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The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all children and young people receive at least two hours of physical education per school week in primary schools, and at least two 50-minute periods of physical education per week in secondary schools - between secondaries 1 and 4.

Under the provisions of Curriculum for Excellence, schools and education authorities have the flexibility to decide upon the content of their lessons at the local level by taking into account the needs and circumstances of all children and young people in attendance. This includes taking decisions locally about the content of their PE lessons, where they can offer swimming lessons to their pupils if they wish to do so.

However, I recognise the importance of ensuring that all children can have equal opportunities to access swimming lessons, regardless of their families' social or economic circumstances. Therefore, we have been working with Scottish Swimming, Education Scotland, sportScotland and Scottish Water to pilot bespoke interventions and approaches within local areas to provide opportunities for more children to become confident, safer and competent swimmers.

There is no mandatory curriculum within Scottish schools and local authorities have the flexibility to decide upon the content of their lessons at the local level taking account of the needs and circumstances of children and young people in attendance at their schools.

However it is important that we all know how to stay safe in and around Scotland’s waters. We are fully aware that conditions in open water sites change constantly and can be dangerous. Indeed, there is a significant difference between swimming in a heated indoor swimming pool and a cold open water site such as a loch. Therefore issues such as the importance of floating to live or the dangers of cold water shock also must be communicated in order to prevent drownings.

Water Safety Scotland and Education Scotland have launched a full progression pathway for water safety education for schools in Scotland. This pathway focuses on the provision of age and stage appropriate water safety education to support all children and young people aged 3-18 to develop valuable lifesaving knowledge, skills and understanding.

This pathway is available for use by all school practitioners when delivering water safety education, and it is available on Education Scotland’s website through the following link: Water Safety | Learning resources | National Improvement Hub (education.gov.scot) .

Furthermore, the Scottish Government will continue to work with Scottish Swimming, Education Scotland, sportscotland and Scottish Water to develop interventions and approaches to provide opportunities for children to become confident, safer and competent swimmers.

The Scottish Government have been working with Scottish Swimming, Education Scotland, sport scotland and Scottish Water to develop interventions and approaches to provide opportunities for children to become confident, safer and competent swimmers.

sport scotland’s investment into Scottish Swimming includes support to enable delivery of 4 school swimming pilot projects for evaluation and to develop a School Swimming Framework that can be used by partners.

The Delivery Model Pilots will take place across 2022-23 to support schools to understand and consider different approaches and models of delivery to help educate and provide opportunities for children across Scotland to experience the water in a fun, safe and inclusive approach. This reflects the many different scenarios faced by schools when deciding how best to support young people to access school swimming.

Active Schools has a key role to play in complementing PE in schools by developing opportunities for physical activity and sport. Specific activities, such as swimming, provided through Active Schools is at the discretion of each local authority/Active Schools team.

In addition Active Schools plays a role in supporting local swimming clubs to link to schools, making pupils aware of the opportunities that exist to participate in swimming in the club setting, and we would encourage local authorities to provide Active Schools activity free of charge to ensure activity is accessible to all.

Local authorities have a duty under the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 to manage and maintain local roads and pavements in their area.

The vast majority of funding to local authorities from the Scottish Government is provided via a block grant and we do not stipulate how local authorities should utilise their individual allocations. It is therefore the responsibility of each local authority to manage their own budget and to allocate the financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

The Active Travel budget for 2023-24 is £189 million to deliver a range of infrastructure, behaviour change and access to bikes programmes. Local authorities are the predominant recipients of active travel related funding, either directly or through delivery partners such as Sustrans and Regional Transport Partnerships.

In 2023-24, around £60m funding is committed to be invested in local authority infrastructure delivery projects through Sustrans’ Places for Everyone (PfE) programme.

The Cycling Walking Safer Routes (CWSR) grant of £35 million goes directly to local authorities on a pro rata basis. Local authorities can use this to design, develop and construct active travel infrastructure measures based on identified local priorities.

In addition to PfE and CWSR, local authorities can bid for funds via Regional Transport Partnerships with cross boundary work being prioritised, and through the Active Travel Transformation Fund introduced in 2023- 24. As part of the Active Travel Transformation Fund, Transport Scotland will assume direct responsibility for funding Local Authorities and other partners to deliver infrastructure projects at construction stage, with around £20m budget allocated this financial year.

The details of the levels of active travel capital funding for the next five years will be discussed and agreed as part of the Scottish Government annual budget setting process.

The Scottish Government budget for 2023-24 is £189.2 million as we progress towards our commitment to invest at least £320 million or 10% of the transport budget by 2024-25. This year’s budget includes the Cycling Walking Safer Routes (CWSR) grant of £35 million that goes directly to local authorities on a pro rata basis for the delivery of active travel projects.

There are a number of local authorities which have significant rural or island communities. In 2023-24, CWSR funding allocations to more rural and island areas include: £147,000 to Shetland Islands Council, £144,000 to Orkney Islands Council; £1.52 million to the Highland Council; £551,000 to Argyll and Bute Council; £950,000 to Dumfries and Galloway Council, and £741,000 to Scottish Borders Council.

HITRANS, the Regional Transport Partnership which covers the Highland, Orkney, Moray and Western Isles local authority areas, and much of Argyll and Bute, was awarded £1,111,500 to deliver active travel measures in 2022-23. HITRANS have been awarded £955,000 for 2023-24.

Sustrans Scotland received over £52 million of funding in 2022-23 for the Places for Everyone active travel infrastructure programme, where several projects are being delivered in the islands ranging from the £21 million Skye network, to smaller schemes across the Western Isles, Orkney, Jura and Islay.

The Scottish Government has also grant funded Cycling UK to run the Rural Connections programme which supports people in Shetland, Orkney, and other island communities to cycle, walk and wheel for everyday journeys, leisure and adventure. The programme offers a wide range of cycling and walking activities for all abilities, and is being funded as part of our UCI Cycling World Championships response.

Following discussions with the operator, Serco NorthLink Ferries, it was clear that the associated works required in order to change the date mid-contract would have a cost and impact to all customers.

We will however seek to revert to the previous date that would open the bookings from October, noting that the previous delays were to allow funding to be found to freeze the fares due to the cost of living crisis.

Fares on the Northern Isles Ferry Services network have been frozen until the end of September 2023 to help combat the ongoing cost crisis facing communities across Scotland.

I appreciate the need to get bookings released so that businesses and individuals can plan ahead, and aim to confirm fares and open bookings beyond 30 September as soon as possible.

We are fully committed through our employment policies and procedures to support employees who experience pregnancy loss at any stage of pregnancy, and our current package of support measures fully reflect the spirit and intent of the Pregnancy Loss Pledge. The ongoing NHSScotland workforce policies refresh programme offers the opportunity to go further in highlighting provisions and improving guidance for managers. These refreshed policies and supporting documents relating to the Pledge will be published in Autumn 2023.