Chamber and committees

As part of the Bill process we have consulted on the intent to continue to support all registered agricultural businesses in Scotland to continue to benefit from accessing high-quality advice through the Farm Advisory Service.

As is convention, following consultation on proposed legislation, Ministers are considering the views received to inform a new Agriculture Bill, which will be introduced in 2023. In turn, Parliament will consider the proposals and provide further comment on draft proposals, accordingly.

In the Programme for Government, we committed to developing the local infrastructure and services needed to provide childcare to families with children from the age of nine months to the end of primary school in ‘early adopter communities’ in six local authority areas.

We are already delivering innovative school age childcare services to priority families through our early adopter work in four local authorities – Glasgow, Clackmannanshire, Dundee and Inverclyde . Over the next year we will expand delivery in those existing areas and add two additional areas – Fife and Shetland. We will also broaden the scope of the early adopter communities – to test innovative models of delivery to provide childcare for families with children from the age of nine months to the end of primary school. This builds on what we have already learned from the early delivery of funded school age childcare for priority families.

The investment announced will enable us to begin to create and test, for the first time, what an all-age childcare system will look like for Scotland. We are taking a person-centred and place-based approach to designing this system – that means involving children, parents and providers in co-designing services to meet their needs.

In the Programme for Government 2023-24 we committed to developing the local infrastructure and services needed to provide childcare to families with children from the age of nine months to the end of primary school in ‘early adopter communities’ in six local authority areas.
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We are already funding four early adopter communities - in Glasgow, Clackmannanshire, Dundee and Inverclyde - and have added two new early adopter communities in Fife and Shetland as noted in the Programme for Government.

The following table provides an overview of P1 learners who have undertaken (a) one or (b) both parts of the Scottish National Standardised Assessments since 20 September 2018, broken down by (i) school year and (ii) local authority.

The row "n/a" denotes publicly-funded schools outwith local authority control.

Table 1 - Number of P1 Children undertaking SNSA since 20 September 2018 - by year and local authority

In Scotland, the climate emergency is taught through the cross curricular entitlement of Learning for Sustainability (LfS). LfS has been a feature of Curriculum for Excellence since 2012 and has gained international interest and recognition, with other countries looking at our concept of LfS as a model.

The Scottish Government published a refreshed LfS action plan in June 2023, which sets a new ambitious aim for all learning settings to become Sustainable Learning Settings by 2030, and clearly teaching children and young people about the climate emergency is an important aspect of this.

The plan contains a significant number of new actions to further support the teaching and learning of LfS. These include the development of a new accessible LfS portal where teachers and educators will be able to find online practical advice, tools and support in one place; the creation of new LfS qualifications and pathways; and the development of a single national approach to LfS within Initial Teacher Education.

This builds on a significant amount of work already underway. For example Education Scotland provides a wide range of advice, resources and support to schools in relation to climate and sustainability education, through their National Improvement Hub, including the Learning for Sustainability Self-Evaluation Framework, Countdown to COP26 resources, Weather and Climate Change video series and a Climate Change Wakelet, a tool for sharing resources.

The Scottish Government also funds Keep Scotland Beautiful to deliver the Climate Action Schools programme. In 2022-23 a total of 1,694 schools took part in the programme which aims to increase climate change awareness, enable young people to have a voice and take action on issues that matter to them, and embed LfS across Scotland.

There are 66,265 pupils in publicly funded schools in Scotland with English as an additional language, based on the 2022 pupil census.

Statistics on pupils with English as an additional language are published annually in the Pupil Census Supplementary Statistics , table 5.9.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-21029 on 13 September 2023. 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 .

The 2023-24 Scottish budget provides over £250 million funding to NHS Boards to support Covid-19 and other services. This funding is used to support the Covid-19 vaccination programme, testing, personal protection equipment and public health measures.

Within monthly financial returns issued to Scottish Government from NHS Boards on their Covid-19 expenditure with over £45 million of reported expenditure as at month 4. Please note, this total is based on the most recent figures reported by NHS Boards.

Information is not presented in the way requested due to the information being received from numerous stakeholder systems.

From August 2022, when the new legislation came into effect:

Management information received from Police Scotland internal systems on 26 September 2023.

Offences recorded under the Fireworks and Pyrotechnics Articles (Scotland) Act 2022 by Police Scotland.

• Legislation went live 6 October 2022:

Section 21 - Proxy Purchase - 2 Crime Reports raised – enquiries ongoing.

• Legislation went live 6 June 2023:

Section 35 – Pyrotechnic in a public place – 4 Crime Reports raised – 2 arrested and report submitted to COPFS, 2 reported to COPFS.

o Section 36 – Pyrotechnic designated sporting/music event. 9 Crime reports raised – 6 reported to COPFS (2 disposed through Early and Effective Intervention), 3 undetected (incidents captured on CCTV – no suspect identified).

Management information received from Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) on 14 September 23.

• A total of seven charges, across five cases, have been reported to COPFS under the Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Act 2022.
• Of those seven charges, four (across two cases) are currently pending and awaiting a decision on how to proceed. All of those four charges are for contraventions of S.21(1) (the proxy purchasing charge).
• The remaining three charges, across three cases, were prosecuted in court, with two (both contraventions of S.35(1) – possession of a pyrotechnic article in a public place) still ongoing.
• The third one (a contravention of article 36(1) – possession of a pyrotechnic article in a designated venue or at a designated event) plead guilty to the common law charge of culpably and recklessly igniting a pyrotechnic article within a football stadium, and the accused’s plea of not guilty was accepted to the statutory charge under S.36(1) on that basis.
• Sixty one charges have been reported to COPFS with the statutory aggravation under S.44 for emergency workers.

Management information received from Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) administrative database (COPII).

• The management information received from SCTS (and published by the Scottish Government quarterly being the latest update January 2023-March 2023) indicates that there are no convictions recorded for accused prosecuted for charges under the Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Act 2022.

Source: Police Scotland, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) and Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) administrative database (COPII).

The Scottish National Investment Bank sets out its approach to assessing its impact in its annual Impact Report.

The member may wish to note the Bank reports on the amount of capital it has committed against each of its missions and the impacts delivered across its portfolio.

The Bank’s Impact Report 2023 is available at: https://www.thebank.scot/impact-report .

If the member has further questions about the operational detail of the Bank’s approach to impact, he may wish to contact the Bank directly.