Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-02795 on 21 September 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 .

Our focus has been, and remains, on keeping our school communities safe including minimising the risk of any long-term impact of the pandemic. The First Minister confirmed in her update to Parliament on 14 September, that we are retaining the current suite of mitigations in schools for the time being. This decision follows the latest recommendations of the advisory sub-group on education and children’s issues, and was taken after very careful consideration. The measures in place in schools and across wider society are crucial in reducing infection but we will continue to keep the requirements under very close review.

The work of Police Scotland’s International Development and Innovation Unit is a matter for the Chief Constable of Police Scotland. The Scottish Police Authority has responsibility for oversight of Police Scotland and to scrutinise the decisions of the Chief Constable.

Scotland has a strong and enduring commitment to securing democracy, the rule of law and human rights across the world. We expect all states to recognise fundamental human rights, comply with human rights legislation and condemn human rights abuses wherever they occur. Through International Engagement we will share our experiences, values and expertise in areas such as justice, education and climate change, with a view to seeing the human rights of people across the world fully realised.

The Scottish Government does not collect statistics on private or fee-paying schools, including on the destinations of their leavers. Scottish Government statistical collections focus on publicly funded and Grant Aided schools for which it provides funding.

In the National Improvement Framework and Improvement Plan, we set out our approach to measuring the poverty related attainment gap with 11 key measures identified to assess progress. We have plans to formally review the 11 NIF measures with partners to ensure they are comprehensive, as we recognise that national data needs to provide an accurate understanding of the wide range of learners’ achievement. Local authorities and school leaders are also able to use local knowledge and data to ensure support is targeted towards the children and young people who require it most.

Our priority remains keeping children, young people and school staff safe. The guidance on reducing COVID risks in schools, has been updated and was published on 15 September. It is in line with current advice from the COVID-19 Advisory Sub-Group on Education and Children’s issues. The sub-group keeps the mitigations in schools and Early Learning and Childcare settings under constant review, and will consider the issue of parental attendance at school sporting events at its next meeting on 21 September.

Our consultation on the National Care Service is very wide ranging. We are aiming to capture as many experiences of care as possible from across the whole population of Scotland. We particularly want to hear from people who access social care now, their families and friends, unpaid carers and social care workers as well as people who will access social care in the future.

We have had around 200 responses to the consultation so far on our digital consultation hub. We are also holding open digital consultation events as well as a wide range of other events and meetings with organisations and groups. We do not have information on how many of the people taking part in our consultation events or responding to the consultation are older people.

All responses to the consultation, whether received through our consultation hub or via other means, including at the events and meetings and paper copies of responses, will be carefully analysed together with contributions to our engagement events and we will publish this analysis.

A total of 761 applications were received for ICF Round 1 in June 2019. Of those, 276 were approved and 485 were unsuccessful

The following table shows the number of ICF applications approved and rejected broken down by local authority area

The Scottish Government has not made representations to Police Scotland, in relation to the work by the International Development and Innovation Unit, in providing training to police forces from other countries, as the Scottish Police Authority has responsibility for oversight of Police Scotland and to scrutinise the decisions of the Chief Constable.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-02795 on 21 September 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 .