working with parliament and society to take forward this work together to create a fairer Scotland.

Information on the number of classroom assistants in the years 2003-2020 is provided in the following tables. Data on the number of classroom assistants or other support staff from 1999-2002 is not held by Scottish Government.

The variability in categorisation of staff and the definition of full time equivalent means that caution should be taken if making comparisons over time or between local authorities. Full details on the use and comparability of the data are available in the background notes of the statistical publications.

Table 1: 2020 Pupil Support Assistants - Hours Worked per week

Table 2: 2020 Classroom Assistant and ASN Auxiliary or Care Assistant - Hours Worked per week

Data on school support staff was collected in the form of hours per week rather than the number of full time equivalent (FTE) staff in 2020. This is because different local authorities have different definitions of ‘full time hours’ so changing to measure hours rather than FTE allows for more accurate comparison between local authorities.

Statistics on hours worked per week of pupil support assistants in 2020 are provided in Table 1.

Management information on hours worked per week hours worked of classroom assistant and ASN auxiliary or care assistant are provided in Table 2.

Table 3: Pupil Supports Assistant - 2017 to 2020 – FTE

The use of the term 'classroom assistant' varies between local authorities and is sometimes used interchangeably with 'additional support needs auxiliary or care assistant'. Therefore these two categories of school support staff have been combined and reported as 'pupil support assistants' in the published statistics on school support staff since 2017. Statistics on FTE of pupil support assistants for 2017 to 2020 are provided in Table 3.

Since 2017 the categories of classroom assistant and additional support needs auxiliary or care assistant have been published separately as management information and have not been subject to the same level of quality assurance as the published statistics.

Calculations of full time equivalent (FTE) numbers of pupils support assistants for 2020 were published to allow a comparison to be made with data from 2018 and 2019. The data on pupil support assistants published in 2017 is not directly comparable because of changes to the method of estimating FTE in some authorities. Calculations 2020 FTE of classroom assistants and ASN auxiliary or care assistant have not been calculated.

Table 4 - Classroom assistants - 2003-2019 - FTE

Table 5 - ASN auxiliary or care assistant - 2003-2019 - FTE - (part 1)

Statistics and management information on the FTE of classroom assistant and ASN auxiliary or care assistant from 2003 to 2019 are provided in Tables 4 and 5.