Chamber and committees

While local authorities are responsible for the recruitment and deployment of teachers, the Scottish Government is committed to maximising the number of jobs available in a range of subjects, including computing science.

The Teaching Bursary Scheme offers a £20,000 payment to career changers who are looking to undertake graduate teacher training in hard-to-fill STEM subjects, including computing science.

We are currently exploring a pilot programme that would create more computing science teachers through the University of Aberdeen. Once finalised, further detail will be announced.

In addition, we are working with Scottish Teachers Advancing Computing Science (STACS) to consider wider initiatives to promote teaching as a valued career choice for computing students.

We have also asked our Strategic Board for Teacher Education to develop advice on how we can encourage more people into teaching, particularly in subjects we know are challenging to fill.

The following provisions of the Act have come into force

• Section 76 dealing with the effect of divorce, dissolution or annulment on special destination;
• Section 77 involving the rights of succession to intestate estate respectively;
• Section 7, under which an unfit trustee may be removed by the court for the purposes of section 8; and,
• Parts of section 9 concerning removal from office by a majority of co-trustees of a trustee who is no longer a member of a regulated profession or entitled to practice, and who was appointed or assumed to provide professional services in managing the trust, together with sections 13 and 14 by which decisions on the removal of a professional trustee by co-trustees are to be governed for these purposes.

The remaining provisions of the Act will come into force in due course although no decision has been taken about a date for that. The decision on when to commence the rest of the provisions generally is closely related to ongoing work with UK Government regarding the provisions covering the reserved matter of pension trusts.

It is not possible to determine how many people contracted HIV in any given year as people may not be tested or diagnosed for a number of years after they contract HIV.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) publishes an annual HIV in Scotland surveillance report which includes data on new diagnoses. The report includes indicators of recently acquired infections and late diagnoses since 2017, however this does not identify the year in which people acquired HIV. In addition to this there are a number of people who remain undiagnosed, which is why it is important that anyone who thinks they may have been at risk seeks a HIV test.

Data on the number of new HIV diagnoses in Scotland each year from 2014 to 2023 can be found in Table 3 of the latest HIV in Scotland report at: https://publichealthscotland.scot/media/29204/final-hiv-in-scotland-update-to-31-december-2023-1.pdf.

The Scottish Government provides core funding annually to Health Boards for sexual health and blood borne virus (BBV) services. From 2018-19 to 2023-24, Health Boards received funding through the annual Outcomes Framework allocation to cover a range of outcomes, including sexual health and BBVs. It was up to Health Boards to decide how much to allocate to each outcome within this envelope. In order to give Boards more control over local priorities this funding was baselined in 2023-24.

The total value for Outcomes Framework allocations since 2018-19 is set out in the following table.

In the last seven years we have invested over £2 million in the Healthy Living Programme, to help convenience stores offer healthier choices. More than two-thirds of the 2,300 strong Healthy Living Programme membership serves the most deprived areas of the country and ensures access to affordable, healthier food and drink in those communities.

Public Health Scotland published an evaluation on the Programme last year: Evaluation of the Scottish Grocers’ Federation Healthy Living Programme - Evaluation of the Scottish Grocers’ Federation Healthy Living Programme - Publications - Public Health Scotland. The evaluation shows that the Programme has increased the availability of healthier options in the sector and provides recommendations to further expand its reach and scope, for instance, through sector-wide healthier promotions.

We have also invested over £600,000 in the last seven years to help smaller businesses reformulate common products to make them healthier. This is playing an important role in improving dietary health by removing hundreds of millions of calories from Scottish food and drink products sold across the country, including deprived areas.

The Reformulation for Health Programme is administered by the Food and Drink Federation Scotland with additional support from Food Standards Scotland, Scotland Food & Drink and trade associations for relevant manufacturing sectors such as Scottish Bakers.

This was also discussed as part of the Population Health Framework development roundtable with Public Health and business stakeholders in September.

The Scottish Government is complying with its duty to maintain a register of captive bred schedule 4 birds held by keepers in Scotland, as required under the Wildlife and Countryside (Registration and Ringing of Certain Captive Birds) (Scotland) Regulations 2009. The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) carry out this function for Scotland with the agreement of the Scottish Ministers.

Literacy, which includes reading, remains the responsibility of all educators and a key priority in the National Improvement Framework. The National Improvement Framework and improvement plan 2024 included a range of actions to support literacy under the National Response to Improving Literacy, all of which are relevant to reading. The 2025 National Improvement Framework, which will be published in December 2024, will include a new long-term strategy setting out how we will work in partnership with local authorities and wider children's services to improve outcomes for young people. Improving achievement in literacy will remain a key priority.

Of particular note, in February 2024 Education Scotland published an Early Reading Professional Support Overview followed by a number of Professional Learning Resources from March to June 2024 for educators who support children and young people to learn to read. This guidance covers a range of themes including developing skills for reading and it seeks to provide clarity on the position of systematic phonics within an overall approach to early reading. The guidance is accompanied by an enhanced national primary schools professional learning programme on early reading.

In addition, the Scottish Government continues to fund the Scottish Book Trust to deliver both the Reading Schools programme and Read Write Count with the First Minister (RWC). Reading Schools offers three accreditation levels to Primary, Secondary and Additional Support Needs schools, designed to champion schools’ efforts to build and sustain a reading culture, while RWC gifts books and other materials to Primary 2 and 3 pupils across Scotland. The Scottish Government also continues to fund the School Library Improvement Fund to support creative and innovative projects within the school library sector.

The National Response to Improving Literacy Partnership Board (NRIL) brings together Scottish Government, Education Scotland and the Association of Directors of Education Services (ADES) to identify and support actions to improve literacy. A key priority for the “NRIL” in 2024 and 2025 is the Literacy and English Curriculum Improvement Cycle which will seek to strengthen and update Scotland’s Literacy and English Curriculum.

The Scottish Government is working intensively with business organisations and stakeholders to deliver on our shared ambitions, including through the New Deal for Business Group, which helped shape the First Minister’s recent Programme for Government and is informing our key priorities regarding economic growth.

There are good examples of business already feeding into policy development in areas like public health, circular economy and fair work. Deepening this relationship is an ongoing process, and I’m committed to building on the progress to date.

The Scottish Government will keep working with business to improve productivity, bring investment and create high quality jobs for Scotland.

The Scottish Government does not comment on the internal affairs of non-SG bodies.

The Scottish Government is fully committed to improving and protecting the welfare of all animals in Scotland. The Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 protects animals in Scotland, including livestock, and in November 2023 we published our own pig welfare guidance to further improve the welfare of farmed pigs. The Welfare of Farmed Animals (Scotland) Regulations 2010 was updated to include this updated guidance.

The Scottish Government is committed to the plans for a National Care Service, and Scottish Ministers are continuing work on progressing this as quickly and effectively as possible.