Chamber and committees

In February 2023, Education Scotland published the report of its thematic review on approaches to recording and monitoring of bullying incidents in schools. This report can be accessed at: Approaches to recording and monitoring incidents of bullying in schools (education.gov.scot).

In January 2024 Education Scotland published an online resource following a second phase of its thematic review, which looked at good practice in preventing and responding to bullying behaviour. This resource includes examples of schools responding to increases in prejudice-based behaviours. Information and case studies can be accessed here: Preventing and responding to bullying | Bullying | Resources | Education Scotland.

The findings from the thematic inspection are informing the work of the Racism and Racist Incidents workstream. This includes the development of resources which are focused on preventing and responding to racism and racist incidents, including strengthening approaches to recording and monitoring, and developing guidance on a whole-school approach to anti-racism.

As part of the Anti-Racism in Education Programme - gov.scot (www.gov.scot), the Scottish Government has established the Racism and Racist Incidents (RRI) workstream. This workstream is focussed on developing support for schools and school staff to improve understanding of racism and to ensure that these issues are properly identified and addressed.

The RRI workstream is currently developing practical guidance for schools to support them to respond to racism and racist incidents, including strengthening approaches to recording and monitoring.

It is anticipated this guidance will be published in Spring 2025.

The Education Leadership and Professional Learning workstream of the Scottish Government’s Anti-Racism in Education Programme includes a wide range of stakeholders who bring their expertise and experience to inform strategic actions. Facilitated by Education Scotland, this workstream contributes to the ongoing review of what anti-racist professional learning is available to all school staff, from the national anti-racist professional learning programme, Building Racial Literacy, to more local offers and self-directed professional learning resources.

The Digital Citizen Unit (DCU) was created in 2022 with the Digital Citizen Division (DCD) forming in 2023. DCD is the team within Scottish Government that manage the Connecting Scotland Programme; Ethical Digital Nation; Unlocking the Value of Data; and the Knowledge and Information Shared Services Unit, which is an operational internal business support unit for Core Scottish Government and some public sector shared services customers, comprised of: Information Assurance and Data Protection; Knowledge and Information Management; and Library and Information Services functions.

The Digital Inclusion Alliance is the proposed national delivery mechanism to bring together the public, private and third sectors to jointly agree how to tackle digital exclusion through long-term, sustainable approaches.

The work to establish the Alliance commenced in November 2023 following approval in the Connecting Scotland Full Business Case. We are currently scoping out options for the financial and legal structure of the Digital Inclusion Alliance and once these are finalised and agreed with Ministers the Alliance will be formally constituted.

To help us co-design the focus of the Alliance and define the role of the third and public sector partnership within that Alliance, we established a Short Life Working Group in March 2024. This group is co-convened by Scottish Government and COSLA using the principles of the Verity House Agreement. Its members are the key organisations in the public and third sector who will work in partnership within the Alliance.

Scotland’s Digital Inclusion Charter is delivered by SCVO as part of an annual grant of £308,000. This funding supports a much wider programme of activity delivered by SCVO to tackle digital exclusion. SCVO estimates that around 10% of the annual grant covers staff time and costs directly associated with development and promotion of the Charter.

The launch event in August 2024 was hosted as an in-kind contribution from Standard Life plc, a Charter signatory, which covered the costs of the event.

Supported businesses have produced approximately 33% of uniforms supplied to NHS Scotland over the last three years.

There is no minimum percentage of uniforms that must be produced by supported businesses for the NHS Scotland uniform contract. The current contract is based on the volumes ordered by health boards and so allows for fluctuations in demand.

The decision was made to choose four longer trains per hour rather than six shorter trains per hour between Edinburgh and Glasgow because this was the better value for money option to deliver the necessary peak capacity for passengers.

ScotRail adjusts its services to reflect changing travel patterns over time. The emission free electric train peak capacity delivered by the Edinburgh to Glasgow Improvements Project is being used today to the benefit of passengers.

The Scottish Government has made no assessment. The charter of the vessel is a commercial agreement between CalMac Ferries Ltd (CFL) and Pentland Ferries. Any reduction in capacity on the route would be for the operator of that route to consider when leasing the vessel.