Chamber and committees

The agreement announced recently between the Scottish Government and COSLA will see the Scottish Government provide funding in the 2021-22 academic year to allow current levels of provision in local authorities to be sustained at no cost to families.

The Scottish Government is committed to working with local authorities to establish a sustainable approach to the service and to funding for future years.

The Building Standards Futures Board was established in 2019 to provide guidance and direction on the development and implementation of recommendations made by the Compliance and Enforcement and Fire Safety Review Panels.

The Futures Board covers a number of work streams, one of which (Compliance Plan Approach) aims to reduce the risk of non-compliance with the building regulations for all building types including new-build residential developments.

Scottish Government has recently strengthened guidance on the roles and responsibilities of any person undertaking new building work. The Building Standards Procedural Handbook, published on 1 October 2019, emphasises the importance of regular and effective communication and partnership working to improve compliance with building regulations. It also recommends the use of more formal customer agreements and pre-warrant discussions between the applicant and verifier to discuss all the key aspects of design, and the importance of carrying out safety checks on critical design elements during construction.

We intend to consult on further proposals to strengthen the building standards system and reduce the risk of non-compliance in late summer/autumn 2021.

The Young Person’s Guarantee – Implementation Progress Report was published on 28 July and outlines the progress made against each of the initial recommendations within Youth Guarantee - No-one Left Behind: initial report, published on 2 September 2020. The progress report also provides an outline of the next steps against the commitments made in the supporting Activity Plan and is accompanied by the Key Performance Indicators, which are part of the broader Measurement and Evaluation Framework underpinning the Young Person’s Guarantee. The Framework will support our understanding of the impact of the Young Person’s Guarantee across a range of economic, education and equalities outcomes, enabling the targeting of future resource and to ensure that no young person is left behind.

As Minister for Higher Education, Further Education, Youth Employment and Training, I will be leading this work, alongside Sandy Begbie, partners and stakeholders to continue to build on progress to tackle youth unemployment and to improve the life chances of young people. This includes the delivery of relevant manifesto commitments contained within First Steps , which are to:

• Appoint a Minister specifically tasked with supporting youth employment;
• Invest £45 million through local partnerships to provide training and employer recruitment incentives;
• Fund colleges to deliver around 5,000 more short, industry-focussed courses to help young people train for jobs in key industries;
• Roll-out new school coordinators across the country to support young people access education, work, or training; and,
• Establish a new graduate internship scheme and increase places on volunteering and third sector programmes.

The significant work already underway in relation to this issue in Scotland, as outlined in S6W-00743, is a broader approach than suggested by the Ofsted review. The ongoing work across schools as well as the further and higher education sectors is designed to help tackle sexual harassment and gender based violence. This is part of our wider Equally Safe work to eradicate violence against women and girls.

The Everyone’s Invited suggested approach of ensuring all schools are enabled to prevent and respond effectively to sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviours is the correct approach, and one which the Scottish Government has been pursuing for some time.

These funding allocations are subject to agreement by COSLA Leaders and will be confirmed shortly. This information will be published on the Scottish Government when it is available at the following link: https://www.gov.scot/policies/schools/teachers/

The Scottish Government is committed to improving the lives of trans and non-binary people in Scotland. Trans people continue to suffer poorer outcomes relative to the wider population, and this needs to change.

We are committed to ensuring that all children and young people are supported in school and are able to reach their full potential, including transgender young people. We committed to develop guidance to support schools to do this and will publish guidance shortly.

I announced on the 18 June, the establishment of a Lived Experience Panel will be a key initial task for the Implementation Group.

The Scottish Government continues to work closely with universities and colleges to support the safe return of students for the next academic year. Recovery of additional costs for the provision of quarantine facilities in student accommodation for international students from red-list countries is currently one of the matters being discussed.

The Scottish Government is responsible for coordinating public awareness and understanding of the implications of the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Act 2019. This responsibility extends to the whole of Scotland.

The Scottish Government has taken a variety of steps to raise awareness of the Act as I highlighted in my previous response. These include:

Information about the Act on gov.scot .

Information about the Act on mygov.scot

A dedicated page about the Act on ParentClub

The publication of a news release

Social media activity:

The ParentClub Instagram account - post on the Act

The ParentClub Facebook account - post on the Act

Scottish Government education tweet about the Act

Scottish Government tweet about the Act

The creation and publication of promotional materials about the Act for parents and carers, and for children and young people

The publication of an Easy Read factsheet about the Act

Writing to organisations, including local authorities and health boards, with information about the Act:

May 2020 letter

October 2020 letter and framework document

Arranged for information about the Act to be included in Ready Steady Baby

More generally, the Scottish Government is committed to supporting parents. The Scottish Government has run a marketing campaign which promotes positive parenting. This can be seen on the ParentClub website .

Working with the Implementation Group formed by the Scottish Government to consider work required to implement the Act, we will continue to explore options for raising public awareness and understanding about the removal of the defence.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-00315 on
17 June 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