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I have asked Colin McConnell, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. His response is as follows:

During the induction process, individuals admitted to SPS are given information about the Assisted Prison Visits Scheme (APVS). The SPS website has a link to the government website that provides help with prison visits and the APVS. Twelve establishments have a Visitors’ Centre which also support visitors and promote the APVS.

SPS also utilise Family Contact Officers (FCO) who are responsible for encouraging and maintaining links with families and promoting the APVS. The SPS website indicates how contact can be made with FCO’s both in person and by a dedicated telephone line to each establishment.

There are posters and leaflets raising awareness of the APVS available in each establishment.

I have asked Colin McConnell, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. His response is as follows:

Following the switch to digital applications and thereafter a recognition of a decline in claims, a dedicated phone line and paper forms were made available by the Assisted Prison Visits Unit (APVU) for those struggling to use the digital system.

Each establishment in Scotland has at least one dedicated Family Contact Officer (FCO) who is responsible for maintaining links with families and promoting the Assisted Visits Scheme. There is also a direct line to each establishment to allow contact with the FCO; this information is available on the SPS website.

The APVU provide quarterly performance reports at the request of the Scottish Prison Service to allow monitoring. The amount of claims being accessed has had a very positive uptake of a 33% rise from previous year for April to June and 17% rise from July to September.

I have asked Colin McConnell, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. His response is as follows:

The Assisted Prison Visits Scheme (APVS) is currently standardised in operation across England, Wales and Scotland. The Scottish Government is not currently considering any localised change to the eligibility for the APVS.

The Scottish Government does not routinely hold or analyse data on the income of staff in social care services for children.

A financial review of Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) commissioned by the Scottish Government in September 2016, estimated that 8,000 staff (headcount) working in around 960 partner provider settings could benefit if the Living Wage was paid to all childcare workers in these settings. The report only investigated Early Learning and Childcare and not the wider childcare sector.

Link to report: https://www.gov.scot/publications/financial-review-early-learning-childcare-scotland-current-landscape/

There are a number of ways in which the Scottish Government supports routes to graduate employment in the social care sector.

The Scottish Government funds the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) which, as well as being the Regulator, also has responsibility for the regulation of education and training for the social services workforce.

The SSSC supports the BA Childhood Practice and the Practice Development Award qualification for managers and lead practitioners in day care of children services.

A partnership of the SSSC, Skills Development Scotland, employers and the Scottish Government are piloting a Graduate Apprenticeship in Early Education and Childcare from late 2018, to be delivered by the University of the Highlands and Islands and the University of the West of Scotland.

The Scottish Government makes funds available each year for bursaries to assist graduates undertaking approved post-graduate social work qualifying programmes. The bursaries are administered by the SSSC.

Part 2 of the National Health and Social Care Workforce Plan co-published with COSLA in December 2017 covers the social care workforce and includes recommendations that seek to enhance career pathways and workforce development.

We have provided funding to enable staff working in the adult social care sector to be paid the real Living Wage. Since May 2017, at the latest, this has included personal assistants (PAs), who play an integral role in delivering Scotland’s care and support.

We also fund a PA network and a PA employer network to support improvement to PAs' working conditions, pay and opportunities. The PA network has responded to enquiries from 970 personal assistants over the last three years via their website, a telephone help line and face-to-face contact. The network also hosts job opportunities and organises training. The PA employer network (SPAEN) supports PA employers who employed up to 1,600 PAs across Scotland in 2017-18.

In addition the Scottish Social Services Council has developed a wide range of freely available resources for those interested in developing their career in social care, including information on career pathways and qualifications. These resources are available to all personal assistants to help them develop their career in the social care sector.

Scotland Excel are currently developing a national framework contract for Care and Support services. This framework will include care at home and supported living services.

We are aware that in a lot of instances care at home services were delivered on a ‘time and task’ model where carers deliver short periods of care within time bound slots, we also recognise that some HSCPs are moving away from this model of delivery, but it is still commonly used. The national flexible framework that Scotland Excel are designing will offer a structure whereby Local Authorities and providers can explore new methods of delivering care and support services.

Information is not held centrally on the number of personal assistants in the adult social care sector. The 2016-17 Social Care Survey shows that there were 2,925 people in Scotland who used self-directed support to hire one or more personal assistants.

For individuals looking to access or return to work or education there are a number of initiatives to support them in making the right choice.

These include:

• Information, advice and guidance through Skills Development Scotland (SDS), by telephone, online at My World of Work or face to face. SDS have drop in centres in every local authority area in Scotland.
• Fair Start Scotland, which aims to support a minimum of 38,000 people into work to achieve their full potential. Engagement with FSS is entirely voluntary and targets specific groupings including those returning to work, for example after completing caring responsibilities or recovering from ill health.
• Investment of £12 million to provide intensive employment support for low income parents. As set out in the Child Poverty Delivery Plan, the investment will focus on key worker support that provides support to remove barriers to work.
• Funding a number of employability programmes such as the ‘Discovering Your Potential’ initiative which is specifically aimed at young carers and Community Jobs Scotland supporting unemployed young people, including carers to overcome barriers to employment.
• Investing £5 million over the next three years to support around 2,000 women to return to work. This will build upon the lessons learnt from our previous Returner’s programme which assisted women to re-enter the workforce following a career break.

The Scottish Government supports the Scottish Social Services Council and NHS Education for Scotland in work to improve articulation between social care and healthcare qualification routes, including identifying shared learning across health and social care qualifications, preparing guidance, and development of a single framework for articulation routes into nursing and midwifery education that ensures a consistent approach to prior learning.

The Open University Scotland has delivered a pre-registration nursing programme since 2004, available to Health and Care Support Workers in NHS Boards, Care Homes, GP Surgeries and Councils. The course is focused on remote and rural areas and is being rolled out across all NHS Boards. Scottish Government are also supporting a pilot programme that commenced in 2017 to enable support workers to undertake access courses that can lead to nursing programmes.

The National Health and Social Care Workforce Plan: Part 2 – a framework for improving workforce planning for social care in Scotland, was co-published with COSLA in December 2017 and work is in progress to identify priorities for enhancing career pathways within social care and between social care and health professions such as nursing.