Seòmar agus comataidhean

As stated in the answer to question S5W-35078, the Scottish Government National Co-ordination Team has been in regular communication with the OECD throughout the Review. Meetings have typically taken place once a week although, subject to the point in the review and work required, some weeks there have been more than one meeting and some weeks there have been none. In total, since September 2019, there have been 45 scheduled meetings with the National Co-ordination Team and the OECD Review Team. In addition the OECD Team have met with me three times to provide updates.

The meetings between the OECD Review Team and the Co-ordination Team were not routinely minuted as they were focused on the practicalities of delivering the Review.

The meetings between myself and the OECD Review Team were for the OECD Review Team to update me on progress with the Review. There were no actions from these meetings so no minutes were produced.

In response to the COVID pandemic and the impact on children and young people’s mental health, our local authority partners made excellent progress in the provision of mental health support for young people, including the programme to provide access to counsellors in secondary schools.

We will publish material outlining the returns from local authorities in April 2021.

Transport Scotland officials meet regularly with officers from Shetland Island Council and Zetrans, the Regional Transport Partnership, to discuss a range of transport issues.

As part of our engagement on the second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2) we have regular meetings with the Shetland Islands Regional Transport Working Group, the last being held on the 15 February 2021. Fixed links, alongside a number of other potential options to address transport problems and opportunities in the Islands, have been discussed in broad terms through this engagement, in the context of the publication of the STPR2 Phase 1 recommendations and updated Case for Change reports that were published on the 3 February.

Further details on proposed list of transport options for the Shetland Islands that are to be taken forward for more detailed appraisal are contained in the following report: Initial appraisal: Case for Change - Shetland Islands - STPR2 (transport.gov.scot)

I have met with SQA on 8 occasions since 11 June 2020 on the following dates:

03-07-2020

30-07-2020

04-08-2020

10-08-2020

01-12-2020

10-12-2020

12-01-2020

25-01-2021

Minutes are not routinely taken of these meetings.

Officials meet regularly with SQA on a range of matters relating to the delivery of SQA’s functions.

The Scottish Government is committed to the continuation of the Air Discount Scheme in order to make travel for residents of the Highlands and Islands more affordable. I am happy to announce that the scheme will continue until 31 March 2026. The discount rate in 2021-22 will be maintained at 50%. The discount rate in subsequent years will be subject to Parliament’s consideration of the Budget in each of those years.

The Scottish Government does not have access to the full UK Government administrative data required to provide a definitive figure for the number of eligible two year olds in Scotland.

Using October 2016 data from HMRC, it was estimated that there were around 14,500 eligible 2 year olds in Scotland.

Take up of the offer is reported in 2 main sources. Both of these are snapshots of data taken at a point in time:

Schools in Scotland, Summary Statistics reports on number of registrations for funded ELC (regardless of number of hours) during ‘census week’.

The latest publication, from December 2020 ( Schools in Scotland - summary statistics: 2020 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) , showed there were 4,863 registrations for 2 year olds during the week 14-18 September 2020.

Delivery Progress Reports published by the Improvement Service, provide information on the numbers of children accessing more than 600 hours of funded ELC a year at the time of reporting. The last Delivery Progress Report was published in September 2020 ( Early Learning and Childcare Expansion Delivery Progress Report, Sept 2020 (improvementservice.org.uk) . It showed:

• The number of 2-year-olds reported to be receiving funded ELC in August 2020 was 4,866 children.
• 4,172 of these children (86%) were reported to be accessing more than the statutory 600 funded hours, and 2,865 children (59%) were reported to be accessing 1140 funded hours.

Previous reports have considered uptake against local authority forecasts for the relevant period. However, due to the impact of the pandemic these forecasts are no longer relevant, and refreshed forecasts are being developed. These will reflect the change to local delivery circumstance due to the pandemic, and the reintroduction of the statutory duty to secure 1140 hours of ELC for eligible children in August 2021.

Refreshed forecasts, and progress against these, will be published as part of regular reporting on delivery by the Improvement Service.

As outlined in the answer to S5W-35589 on 12 March 2021, The Scottish Government provide funding to local authorities to recruit equity and excellence lead posts across all 32 local authorities. The allocation of posts and provision of funding have been set by Scottish Government and these posts are recruited and managed by local authorities.

Snapshot figures of graduate level posts in early learning and childcare (ELC) are published annually in Summary Statistics for Schools in Scotland 2020 . Data in the tables is gathered from centres (either local authority or partner provider centres) with children registered for the funded entitlement at the time of the census. In 2020, this was collected from 14-18 September 2020.

At that point in time, there were 350 (316 FTE) Equity and Excellence leads in post which is 73% of posts, therefore 27% of posts at that time were vacant. We recognise that there will always be a degree of staff turnover in the system, particularly during this period of ELC expansion and with the further challenge of COVID-19. Ongoing recruitment campaigns are managed locally.

Further analysis of spending on the 2020-21 Higher Education Discretionary Fund is due to be undertaken at the end of this financial year. Officials will arrange to share this with the Scottish Parliament Information Centre once the information is available from the sector. This analysis will show the current demand on the Fund.

There are no plans to ask the sector to provide additional interim information concerning the specific reasons behind individual applications from students. That would place further administrative pressures on college and university staff at what is an extremely busy time for them. That level of information will form part of the annual returns from universities and colleges which is scheduled for the end of October.

The Pupil Equity Fund (PEF) has been in operation since 2017 but information on the type of employment for teaching posts funded by PEF has only been collected by the Scottish Government since 2018. The following table shows the number of permanent and temporary posts which were funded through PEF from 2018 to 2020.

The Scottish Government collects data on 30 categories of school support staff ranging from Pupil Support Assistants to Swimming Pool Manager/Operators. The Scottish Government does not hold data on other staff that may be employed in schools, for example, janitors, catering staff and playground assistants.

The data provided here is based on one category of school support staff – Pupil Support Assistants. This category represents around 65% of the total (next largest being admin and clerical at around 20%) and represents staff whose role predominantly involves working directly with pupils.

There has been a lack of consistency over time and between local authorities in the number of hours that determine a full time role and in the allocation of staff to categories. This means that valid comparisons cannot be made between local authorities, and comparison over time can only be made between the 2018 and 2019 data.

Furthermore, as the Pupil Support Assistant category captures a range of roles targeted at different types of pupils, caution should be exercised when interpreting this data.

The following tables below show the ratio of pupils to Pupil Support Assistants for all local authorities for 2007 to 2012 and for 2013 to 2019.