Seòmar agus comataidhean

I refer the member to the answer to question S6T-00019 on 26 May 2021. The answer is available on the Parliament's website at: Official Report - Parliamentary Business : Scottish Parliament .

Students will be able to register an intention to appeal from 25 June. However, the formal appeals process will not commence until the results are issued on 10 August. Universities will not confirm offers until they have received the certificated grades in August.

For those students waiting on a result for a university or college place or for an employment or training programme, appeals will be processed as a priority.

The SDS Helpline will be available through the summer for students to talk to an experienced adviser, with the dedicated Results Helpline opening from 10 August. The National Qualifications 21 Group has issued a letter to learners highlighting a range of support available. This is available online and can be accessed at:

https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/files_ccc/NQ21-letter-supports-for-learners.pdf

SQA is arranging for a hard copy of the letter to be sent out to all learners.

Glasgow City Council received additional discretionary funding of £769,000 to further help businesses affected by the increased period of level 3 restrictions from 17 May. Grants have already been paid and over 2000 businesses received additional support through this fund.

Neither the Scottish Government or any of its agencies have had engagement with David Moulsdale or his company Spring Depot SPV Limited prior to, or since the purchase of the St Rollox site.

The money we provide to NHS boards is provided to fund drug and alcohol services.

In 2018-2019 Ayrshire and Arran received £3,538,392 baseline funding to support the delivery of alcohol and drug services.

In addition, in 2018-2019 Ayrshire and Arran received £1,259,555 from Programme for Government allocation.

In 2019-2020 Ayrshire and Arran received £3,538,392 baseline funding to support the delivery of alcohol and drug services.

In addition, in 2019-2020 Ayrshire and Arran received £1,259,555 from Programme for Government allocation.

In 2020-2021 Ayrshire and Arran received £3,538,392 in baseline funding to support the delivery of alcohol and drug services.

In addition, in 2020-2021 Ayrshire and Arran received –

1. £1,878,903 from Programme for Government Allocation.

2. £ 260,970 from additional funding of £3 million made available to Alcohol and Drug Partnerships to support work to reduce drug deaths in Scotland.

3. £ 216,641 in funding through the Drugs Death Task Force,

We have declared that a national mission is required to tackle drug-related death and have committed additional funding of £50 million per year over the next session of parliament. This is in addition to baseline funding.

Details of funding to NHS Boards can be found here - Alcohol and Drug Partnerships: funding allocations - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Details of additional funding through Local Improvement Fund can be found here –

Local Improvement Fund: allocations - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Details of Additional funding for ADPs in 2020/2021 can be found here - Alcohol and drug partnerships: additional funding 2020-2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Scottish Government has launched a 10 week consultation into New Year’s Day trading for large retail stores today.

The consultation is seeking the views of shop workers and retail businesses and their representatives on whether the current law should change so that large retail businesses must close on New Year’s Day, as they currently do on Christmas Day. I would encourage all relevant parties to access the consultation on the Scottish Government’s consultation hub to ensure their views are taken into account.

The Scottish Government is providing local authorities across Scotland with £21.75 million to provide targeted free school meal support during the school holidays throughout the forthcoming school year. We wrote to local authorities on 14 May to inform them of their allocations and I can confirm that North Ayrshire Council will receive £704,000 in additional funding to support the delivery of free school meal approaches in all school holidays.

This support will be available to all families who are in receipt of any of the qualifying benefits which would enable them to receive free school meals, regardless of whether their children are in primary or secondary school and this support will begin at the start of the forthcoming summer holidays.

Local authorities will be given the flexibility to support eligible families through any method which they feel will best meet local needs and circumstances within their respective areas.

The Scottish Government is providing local authorities across Scotland with £28 million to expand the universal provision of free school lunches to include all children in primary 4 starting from August 2021, and to include all children in primary 5 starting from January 2022.

We wrote to local authorities on 14 May to inform them of their allocations and I can confirm that North Ayrshire Council will receive £651,000 in additional funding to support the expansion of universal free school meals to primary 4 and primary 5 children in 2021-22.

The appeals process was developed following consultation and stakeholder engagement. This included consideration of teacher workload.

Teachers are encouraged to have discussions with their learners in advance of submitting their provisional grades and, if learners are unhappy with these results, will have a further dialogue in advance of any appeal to advise on the process.

Schools and colleges are expected to support their learners in accessing the appeals service where needed and, where a learner is appealing against the academic judgement made, will be asked to provide all the necessary evidence and materials that were used to determine the learner's result.

SQA will review the learner's submission and may, if necessary, discuss aspects with the relevant teacher.

The previous Minister for Further Education, Higher Education and Science was in regular contact with both the Employers’ Association and EIS-FELA in relation to the national dispute regarding instructor/assessor roles in the college sector, which has now been resolved.

The Scottish Government has been clear throughout this dispute that both the employers and trade unions must continue with negotiations in an attempt to resolve this situation, which is absolutely not in the best interests of our learners. EIS-FELA have suspended local industrial action at Forth Valley College to allow the matter to be referred to the National Joint Secretaries for review and I urge both sides to resolve this dispute without the need for further industrial action.

The Scottish Government remains firmly of the view that it is for the college unions and the employers to negotiate pay and terms and conditions voluntarily in the spirit of collaboration and co-operation. We do however continue to work with the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), who work closely with the sector, to ensure any actions taken are compliant with the Scottish Public Finance Manual, the SFC Financial Memorandum and are in line with Fair Work principles.