- Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 14 January 2025
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 22 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government for what reason vocational programme funding support for trainee educational psychologists is reportedly lower, at £15,000 plus tuition fees, than for trainee clinical psychologists, at £37,338 plus tuition fees.
Answer
Trainee educational psychologists enrol as students and do not have an employment contract. Students are allocated a placement in Local Authorities to gain experience and to gather evidence so that they can complete their coursework. The grant for educational psychologist trainees, in addition to tuition fee funding, is not income assessed and is provided to help towards living costs associated with studying.
In Scotland trainee clinical psychologists are recruited through a UK clearing house system to NHS employment on nationally evaluated NHS Agenda for Change band 6 job roles in common with their peers across the UK. NHS Education for Scotland provides funding for salaries to NHS Scotland Boards via service level agreements and funding for fees to university programme providers. The training is a three year postgraduate doctoral programme and Clinical Psychology trainees provide clinical services during training as part of supervised and assessed practice, including contributing to the NHS Scotland Psychological Therapies waiting time standards.
In partnership, the Scottish Government and COSLA provide £2m investment per year to deliver the training programme for educational psychologists.
- Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 23 December 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 14 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government what consideration it gave to moving the accreditation function of SQA to (a) the new Inspectorate, (b) Education Scotland, (c) the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework Partnership, (d) Skills Development Scotland and (e) the Scottish Funding Council when proposing the Education (Scotland) Bill.
Answer
The Scottish Government assessed all of these options in reaching the conclusion to locate the accreditation functions in Qualifications Scotland. This involved seeking the views of a range of organisations and stakeholders, which included the Scottish Funding Council and the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) Partnership.
The key factors considered as part of this assessment included: the need to ensure appropriate independence from ministers, alongside suitable governance, accountability and operational arrangements for the accreditation function and any other functions it shares a body with; the need to avoid misaligned priorities between functions and not introduce any confusion between these; the need to avoid creating new and complex conflicts of interest and disrupting other parts of the system; and the need to retain existing benefits of other functions in the system, such as the charitable and independent status of the SCQF Partnership.
Across all these options there were a number of shared factors that influenced the decision not to locate the function in any of these bodies. This included the levels of staff disruption particularly with staff terms, conditions and employment status; costs; the available resource and capacity of organisations to absorb such a function compared to Qualifications Scotland; and planned reviews, such as the Skills Delivery Landscape Review, that created uncertainty over other functions managed by Skills Development Scotland and the Scottish Funding Council.
- Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
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Current Status:
Holding Answer by Graeme Dey on 10 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the pilot to change the measure of widening access to higher education.
Answer
Holding Answer by Graeme Dey on 10 January 2025
- Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 20 December 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 9 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of Family Fund announcing that its Your Opportunity programme is temporarily closed for new applications, what support it can offer to disabled or seriously ill young adults aged 18 to 24 who are no longer able to access funding.
Answer
There are a number of potential supports available to young disabled people living in Scotland, depending on their individual needs, circumstances and eligibility. These include: the Independent Living Fund; the Independent Living Fund Transition Fund; the Independent Living Fund Technology Grant; Adult Disability Payment; and Young Scot National Entitlement Card.
Young disabled people who choose to study a course of Further Education or Higher Education are also eligible to apply for Additional Support Needs for Learning Allowance and the Disabled Students Allowance respectively.
- Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 16 December 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Maree Todd on 7 January 2025
To ask the Scottish Government whether a young person between the ages of 16 and 25 can make more than one application to the Independent Living Fund.
Answer
ILF Scotland operate two funds that support disabled people: the Independent Living Fund which pays on-going weekly awards to disabled people to help them live more independently; and the Transition Fund which pays grants to disabled young people to support them with the transition to adulthood.
Previously, young people who were eligible could make second and subsequent applications to the Transition Fund. Since 1 January 2024, once an applicant has been successful in gaining a Transition Fund grant they are not able to apply again. This does not include receiving a Technology Grant for an IT device, which applicants can receive in addition to a full grant.
Young people who meet the criteria are also able to apply for support from the Independent Living Fund. If an application to the Independent Living Fund is not successful the applicant may reapply if they meet the criteria.
- Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 16 December 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 23 December 2024
To ask the Scottish Government who will employ the staff of the new independent inspectorate, in the event that the Education (Scotland) Bill is passed.
Answer
In line with Professor Muir’s recommendation, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education in Scotland is to be staffed by civil servants.
The Chief Inspector, and staff working on the inspection functions (or supporting these) will be employed by the Scottish Government, in line with other HM inspector(ate)s.
- Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenni Minto on 23 December 2024
To ask the Scottish Government how many referrals for fracture liaison services each NHS board expects in 2024-25, also broken down by how many patients for this service each board expects to deal with.
Answer
Data on Fracture Liaison Service referrals across Scotland are not centrally held by the Scottish Government.
- Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 13 December 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenni Minto on 23 December 2024
To ask the Scottish Government, further the answer to question S6W-27968 by Jenni Minto on 14 June 2024, what progress is being made towards delivering the national audit of fracture liaison services.
Answer
In July 2024, Scottish Government commissioned Public Health Scotland (PHS) to deliver the Fracture Liaison Services (FLS) Audit. PHS are actively recruiting to the posts required to deliver it.
- Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 09 December 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Jenny Gilruth on 23 December 2024
To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the reported cost of £180,000 to rebrand the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) as Qualifications Scotland represents value for money.
Answer
The costs associated with establishing an identity for Qualifications Scotland were set out in the Financial Memorandum that accompanied the Education (Scotland) Bill and were the best estimate available at the time.
A cost relating to the creation of an identity of a new public body will always be incurred and Qualifications Scotland is no exception. I requested that my officials look at ways to bear down on costs where possible while still delivering an identity for Qualifications Scotland. I can confirm that officials have been working closely with the SQA on this, to ensure that value for money for taxpayers is achieved.
- Asked by: Pam Duncan-Glancy, MSP for Glasgow, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Thursday, 12 December 2024
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Current Status:
Answered by Natalie Don-Innes on 19 December 2024
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of there being no planned increase to the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund in its draft Budget 2025-26, while the Care Experience - Whole Family Wellbeing budget line has increased by £49 million compared with 2024-25, whether it will provide a breakdown of how it plans to allocate this additional funding.
Answer
This years’ budget document presents the latest budget for 2024-25 (which is the position at Autumn Budget Revision as approved by the Scottish Parliament) as the comparator information. There are significant movements in portfolio budgets across the financial year that reflect transfers of resource funding between portfolios – these transfers can reflect in-year decisions on reprioritisation, but also allow for recurring movement of significant sums between areas where policy responsibility (and initial budget) sit in one portfolio and ultimate delivery takes place in another. In the case of the Care Experience - Whole Family Wellbeing Funding line the starting position looks artificially low against the budget figures for 2025-26.
The Scottish Government is fully committed to Keeping The Promise by 2030 and despite the unprecedented challenges to public finances, we have continued to prioritise and protect funding for Whole Family Wellbeing, The Promise and GIRFEC, which will allow the continuation of the important work to transform family support services.
