Chamber and committees

We are committed to ensuring that all children and young people get the support that they need to reach their full learning potential.

Our national guidance on exclusion, ‘Included, Engaged and Involved Part 2’ makes clear that exclusion should be the last resort. Where exclusion is used, it should be as a proportionate response where there is no appropriate alternative, and the wellbeing of the child or young person should be the key consideration. The guidance makes clear that the practice of “sending home” or “informal exclusion” is illegal and denies pupils and parents their rights. Following an incident where the decision is made that the child or young person cannot remain in school, for one of the reasons specified in regulation 4 of the Schools General (Scotland) Regulations 1975 as amended, this must be recorded as an exclusion. This will ensure transparency, allow for appropriate monitoring and enable support to be put in place through the education authority’s staged intervention system.

The movement of freight is a commercial matter and the Scottish Government’s leadership in support for rail freight is outlined in our 2016 rail freight strategy, and put into practice with significant investment, a freight-first approach, and through our regulatory rail freight growth targets. The 2020 timber by rail trial in the Far North of Scotland proved the concept and provided lessons for the industry on the Scottish timber market, rolling stock/wagon capability and availability, operational considerations and the finances/economics of moving timber by rail. It is for the industry to lead on any follow up activities and Network Rail remains engaged with the industry through the Scotland Freight Joint Board and works with Freight Operating Companies and Freight End Users to enable modal shift to rail.

The Scottish Government does not routinely collect data on mothballed schools in Scotland. The Scottish Government does collect data from local authorities in order to collate a list of schools regarded as rural for the purposes of the Schools (Consultation)(Scotland) Act 2010. The most recent rural schools list was published on 25 October 2021 - Rural schools in Scotland - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . The rural schools list includes those schools the relevant local authority has mothballed. The 2021 rural schools list shows that 21 schools were reported as being mothballed. The following table shows how many rural schools are mothballed by local authority area.

In our response to the Scottish Mental Health Law Review, published in June 2023, we committed to establishing a Mental Health and Capacity Reform Programme. We are due to publish the first Delivery Plan under this Programme shortly. Our main priority for early law reform centres on the updating of the Adults with Incapacity Act. Work has already begun to consider options for addressing long-standing gaps in Adults with Incapacity law, to ensure stronger rights, protections and safeguards.

Whilst we do not set a public target per set, the numbers of available bursaries are published each year.

This is an operational matter for Abellio ScotRail for the year 2021-22 and for ScotRail Trains for the years 2022-23 and 2023-24. The member may wish to contact ScotRail directly.

The resourcing and commissioning of local rehabilitation services is the responsibility of individual Health Boards.

The Once for Scotland Rehabilitation Approach which supersedes the Framework for Supporting People through Recovery and Rehabilitation during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic (‘The Framework’) sets out the Six Principles of Good Rehabilitation. The Scottish Government expects that Health Boards have given consideration to these Principles to provide a good standard of rehabilitation services across Scotland.

The Board agreed its workplan in September 2023. The most recently published version of the workplan can be found on the Scottish Government website. https://www.gov.scot/publications/strategic-board-teacher-education-meeting-27-thursday-1-february-2024-10-00am-11-30am/pages/2/

The workplan contains three workstreams:

• Workstream 1 – Workforce Planning and Increasing Diversity of the Profession
• Workstream 2 – Improving the Promotion of Teaching as a Valued Career
• Workstream 3 – Continuum of Teacher Education

The Board has held meetings in November, February and March to progress these workstreams. The agendas, minutes and papers from these meeting are published on the Scottish Government website at https://www.gov.scot/groups/strategic-board-for-teacher-education/

The Board last met on 15 May 2024, and the agenda, minutes and papers from this meeting will be published on the Scottish Government website following the next meeting of the Board, which is scheduled for 27 June.

This is an operational matter for Abellio ScotRail for the year 2021-22 and for ScotRail Trains for the years 2022-23 and 2023-24. The member may wish to contact ScotRail directly.

Hospital Standardised Mortality Ratio data is one of a series of measures we use to monitor safety in Scotland’s hospitals. With regard to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (RIE), the Deputy National Clinical Director (DNCD) has been in contact with NHS Lothian and has received assurance that this has been investigated.

The investigation provided evidence that there were a number of factors that have contributed to the higher-than-predicted mortality for admissions to RIE. The DNCD is confident that appropriate action has been put in place to address the findings of the investigation.

The Regional Centre for Cancer and Clinical Neuroscience is based at the Western General, and this is an important factor in its HSMR data. The slightly different case-mix of patients have understandably higher predicted probabilities of mortality.

The mix of patients seen varies between hospitals, and the mortality rate may be higher or lower at a hospital for many reasons; the patients seen, for example, may be more seriously ill than average. HSMRs therefore take account of some of the factors known to affect the risk of death, so that comparisons between individual hospitals and Scotland are made on a comparable basis.