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The Scottish Government attaches great importance to winter sports. Scotland’s fantastic outdoors is a huge draw for visitors and sporting enthusiasts, especially over the winter months.

The snowsports sector is a key part of Scotland’s rural economy, worth an estimated £30 million per year and providing over 600 jobs. sport scotland, our national agency for sport, is providing Snowsports Scotland with an investment of £424,350 this year, an increase of 2.6% from the previous year.

We also recognise the value of ice sports in Scotland and understand the important role that ice sporting facilities play in improving people’s lives, whether it is taking part socially, developing, progressing, or achieving success. sport scotland’s annual investment of £742,300 into Scottish Curling for the period 2023-24 represents an 8.3% increase in funding from the previous year.

The Scottish Government provided a £7 million ski centre fund during the pandemic to safeguard Scotland’s commercially run snow sport centres, including four of its five mountain resorts – Nevis Mountain Range, Glencoe Mountain Resort, The Lecht Ski Centre and Glenshee Ski Centre, and four artificial snow sport centres. In addition, thirteen ice rinks across Scotland also received £2 million financial support from the ice rink support fund.

The Scottish Government places great importance on leisure facilities, particularly swimming pools and believes everyone should have access to these services locally.

We are fully aware that local authorities are facing challenging financial circumstances, particularly in the maintenance and operating of facilities such as swimming pools and ice rinks, largely due to energy costs and other cost of living pressures.

The Scottish Government received consequentials of £5.816m from the UK Government from their swimming pool fund. These consequentials are added to the Scottish Block as a whole and it is ultimately for Ministers to decide how to utilise available funding in the context of a challenging financial backdrop and existing budgetary pressures.

In 2023-24 the Scottish Government provided nearly £13.5bn in the Local Government Settlement and increased the resources available to local government by more than £793 million, including £100 million of additional funding at Stage 3 of the Budget Bill, funded in part by consequentials provided at the UK Budget. This was a real terms increase of £376 million or 3% compared to the 2022-23 Budget figures. In addition, Scottish Ministers allocated a further £55m ahead of the summer. This follows on from the additional £1 billion of funding provided to Local Government in 2022-23.

The funding of local sports and leisure facilities, including swimming pools is the responsibility of our local authorities and, as independent corporate bodies, it is for local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them on the basis of local needs and priorities.

Technical skills development forms part of the Curriculum for Excellence Experiences and Outcomes in the Technologies. As such, the development of those skills should remain an important part of the school curriculum throughout the Broad General Education (BGE).

In line with the STEM Education and Training Strategy, the Scottish Government supports the development of a range of STEM-related skills. This includes programmes of professional learning for teachers, an awards programme for young people and a range of remote learning resources.

In terms of new-build schools being suitable to deliver courses such as woodwork and metalwork, the Scottish Government’s Learning Estate Strategy is clear that learning environments should support and facilitate excellent learning and teaching to meet the needs of all pupils. The Learning Estate Investment Programme (LEIP) is being delivered in partnership with local authorities (which have responsibility for school buildings) and will benefit tens of thousands of pupils across Scotland. The LEIP aims to deliver modern learning environments, including spaces for practical subjects.

The Scottish Government has no current plans to expand the scope of SSSC registration to bring other groups employed in the self-directed support sector into the regulated workforce. For a further description of expansion of scope of SSSC registration please refer to answer given to S6W-13523 on 20 January 2023.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

Intergenerational working has a role to play in both primary and secondary schools as part of volunteering and cross-community support for the curriculum, learning and teaching.

It is right that schools and local authorities determine whether and in what ways, intergenerational working is incorporated in school level curricula. Scottish Government and national partners provide support, including in the following ways:

• Generations Working Together (GWT) was established with Scottish Government support in 2007 as a nationally recognised centre of excellence supporting the development and integration of intergenerational work across Scotland. GWT has developed a strong multi-faceted model of working to raise awareness of what constitutes good intergenerational practice and has developed local intergenerational networks, training opportunities and a library of materials/resources to support and inspire organisations and partners to take action and enhance their intergenerational practice. A wide range of organisations, including schools and education authorities, access advice and support from GWT.
• The Raising Aspirations in Science Education programme, which aims to ignite a passion for science in primary school pupils, supports family run events along with science festivals designed to engage different generations.
• Some local authorities and schools have chosen to use Scottish Attainment Challenge or Pupil Equity Funding to develop intergenerational practice, alongside a range of other innovative and community-based approaches, as part of their overall approach to raising attainment and narrowing the poverty related attainment gap.

The Scottish Government have delivered the largest financial increase to date for community pharmacy funding, increasing both the remuneration Global Sum by 6% (£12.3 million) and an increase in the Guaranteed Minimum Income of 15.9% (£15.9 million). This delivers a guaranteed minimum funding package of £399.955 million for the financial year 2023-24.

The Scottish Government will commence discussions on the 2024-25 settlement with the representative body, Community Pharmacy Scotland, in the coming weeks. Preliminary discussions have begun on setting out agreed negotiation principles which continue the partnership working between the Scottish Government and Community Pharmacy Scotland to deliver settlement which is fair to community pharmacy providers and is an affordable offer in the current fiscal position.

The updated Social Care (Self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013 Statutory Guidance, written in partnership between Scottish Government and COSLA, commits to integrated monitoring arrangements that co-ordinate two forms of monitoring, welfare and financial.

The Guidance states that Local Authorities:

• Should develop effective arrangements for the assessment and monitoring of SDS.
• Should ensure that all monitoring arrangements are explained to the supported person.
• Should actively seek the comments and suggestions of supported people, carers and the wider population as part of any review of processes, systems, guidance and procedures and should seek to co-design all such arrangements with the full involvement of supported people and carers from the beginning and throughout.
• Should consider regularly publishing data they routinely collect about the experiences and outcomes of supported persons, consistent with accessibility and data protection requirements.

Inspiring Scotland through the ‘Support in the Right Direction’ (SiRDS) programme, provides access to independent advice and advocacy in 31 local authorities, with a forthcoming scoping project tasked with identifying a SiRD partner to offer services in the Moray area from FY 2023-2024. SiRDS is supporting over 9,000 people and families.

I refer the member the answer to question S6W-21021 on 19 September 2023. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

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.

In addition, both Schools of Pharmacy work towards the widening access targets set by the Commission on Widening Access for universities to drive forward the delivery of equal access in Scotland.

There are also wider initiatives such as The Scottish Wider Access Programme (SWAP). The partnership develops access programmes for adults returning to education, and targets adults who reside in the most disadvantaged areas of Scotland and particularly those who have no, few or out of date qualifications. This can help support people with few suitable qualifications to progress to degree level Pharmacy studies.

To promote pharmacy technician recruitment, 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.