Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills announced that the government will create a children and young people’s education council as part of her Parliamentary statement on Scotland’s curriculum on 22 June.

Following that announcement, a meeting was held on 21 July between Scottish Government officials and representatives from the national children and young person organisations, including those who have recently been involved in supporting the Education Recovery Youth Panel and contributing to the Covid Education Recovery Group as young people. This allowed officials to gain the benefit of their insights into the principles, working methods and detailed arrangements for the new council.

The Scottish Government is developing plans for the Council utilising this feedback, with a view to holding the first meeting of the new council as soon as possible in the autumn.

The following table provides information on gross revenue expenditure in Scotland per secondary school pupil.

Table 1: Gross revenue expenditure per secondary school pupil across Scottish Local Authorities in 2019-20

The Scottish Government will fully fund the manifesto commitment to 3,500 additional teachers and classroom assistants over the Parliamentary term. As part of this commitment the Scottish Government has already allocated funding of £50 million in 2021-22 to local authorities to increase teacher numbers by 1,000 and classroom assistants by 500.

A breakdown of this allocation by local authority area can be found on the Scottish Government website https://www.gov.scot/publications/education-recovery-additional-funding-2021---2022-local-authority-allocations---additional-gbp50-million/ This funding will be added into the General Revenue Grant annually from 2022-23, which will provide the certainty that councils need in order to continue to plan their future permanent workforce requirements.

The settings that these additional teachers will be employed in will be determined locally, based on local need.

Throughout the pandemic the Scottish Government has, where possible, stepped in to help businesses and premises based travel-agents have benefited from a range of support packages including:

• Small Business Support Grant or Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Support Grant (March 2020)
• Strategic Framework Business Fund (November 2020 – March 2021)
• SFBF retail top up (January 2021)
• Strategic Framework Business Fund Transition Payment and Business Restart Grant (April 2021)
• Non-Domestic Rates Relief for the 2020-21 and 21-22 Financial Years.

This is in addition to the Scottish Government’s £5.3 million Travels Agents Support Fund (announced December 2020 as part of a £185 million package of business support) and the Contingency Plus Fund which offered additional funding to Travel Agents, Breweries and Indoor Football Centres in recognition of the specific challenges that businesses operating in these sectors experienced as a result of COVID-19 restrictions and regulations. The Contingency Plus Fund closed on 31 March 2021 and as at 25 June 2021, £3.6 million had been paid to 223 Travel Agent businesses who met the eligibility criteria.

The Scottish Government recognises the dangers of drug and alcohol misuse and the importance of supporting practitioners to develop and deliver appropriate lessons for children and young people on this subject.

The Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) empowers individual schools and teachers to develop and deliver a curriculum informed by, and relevant to, the local needs of learners. To support schools in the delivery of effective learning on the topic of drug and alcohol misuse, Education Scotland have provided a number of resources accessible through the National Improvement Hub.

Such resources include learning activities on drugs and alcohol which are aimed at supporting practitioners to develop relevant lessons; such as: “Decision making about illegal substances” and “The effects of drinking alcohol” : Each learning activity is directly linked to the experiences and outcomes set out in the health and wellbeing area of the curriculum.

As well as support being available to support teachers to deliver lessons on drug and alcohol misuse, there are a number of initiatives aimed directly at children and young people to help them be better informed and make better choices. Such resources include Young Scot’s “Choices for Life” ; an online resource hosted by Young Scot which signposts children and young people to relevant and appropriate information online.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-01856 on 6 August 2021. 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 OECD did not take formal written submissions for their independent Review of Curriculum for Excellence. This was the OECD’s position from the outset of the review and conforms with their ‘Implementing Policies: Supporting Change in Education Framework’. This was outlined in the Scottish Government’s answers to S5W-35079 on 18 February 2021 and S5W-35292 on 25 February 2021 and made clear in the remit for the OECD’s review which was published on 26 February 2020.

The OECD uses this framework to provide tailored support to individual countries and education systems to analyse and support the development and implementation of education policies. This methodology has been used by the OECD in previous reviews, and set a very clear framework for their work in Scotland.

The OECD were clear that it was not feasible for them to consider more information than they specifically requested, nor was the purpose of the Review to generate new written submissions or replace what would otherwise be a national consultation. They advised that should any additional information be required at a later date, they would request this.

In terms of the OECD’s approach to evidence gathering on this Review, the OECD established a team of core OECD staff and international experts with experience in curriculum and assessment implementation. The process included:

• A comprehensive desk-based analysis of policy documents, evidence and research on CfE implementation, which included, amongst other documents, the initial evidence base provided by the Scottish Government in July 2020, papers published as part of the Education & Skills Committee’s Inquiry on Subject Choice and published academic articles and research.
• Compilation of information from key stakeholders’ websites and think tank publications.
• A series of interviews and virtual school visits plus focus groups to gather primary data. These included discussions with the Scottish Parliament’s Education and Skills Committee, Scottish Government officials, national agencies, local government representatives, college and university bodies, employer groups, academics, teachers and head teachers, parents, young people, Gaelic and subject specific interest groups, and members of Scotland’s education governance groups.

This represented a significant and comprehensive amount of documentation, with many different perspectives informing the review.

The Scottish Government’s Forestry Grant Scheme supports the planting of all types of trees to create new woodlands. Over the last 3 years it has supported the planting of over 12,000 hectares of native trees, including within commercial forestry schemes. This has more than met the Scottish Biodiversity Strategy target of between 3,000 and 5,000 hectares of new native woodland per year.

These funding allocations are subject to agreement by COSLA Leaders and will be confirmed shortly. This information will be published on the Scottish Government when it is available at the following link: https://www.gov.scot/policies/schools/teachers/

The Scottish Government provides funding for energy efficiency schemes that provide grant and/or loans for the installation of boilers.

Warmer Homes Scotland (WHS) operates a National Customer Price mechanism that ensures customers throughout Scotland have the same access to the same measures when they make an application to the scheme. It also means that customers pay the same rate for additional radiators or for measures that exceed the maximum customer grant irrespective of where they live.

All installations are inspected by Warmworks inspectors to ensure that the measures have been installed to both contract and industry standards. In addition, the Scottish Government appointed Pennington Choices as the independent scheme auditor for Warmer Homes Scotland. Pennington Choices carries out audits on a percentage of applications at every stage of the delivery of the contract including the quality of completed installations.

Home Energy Scotland (HES) Loans require quotes to be provided and recommendation reports. For boilers, they must be included on the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC), be A-rated, and the installer must be Gas Safe registered. Gas Safe has the overall responsibility for the standard of installation and the performance of the companies, and all installations should have associated maintenance plans and warranties in place. Energy Saving Trust (EST), who manages the scheme on behalf of Scottish Government, carries out annual cost reviews of technologies.

Installers for projects delivered as part of our Area Based Schemes are commissioned by local councils in line with public procurement guidance. Local councils are required to meet all relevant quality assurance and legal requirements for installation, as well as ensuring value for money in procurement.