Seòmar agus comataidhean

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-21303 on 27 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

SFRS carried out a thorough assessment of all its buildings in 2019 and identified reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete in 14 fire stations. These are: Crewe Toll (Edinburgh), Cumbernauld, Dalkeith, Galashiels, Hawick, Helensburgh, Huntly, Liberton (Edinburgh), Livingston, Marionville (Edinburgh), Milngavie, Portree, Stewarton and Tranent.

Where the presence of RAAC is confirmed in a public building, we expect the owner to take appropriate measures to assess and manage any risk identified in line with the guidance from the Institution of Structural Engineers. Mitigating measures are in place at all 14 fire stations.

A current list of Special Advisers and their responsibilities can be found on the Scottish Government website .

The current financial year ends on 31 March 2024. As such it is not possible to provide the total cost of Special Advisers in the current financial year. Information on the total cost for 2023-24 will be published when it is available, in line with the provisions of the Scottish Ministerial Code.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

In the Programme for Government we committed to begin work to phase in an expanded national offer for more families with two-year-olds, focusing on those who will benefit most. We already offer 1140 hours of high quality, funded early learning and childcare to around a quarter of families with two year olds who experience the most disadvantage.

We now have the highest number of two year olds ever accessing the existing funded 1140 offer and following years of work with the UK Government we now have new data sharing agreements in place which mean that, for the first time, local authorities are able to access much better information to allow them to identify and contact eligible families.

We will continue to work closely with local authorities and providers to maximise uptake of the existing offer as we develop plans to phase in the expansion.

Over the next year we will also work with local authorities and our partners in the sector to develop plans to expand access to around 40% of families in Scotland over time.

Further detail, including on the additional investment required to deliver the childcare expansion over this Parliament, will be set out at the Scottish Budget for 2024-25 later this year.

The current arrangements for religious and belief celebrants, and civil registrars, to solemnise marriage and register civil partnership allow couples to choose from a wide range of options for their ceremony to satisfy both the requirements of the law, and of any religion or belief.

These arrangements were broadened under the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Act 2014 (the Act). Couples can now have their marriage solemnised by a celebrant from a belief body as an alternative to having a civil or a religious ceremony. Intended civil partners also have the same options as those who wish to marry.

The Policy Memorandum that accompanied the Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill in the Parliament set out the Government’s reasons for rejecting the option of opening the solemnisation of marriage to celebrants with no link to a religious or belief body at paragraph 28.

This remains our position and we have no plans to change the law.