- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 April 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 6 May 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide details of its upcoming investment for the 2025-26 financial year in efforts to inform and educate the public on waste separation best practice.
Answer
Local authorities are responsible for decisions relating to the operation and delivery of waste management in their area. This means that local authorities operate different systems of waste separation, making local authorities themselves best placed to inform and educate residents on the systems and services available to them locally and any separation required.
The Circular Economy (Scotland) Act 2024 set out that Scotland will move from a voluntary to a statutory household recycling Code of Practice to deliver better and more consistent recycling services. A benefit of the increased standardisation across Scotland would be to enable effective national communications on waste separation best practice.
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 April 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 6 May 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how many employees there have been in waste collection and management in each local authority area in each year since 2019.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not hold data on the number of employees in waste collection and management in each local authority area.
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 April 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Graeme Dey on 6 May 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the UK Government regarding what progress is being made to assist colleges in Scotland with the student sponsor licence to provide more flexibility for the sector.
Answer
International students have a positive economic impact. We want to attract and retain international students in Scotland. While immigration is a reserved matter, the Scottish Government is committed to working closely with the UK Government to make a positive difference. Student sponsor licences are arranged between colleges and the Home Office directly. We have had multiple engagements with the UK Government regarding the Immigration System following the change of UK Government last July.
We have appointed a new Trade Envoy for International Education who will promote Scotland’s colleges and universities to international students and organisations across the world. We have also worked closely with Colleges Scotland in the development of the Scottish Education Exchange Programme. To date, eight colleges (eleven projects) have benefited from SEEP funding which has enabled the delivery of projects that are helping build international partnerships across the globe.
Furthermore, there is scope for the existing immigration system to deliver better outcomes for Scotland, with increased flexibility within existing routes, such as not applying the ban on dependants for students studying in Scotland, and through the introduction of new tailored migration routes, such as our proposed Scottish Graduate Visa. The Scottish Graduate Visa would give international students in Scotland an additional two years to develop their career after graduating to meet the salary threshold required to qualify for a Skilled Worker Visa. Relevant qualifications include those available at some colleges, including Higher National Diplomas and undergraduate degrees. It would be tied to a Scottish tax code, and would help us retain the skilled individuals we have already invested in.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 11 April 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 6 May 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether any repeated failures by the Scottish Qualifications Authority erode trust in the national qualifications system, and what reforms it plans to implement in this regard.
Answer
I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-37086 on 6 May 2025. 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
- Asked by: Gillian Mackay, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Green Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 11 April 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 6 May 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it remains committed to abolishing all non-residential social care charges in the current parliamentary session, and, if so, by what date all such charges will be abolished.
Answer
The Scottish Government is working with COSLA to explore possible options for removing non-residential social care charges within the current budget settlement as part of ongoing social care improvement and reform activity.
- Asked by: Stephen Kerr, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Friday, 11 April 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 6 May 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what support it provides to the Lessons from Auschwitz (LFA) project.
Answer
Since 2009, the Scottish Government has provided almost £3.3 million to support the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz programme.
The programme promotes and embeds learning about and remembrance of the Holocaust. Since 2009, 5,595 Scottish students have participated in the project as well as 660 Scottish teachers.
395 schools or 76% of all eligible schools from across Scotland’s 32 local authorities have participated.
- Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 April 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 6 May 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the reported increasing number of pupils with additional support needs in mainstream schools, what steps it is taking to ensure that schools are equipped with the necessary resources, training and staffing.
Answer
Local authorities oversee the delivery of education, and they have a statutory duty to identify, provide for, and to review the support that they provide for pupils with additional support needs in their local community. In the context of the rising number of children with additional support needs the Scottish Government is investing an additional £29 million for additional support for learning this year. This is in addition to the record spend of over £1 billion by local authorities in 2023-24. The additional investment will include an allocation for local and national programmes to support the recruitment and retention of the additional support for learning workforce. We continue to invest £15 million a year in pupil support assistants.
- Asked by: Maurice Golden, MSP for North East Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 April 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Gillian Martin on 6 May 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, further to the answer to question S6W-31149 by Gillian Martin on 19 November 2024, within what timeframe after 2026 it expects to see the projected 2.5% increase to the household recycling rate.
Answer
Due to the nature of the projects RIF has supported and the timescales for waste data reporting there is a lag between projects being completed and impact data being available.
Zero Waste Scotland is completing a series evaluations of projects funded by the RIF.
The first annual Evaluation report for projects that were sufficiently mature to provide data for 2023 will be published in June 2025. Subsequent evaluations using data from 2024 and 2025 are planned and should be published in 2025 and 2026 respectively.
- Asked by: Alex Cole-Hamilton, MSP for Edinburgh Western, Scottish Liberal Democrats
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 April 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Graeme Dey on 6 May 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what initiatives there are to support young people who leave school with no or few SQA qualifications.
Answer
The Scottish Government remains committed to an all-age careers information and guidance offer that supports all people, including young people who are at risk of leaving school with no or few SQA qualifications to progress rewarding careers.
Skills Development Scotland (SDS) have a school partnership agreement with every school and the level of service is tailored to meet the needs of the pupils within each school. A careers advisor offers impartial advice and supports people to consider and make informed decisions having explored all options and relevant information.
The partnership helps all school leavers to access the transition support they need to achieve their potential, and ensuring every young person can further their education or secure a job or training place.
SDS help provide this person-centred and proactive support via the 16+ Data Hub which enables a range of partners to work together to support those not in learning, training or employment and who are at risk of disengagement including individuals who leave school with no or few qualifications.
Where a young person requires ongoing or intensive support as they transition from secondary education, they can also access devolved employability services. This will provide tailored interventions to support young people towards and into employment, or to engage with another positive destination, like entering higher or further education, where that is more appropriate to the aspirations of the young person.
- Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 09 April 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 6 May 2025
To ask the Scottish Government how the £900,000 that was allocated to local authorities in March 2024 to provide professional learning for school support staff in response to distressed behaviour was distributed; what criteria were used to determine allocations; what proportion of support staff has received training; what assessment it has made of (a) the effectiveness of this training as a standalone intervention and (b) whether this was adequate to meet the training needs of support staff, and how the impact of this funding is being monitored.
Answer
I refer the member to question S6W-36439 on 22 April 2025. 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.
