Seòmar agus comataidhean

As set out in the Programme for Government, Scottish Government are working with sportscotland and local authorities to phase out charging for Active Schools. As the Active Schools programme is delivered locally by local authorities and leisure trusts, this information is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. I have asked sportscotland to meet with the Member to provide more detailed information.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all students, including those with a disability, long-term medical condition, or additional support needs, are supported as they study in further and higher education. This is through support provided to each institution, and also through support provided directly to students. The Scottish Government does not undertake analysis of this support at the level indicated in the question.

Students and their families are encouraged to speak to their college to discuss their support needs and the funding that is available to them.

The Scottish Government also funds Down’s Syndrome Scotland as a key partner in the Learning/Intellectual Disability and Autism Towards Transformation Plan, and to raise awareness of the support available to people with Down’s syndrome and their families.

The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills wrote to Universities Scotland on 9 February to confirm that the Scottish Government will not be responding to any consultations on minimum service levels in education services, or providing assistance with the development of any regulations that may arise from such consultations.

The Scottish Government remains strongly opposed to the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 and any associated secondary legislation which affects devolved services. This legislation seeks to undermine legitimate trade union activity and does not respect the Scottish Government’s Fair Work principles. Instead we will continue to encourage university employers to work with trade unions to reach fair and reasonable settlements, respecting the legitimate interest of workers, not seeking to curb their right to strike.

Under the Act it is a matter for individual employers in affected sectors to decide whether to issue work notices to trade unions specifying the workforce required to meet minimum service levels for a particular strike period. The Scottish Government has no intention of directing any employers within their control to issue work notices.

Education Scotland has been working with Daydream Believers on the AIdea Project and the online Artificial Intelligence handbook is due to be published by 31 March 2024.

The Scottish Government held a meeting with children and young people’s organisations on 19 February to discuss safe and meaningful ways to gather the views of children and young people on relationships and behaviour in schools. Plans are currently being developed for how to take appropriate work forward.

As indicated in the answer to S6W- 24966, we asked the local authorities that did not maintain teacher numbers in the 2023 teacher census to provide an explanation for these reductions and any mitigating circumstances they wished to put forward.

Scottish Government officials have engaged with the key stakeholder groups in the home education community, as well as local authorities, throughout the process of updating the home education guidance. Part of this engagement involved a consultation exercise with stakeholders, of which the published analysis and a list of stakeholders who responded can be found here: Home education guidance: consultation analysis - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) . Officials continue to develop plans for engagement ahead of publication this year.

The commitment to develop a new digital strategy for education was made in the 2023 Programme for Government and is expected to complete by Autumn 2024.

The Family Support Commissioning and Procurement Short Life Working Group was a subset of the Family Support Advisory Group, set up to provide recommendations on the key theme of holistic family support. Following task completion, engagement on this issue has reverted to the Family Support Advisory Group, as well as engagement with broader stakeholders as part of delivery of the Whole Family Wellbeing Programme.

The Parental Involvement Act Statutory Guidance Working Group was set up to refresh statutory guidance. The group met four times over the course of 2019, and developed draft amended guidance. Due to COVID-19, the Group decided to pause this work given the limited capacity of education authorities and schools to prepare for and implement refreshed statutory guidance at this time. Officials are considering how best to strengthen parental engagement following the OECD PISA 2022 results and the respective Muir and National Discussion reports, which highlighted a growing appetite for more “meaningful engagement” opportunities for parents.

Data on the full time equivalent home-school link workers from 2017 onwards can be found in the School Support Staff Statistics, here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/school-support-staff-statistics/

Prior to 2017, this data can be found in the Teacher Census Supplementary Statistics tables 'Teacher Census 2016' and earlier editions, here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/teacher-census-supplementary-statistics/

School support staff statistics from the 2023 school staff and pupils census are due to be published on 19 February 2024.