Seòmar agus comataidhean

The Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010 does not make any specific provision regarding all-through schools or the establishment of partnerships between schools, for example, regarding school management. It is primarily for local authorities to consider whether any proposed significant change to a school is a “relevant proposal” as set out in Schedule 1 of the Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010 and, if so, to comply with its requirements.

Where a proposal would result in the permanent discontinuance of a school, or stage of education in a school, the local authority must publish a proposal paper, which includes a statement of the educational benefits of the proposal. The consultation must last for at least 30 school days. The local authority must let relevant consultees, including affected parents, Parent Council(s) and pupils, know about the consultation and invite responses. A public meeting must also be held. The local authority must invite Education Scotland to prepare a report on the educational aspects of the proposal. The local authority must publish a consultation report which responds to issues raised through the consultation period.

If the proposal involves the closure of a rural school, or stage of education in a rural school, the local authority must also comply with additional requirements, including considering reasonable alternatives to closure and only proceeding if closing the school is the most appropriate response to the reasons it has identified for making the proposal. For rural schools, a number of these steps must be carried out before the local authority embarks on the formal consultation as set out above.

The Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010 does not require local authorities to consult on the removal of subjects from a school’s curriculum offer.

Under the Education (Scotland) Act 1980, the statutory responsibility for the delivery of education sits with local authorities.

While the Curriculum for Excellence provides the overarching framework and sets out the eight curriculum areas, it is a matter for individual schools and authorities to tailor their detailed curriculum offer.

Under the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman Act 2002 The Scottish Public Services Ombudsman is excluded from considering complaints about the curriculum offering or teaching. They can consider complaints about complaints handling.

While the Curriculum for Excellence provides the overarching framework and sets out the eight curriculum areas, the statutory responsibility for the delivery of education sits with local authorities and schools under the Education (Scotland) Act 1980.

The Scottish Government is committed to equitable and timely access to general and specialist palliative care services, as needed, by each person of any age, living with any illnesses, in all places. We want people to receive care where they feel most comfortable. For many, but not all, this will be at home supported by their family and friends and cared for by primary care teams and care staff.

It is the responsibility of Integrated Joint Boards to plan and commission adult palliative care services which are provided in a wide range of settings including acute hospitals, community hospitals, specialist palliative care units, hospices, care homes and people’s own homes.

We are currently developing a new Palliative and End of Live Care Strategy with an overarching aim that everyone in Scotland receives well-coordinated, timely and high-quality palliative care, care around death and bereavement support based on their needs and preferences, including support for families and carers.

It is for individual Health Boards to ensure that communities have access to pharmacy services within a reasonable distance. However, in our strategy for pharmaceutical care in Scotland ‘Achieving Excellence in Pharmaceutical Care’ (2017) we committed to enhancing access to pharmaceutical care in remote and rural communities, which included use of Attend Anywhere for pharmacist clinics, and use of Near Me for remote and rural access to pharmaceutical care. We commissioned NES to work with remote and rural NHS Boards to explore mechanisms to attract more pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to work in remote and rural communities; ensuring any associated education and training needs are flexibly met. We also committed to testing a pharmacy longitudinal clerkship.

There are remote and rural longitudinal clerkships occurring in NHS Borders, NHS Dumfries and Galloway, NHS Highland, NHS Grampian and NHS Lanarkshire, all of which feed into a new piece of Additional Cost of Teaching Pharmacy research in collaboration with both Scottish Schools of Pharmacy.

In addition, to promote pharmacy technician recruitment in remote and rural areas, a number of senior pharmacy technicians attend school careers fairs etc to raise awareness of the role. All vacancies for the Pharmacy Technician Technical Apprenticeship are advertised on the Apprenticeships.scot website. Skills Development Scotland also provides an additional rural uplift for apprentices whose main employment and normal working hours are based in Argyll and Bute, Isle of Arran, Orkney, Shetland, and the Western Isles. Some of the Pre-registration Trainee Pharmacy Technicians in the remote and rural areas are undertaking placements in primary care and community pharmacy whilst undertaking the Technical Apprenticeship.

The Scottish Government continues to work with NHS National Education for Scotland (NES) and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in developing a joint programme to encourage more students, and not just school leavers, to consider careers in pharmacy, including ensuring the output reaches deprived and remote and rural communities.

When we process payments, some will have cross compliance applied to them. If the beneficiary does not comply with the requirements and standards, we deduct this during the payment calculation for EU funding, so in effect, return this to the Commission. For Scottish Government funding, this reduces the actual spend and so increases the Scottish Government budget remaining.

For penalties post payment, EU recovered penalties are returned to the Commission and the Scottish Government recovered penalties are returned to the scheme budget, increasing the budget remaining.

Our investment through the R100 programme will be transformational for many of Scotland’s most rural communities and is providing a full fibre backbone that will enable reliable connectivity services to be delivered.

An individual’s ability to access digital healthcare can be impacted by a number of factors, not just their rurality and the availability of digital infrastructure in their area.

That is why, while recognising the importance of access to digital healthcare, it should be promoted as one choice for patients but not the only available option. Digital healthcare programmes are subject to Equality Impact Assessments (EQIAs) to assess the impact of accessibility.

Our Reaching 100% (R100) commitment is delivered through three strands of activity – the R100 contracts, the R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (R100 SBVS) and continued commercial build.

While a property may move between these strands, for example properties can move from being eligible for R100 SBVS to being delivered commercially, no properties are removed from the overall scope of the programme.

The R100 contracts are expected to connect over 114,000 premises upon completion. Around 99% of those connections will be fibre to the premises (FTTP) which is capable of delivering gigabit download speeds, over 30 times faster than our original superfast commitment.

For those who live or work in premises that are outwith the reach of commercial and R100 contract build plans, the R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (SBVS) remains available and offers up to £5,000 to secure a superfast broadband connection. As this is a demand-led scheme it is not possible to provide dates by which people might be connected.

There is also on-going delivery of commercial superfast broadband networks and we continue to engage with the industry to understand their future plans.

As outlined in response to S6W-18910, the R100 commitment comprises of three strands of activity - the R100 contracts, the R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (R100 SBVS) and continued commercial build.

The R100 Central and South contracts were awarded in December 2020 with the R100 North contract awarded in December 2021. As a result, build did not commence through the R100 contracts until 2021. The table below provides the number of connections built in each year since 2020 through the R100 contracts.