Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government follows the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) Guidance in the planning of vaccine delivery. This evidence based guidance advises that the single greatest risk of mortality from COVID-19 is increasing age, and that the risk increases exponentially with age. Additionally the committee considers frontline health and social care workers who provide direct care to vulnerable people a high priority for vaccination.

The JCVI priority lists represents 90% of the preventable mortality from COVID-19 in Scotland and throughout the delivery of the vaccination programme we will be guided by the clinical expertise of the JCVI, the MHRA, and our own senior clinical advisers.

The JCVI list now includes staff directly involved in the direct care of children and young people with the most complex additional healthcare needs who are clinically vulnerable to severe effects of COVID. They may be at higher risk of exposure due to their close contact with those providing health and social care support, particularly those with severe neuro-disabilities. They will be eligible under category 2 of the JCVI list. This includes staff working in special schools and units, and in some cases in mainstream schools. Staff supporting these children will undertake roles which will align to the multi-agency educational and care plans for these children who are the most clinically vulnerable.

We recognise the important role teachers and educational workers play, particularly during the pandemic, and want to get vaccines to everyone as quickly as we can.

To save lives it is essential that vaccinations are given to the first priority groups as set by the JCVI, these being residents in a care home for older adults and their carers, people over the age of 80, and frontline health and social care workers.

Prioritisation by sector in not being considered for the following reasons;

• Criticality of service is not an indication for priority vaccination because clinical risk is the overriding concern. This is influenced most greatly by age, not occupation.
• Currently there is no sectoral prioritisation of any workers other than frontline health and social care workers. This is because we don’t know if the vaccine prevents spread, but it does reduce the harm to those most at risk should they catch the virus.
• Individual members of the teaching profession will be called forward for vaccination according to their position on the priority list, if they are eligible within the JCVI Cohorts regarding their age and/or underlying medical conditions (e.g. All individuals aged 16 years to 64 years with underlying health conditions which put them at higher risk of serious disease and mortality).

Our plans will remain flexible and we will continue to adjust these based on the guidance provided by JCVI.

Independent broadband analysis site, thinkbroadband, shows that 92.6% of all properties in East Lothian now have access to superfast broadband of 30 Megabits per second (Mbps). This compares with 98.8% in the City of Edinburgh, 94.3% in Midlothian and 98.1% in West Lothian. 94.6% of all properties across Scotland now have superfast broadband access.

More than 14,800 premises in East Lothian now have access to fibre broadband as a consequence of the Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband roll-out, with over 12,800 of those able to access speeds at the superfast standard of 30Mbps or above.

Although the Scottish Government has no legal or regulatory responsibility for telecommunications, given the reservation of such powers to UK Ministers under the Scotland Act (1998), we are intervening – using our devolved powers in respect of economic development – to address the market failure within the UK telecommunications market that has left some areas of Scotland with poor broadband coverage. Our £600 million Reaching 100% programme (R100), 96.5% funded by the Scottish Government, alongside our Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme and commercial build, will deliver a minimum of superfast broadband to remaining addresses. Our commitment means that 100% of the R100 build in the £133 million South lot and more than 90% in the £83 million Central lot areas will be in the form of fibre to the premises (FTTP) provision that will deliver gigabit (up to 1000 Megabits per second) broadband services ahead of the roll out across much of the rest of the UK.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-35500 on 24 February 2021. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

The Scottish Government has always been committed to taking steps to raise awareness about the removal of the reasonable chastisement defence in section 1 of the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Act 2019.

Our approach to awareness raising has been to use existing, trusted channels of communication to provide messaging about the Act to parents and carers, and to communicate directly with stakeholders.

This use of existing channels of communication and in-house resource to create messaging on the Act means that it has been possible to effectively reach people while minimising costs. Spend in this area has been nominal, and we will continue to explore opportunities for embedding messaging about the Act in existing sources of information in this cost-effective way.

The Scottish Government has discussed work to raise awareness of the 2019 Act with a number of bodies. In particular, organisations which represent the interests of children and young people are members of the Implementation Group the Scottish Government formed to consider what would be needed to implement the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Act 2019 Details of the membership of the Implementation Group are at Children (Equal Protection From Assault) (Scotland) Act 2019 implementation group - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Since the Bill which became this Act passed its final Stage in the Scottish Parliament on 3 October 2019 the Group has met seven times in total. Four of these meetings took place after 3 October 2019, including a meeting taking place on 10 February 2021.

The Group has discussed public awareness at these meetings, the minutes of which have been, or shortly will be, published on the Scottish Government website at the link above.

The Scottish Government has taken a variety of steps to raise public awareness about the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Act 2019, including:

• 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

As part of its commitment to support parents as part of our implementation work on this Act, the Scottish Government has also 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 what would be required to implement the Act, the Scottish Government will continue to consider further options for raising public awareness.

Since the Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Act 2019 passed its final Stage in the Scottish Parliament on 3 October 2019, the Scottish Government has written to stakeholders, including the Law Society of Scotland, twice.

The letters are available on the Scottish Government website:

• May 2020 letter
• October 2020 letter and framework document