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In 2022-23, we distributed £32m across all Children’s Services Planning Partnerships (CSPPs). The purpose of this funding was to build local service capacity for transformation and to support the local scaling of existing transformational practice of holistic whole family support. This is being provided on a recurring, multi-year basis to 2025-26.

A package of activity aimed at supporting local transformation has commenced, including establishing collaborative partnerships between 3 CSPPs and a dedicated, multi-disciplinary national support team for transformation. A Learning into Action network is also being established. The aim is to ensure that all CSPPs are supported to come together to share learning and approaches, facilitate peer support, collaborate, and have solution focused discussions around the barriers and opportunities around whole system change in holistic family support.

Whole Family Wellbeing Funding (WFWF) is being used to support the resource and staffing requirements of this work; as well as the commissioning of external evaluation. This will evaluate the implementation and initial impacts of the programme to help shape and develop activity across WFWF going forward. Additionally, research has been commissioned to support continuous improvement of the transformation support provided to the CSPPs as well as to generate learning about how transformational capability is built. The final costs associated for this work in 2022-23 will be confirmed following the end of the financial year.

Multi-year funding allocations are also being finalised which will support wider transformational activity across Scottish Government portfolios which will support the preventative, person-centred ambitions and outcomes of the WFWF.

The Independent Review is seeking views from across the education landscape on how a system of qualifications and assessment can uphold the rights of all learners, including those with additional support needs, to have their achievements recognised. I understand that Professor Hayward has met Angela Morgan, Chair of the Review of Additional Support for Learning Implementation, and is in the process of visiting a range of schools where this issue will also be discussed. Ensuring our system of qualifications and assessment meets the needs of all learners has also been discussed within the Independent Review Group and the various community groups the Review is supporting.

I know Professor Hayward remains open to new ideas in this and in other areas. The Review’s public consultation closes on 13 January 2023 and I look forward to receiving a final report before the end of May 2023.

The Scottish Government published our second progress report and updated Additional Support for Learning action plan on November 30 2022. The action plan and governance arrangements for this work are available from: https://www.gov.scot/publications/additional-support-learning-review-action-plan-update-november-2022/

Part of this work includes further development of the National Measurement Framework. This aims to meaningfully support improvement of outcomes and celebrate the wide ranging achievements of children with additional support needs, and support a culture of improvement in the delivery of additional support for learning. A draft framework was considered by the Additional Support for Learning Network at their first formal meeting on 30 November.

An updated draft will be considered by the Additional Support for Learning Project Board in early 2023. The project board will also agree the next steps in the development and publication of the National Measurement Framework in due course.

A 50% relief for district heating networks was introduced in April 2017 and is available until 31 March 2032.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13151 on 6 January 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 Enhanced Psychology Practice (EPP) training course was established by NHS Education for Scotland (NES) in 2021, with the first round of training commencing in October of that year. Training numbers so far as follows;

• 14 learners from the Adult EPP Cohort 1 have completed training. 5 learners from Cohort 1 are still to complete due to extensions. Cohort 2 commenced in April 2022, with 22 learners currently in training.
• The Children and Young People (CYP) EPP pilot cohort commenced in April 2022 with 10 learners currently in training.
• Interviews concluded for the November 2022 cohorts of EPP-A and EPP-CYP learners in August. NES HAS issued offers for 32 places across both programmes.
• When at full capacity, an annual intake of approximately 100 learners will be possible. This will form a rolling programme of recruitment over several intake cycles.

NHS Education for Scotland (NES) estimates that capacity for up to 100 newly created posts can be created each year when the programme reaches full capacity, with scope to employ up to 300 by 2026.

The decision to freeze the non-domestic poundage rate at 49.8p is expected to save ratepayers £308 million in 2023-24, compared to uprating the poundage in line with September’s measure of CPI which would have resulted in a poundage rate of 54.8p in 2023-24. This figure is broken down in Table 1 by property class, as the Scottish Government does not hold property-level data on industry sectors. Property class is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, and does not necessarily accurately reflect the use of a property.

These tables are based on an imputed Valuation Roll based on an incomplete draft Valuation Roll, as used by the Scottish Fiscal Commission in Scotland’s Economic and Fiscal Forecasts December 2022, and are therefore subject to change. Figures in this table are rounded to the nearest £1,000.

Table 1: Gross savings to ratepayers of poundage freeze compared with maintaining real terms income, by property class

Table 1 presents the estimated gross savings to ratepayers due to the increase in the rateable value threshold for the Higher Property Rate (HPR) to £100,000. This table does not take into account any reliefs, including Transitional Relief. This is broken down by property class, as the Scottish Government does not hold property-level data on industry sectors. Property class is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, and does not necessarily accurately reflect the use of a property.

These tables are based on an imputed Valuation Roll based on an incomplete draft Valuation Roll, as used by the Scottish Fiscal Commission in Scotland’s Economic and Fiscal Forecasts December 2022, and are therefore subject to change.

Figures in this table are rounded to the nearest £1,000.

Table 1: Gross savings to properties removed from HPR in 2023-24 due to the threshold increase, by property class

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-06593 on
 4 March 2022. 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