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Grant-aided schools should provide the support that is required to meet the needs of their pupils, including healthcare, speech and language therapy and physiotherapy. The services they provide are determined by their arrangements with education authorities, and others, who fund places at the schools, in alignment with the core purpose of each particular school.

The Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (SNCT) sets out the pay and conditions of service for teachers (including class sizes) for teachers and associated professionals employed by Scottish Councils. As grant-aided special schools are independent of Scottish Councils and the Scottish Government, pay and conditions set by the SNCT do not automatically apply. It is for each grant-aided special school (as it is for independent schools) and its Board of Governors to decide if they wish to self-govern under the SNCT Handbook.

Grant-aided special schools are subject to frequent inspections from Education Scotland through a cycle of inspections of grant-aided schools, residential special schools and secure care establishments. HM Inspectors evaluate how well schools are performing using quality indicators from How Good is Our School? 4. If a school receives a 'Weak' or 'Unsatisfactory' evaluation for any of the quality indicators scrutinised by HM Inspectors then the school will be subject to 'continuing engagement'.

Furthermore, Section 66 of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 provides Ministers with a range of powers to require action to be taken to secure improvement. This applies to all schools, including grant-aided special schools.

The request for information on pupil and teacher numbers for each school can be found in the school contacts list at the link below:

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/School-Education/Datasets. This data comes from the teacher and pupil censuses, which is carried out in September each year.

For ease of information please see the following table with teacher/pupil ratios for the years requested.

Accounts were filed on 25 January 2017 and were also laid in Parliament

Accounts were filed on 25 January 2017 and were also laid in Parliament. The company is required to follow due process and accounts must be audited and approved before filing. Changes in accounting standards meant more time was taken to finalise and file the accounts for 2015-16

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-01412 on 9 August 2016. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

The Scottish Government has had no further discussions with Sinofortone. On 15 December 2016, the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Jobs and Fair Work had a telephone discussion with Roddy Gow, Chairman of the Asia Scotland Institute, regarding approaches to attracting Asian investment to Scotland.

The Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 provides that a person with a mental disorder can only be detained if their decision-making ability with regard to medical treatment for that mental disorder is significantly impaired and there would be a significant risk to the health, safety or welfare of the patient or to the safety of another person if the patient were not detained in hospital.

Service providers have a duty to inform the independent Mental Welfare Commission (MWC) if someone has been detained. The MWC has a statutory duty to ensure that the care, treatment and support for people with mental illness is lawful. Section 11 of the 2003 Act gives the MWC the power to carry out investigations in a number of specific circumstances, including unlawful detention.

The review report sets out that community hubs will not have one standard model, but should be designed on the basis of a local needs assessment to ensure they meet the needs of localities.

The report describes how women will access the majority of their antenatal and postnatal care in these hubs and most midwives will work from these hubs. Some of the hubs may provide birthing services and scanning services but only Health Boards can make those planning decisions.