Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting all survivors of childhood abuse. Through the Scottish Government’s Survivors of Childhood Abuse Support (SOCAS) Fund, 29 organisations across Scotland are funded to provide support to adult survivors of childhood abuse including (but not exclusive to) those who have been abused in care.

Future Pathways supports people who experienced childhood abuse or neglect while living in care in Scotland. Future Pathways is fully funded by Scottish Government as part of a wider strategy developed by the Scottish Government to address the legacy of historic abuse in Scotland. A diverse range of survivors are currently receiving support through Future Pathways, including those who attended Fornethy House residential school.

We expect health and social care employers, including community pharmacies, to follow the guidance on managing staff with symptoms of a respiratory infection, or a positive COVID-19 test.

This specifies that if staff test positive for COVID/19, regardless of whether they have symptoms, they should not attend work for a minimum of 5 full days. If they work with patients or service users in face-to-face settings, they can return to work if they have had 2 consecutive negative LFD test results (taken at least 24 hours apart).’

Delivery partners hold the ScotSpirit budget enabling them to book breaks for unpaid carers and low-income families with participating businesses rather than issuing physical break vouchers. This person centred approach ensures that delivery partners work with individuals to broker and book the type of break that best meets their individual needs.

From October to December 2021 just over £58K was spent on breaks.

Allotments and their provision are the responsibility of local authorities. That is set out in the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015. However, since 2012, the Scottish Government has allocated more than £1.6 million to directly support and increase the land that is available for community growing.

This funding includes:

The Community Growing Fund, a grant scheme for the years 2019/2020 and 2020/21, providing a total of £80,000 to local community growing groups public bodies and third sector organisations.

For the years 2016 to 2022, nearly £490,000 has been allocated to various growing groups in Scotland, amongst them are Trellis, Social Farms and Gardens and Grow Green.

Funding to the Green Action Trust (previously Central Scotland Green Network (CSGN)) to allocate grants to projects that aim to increase the amount of land for community growing. Since 2012 around £1.04 million has been provided.

This information is not held centrally.

SEEMiS or local authorities may be able to provide this information if you contact them directly.

Currently there are no plans for a separate public inquiry into the alleged historic abuse at Fornethy House Residential School. The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has the remit to consider the extent to which institutions and bodies with legal responsibility for the care of children failed in their duty to protect children in care in Scotland from abuse, regardless of where that abuse occurred.

Court programming is a matter for the senior judiciary, supported by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS). SCTS advise that jury trials resumed in Dumfries Sheriff Court in April 2021. Under present arrangements, the jurors for these trials attend the remote jury centre in Ayr . However, from July the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service will begin decommissioning remote jury centres for most purposes. That process is due to be completed by October, and so on current planning assumptions jurors should be cited back to local courts - including Dumfries - by October.

Delivery partners hold the ScotSpirit budget enabling them to book breaks for unpaid carers and low-income families with participating businesses from October 2021 to December 2022. Therefore, the budget is spent with business as and when breaks are booked and taken rather than a set number of voucher being available for issue.

Curriculum for Excellence does not prescribe specific approaches or pedagogies for any aspect of the curriculum including learning to read but in practice, systematic synthetic phonics and other phonics approaches are widely implemented across Scotland's classrooms.

I would welcome the opportunity to meet with members of the Fornethy House Residential School Survivors campaign group in the coming weeks. My officials will arrange a suitable date and time.