Seòmar agus comataidhean

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-09727 on 30 June 2017. 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.

As we have set out in section 4 of Education Governance: Next Steps - Empowering Our Teachers, Parents and Communities to Deliver Excellence and Equity for our Children, new Regional Improvement Collaboratives will deliver a range of benefits for Scotland's schools, children and young people. They will provide dedicated improvement support to Scotland's schools, support collaboration and the sharing of best practice and learning across the system, and will provide enhanced professional learning support for our teachers and headteachers. Delivering this within a regional framework, which brings together local authorities and national bodies, will ensure that our schools and education professionals receive consistent, high-quality support and advice which is centred on local needs.

As set out in the June 2017 Scottish Government publication Education Governance: Next Steps, we anticipate that Scotland will initially establish up to seven Regional Improvement Collaboratives. To ensure that the regional support arrangements are appropriate for local circumstances, the Scottish Government will work with partners to establish the regional improvement geographies to be covered by each Regional Collaborative and the detailed operating arrangements. The timescale for their establishment will be subject to those discussions. We wish to make early progress in establishing Regional Collaboratives.

The establishment of Regional Improvement Collaboratives and the appointment of Regional Directors are key elements in the devolution of decision making to our schools, headteachers and teachers. Regional Directors will work with partners in ensuring that the support and guidance provided to schools by Regional Improvement Collaboratives is tailored to local needs and supports school improvement plans. It is therefore our position that the appointment and the role of Regional Directors is entirely consistent with a system which empowers our education professionals in taking decisions on children’s learning and strengthens the middle to support them in that role.

The Scottish Government does not collect data on the eligibility of pupils for free school meals. It does collect data on the number of pupils registered for free school meals through the Attainment, Leaver Destinations and Healthy Living survey.

The survey is conducted in all publicly funded schools in Scotland in February each year and the data is published.

The latest dataset was published on the Scottish Government's website on 20 June 2017. Information on the number of pupils registered for free school meals is available on the following link: http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/06/9699/6.

We will consult on proposed legislative changes to take forward our education governance reforms in autumn 2017.

We will launch procurement to deliver the initial phase of our 100% superfast broadband commitment by the end of this year. This will follow a State Aid Public consultation - a necessary precursor to public investment in broadband infrastructure – that will be published soon.

Prior to 2009-10 local authorities were not asked to specify whether a school was built or refurbished and information for 2007-08 and 2008-09 is outlined in table 1. In 2009-10 this information was collected for the first time, however, not all schools were categorised as being built or refurbished and information for 2009-10 is therefore presented in a separate table, table 2. Table 3 outlines the number of schools that were built in each local authority between 2010-11 and 2015-16, respectively.

This information is not held by the Scottish Government. Each local authority should be contacted for this information.

The Smart Meters rollout is a UK Government policy, led by BEIS and implemented by suppliers. The Scottish Government recognises the importance of the roll-out of smart meters as an important national modernisation programme that will bring benefits to Scottish energy consumers. Supplier cost savings are expected to account for almost half of the total benefits with saving expected in reduced costs related to meter reading and complaints handling.

The Scottish Government are working with suppliers, as well as consumer groups and national groups involved in the smart meter rollout, to ensure that the programme is delivered to the greatest number of Scottish consumers, at the lowest possible cost, whilst enhancing the benefits to the most vulnerable in our society and those at risk of fuel poverty. A key factor in helping promote the deployment of smart meters will be to effectively communicate the benefits to consumers.

Suppliers will require a significant number of skilled workers to complete the roll-out and the Scottish Government’s £12 million Transition Training Fund is actively engaged in supporting former oil and gas workers or those threatened by redundancy to transition into smart metering through its second procurement round. A smart metering skills action group has also been set up open to smart metering contractors, colleges, SP Energy Networks, SSE, SDS, and the National Skills Academy of Power.