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As announced by myself, Professor Ken Muir has been appointed to act as the Independent Advisor to the Scottish Government on the reform of the Scottish Qualifications Authority and Education Scotland. In his role as Advisor, Professor Muir will provide advice to the Scottish Government as outlined in his revised remit that was published on 19 August 2021.

Since taking up role as Advisor on 2 August, Professor Muir has established an Expert Panel and a Practitioner and Stakeholder Advisory Group to support his work. We understand the Advisor has invited the Scottish Youth Parliament to join the Practitioner and Stakeholder Advisory Group. This Group will play a significant role in supporting the work of the Advisor and his Expert Panel - further information, including Terms of Reference and membership of these groups, is available here: Scottish Government | Education Reform

I also announced the creation of a Children and Young Person’s Education Council and we will ensure that this group and the voices of young people are heard during the process led by Professor Muir and broader plans to implement the recommendations of the OECD report.

The Scottish Government currently only allows travellers returning from green and amber list countries to use NHS tests, reserved through the CTM booking portal. These PCR tests are the highest quality with established data flows into NHS boards and samples are sequenced to ensure early detection of variants of concern.

The Scottish Government is exploring ways to allow private testing for travellers coming to Scotland provided we are confident in the flow of data into contact tracing services and that all positive test results are analysed to identify any variants of concern.

The following table provides information on gross revenue expenditure in Scotland per primary school pupil.

Table 1: Gross revenue expenditure per primary school pupil across Scottish Local Authorities in 2019-20

The Scottish Government currently only allows travellers returning from green and amber list countries to use NHS tests, which are reserved and paid for through the booking portal, CTM. These PCR tests are sent to individuals’ home addresses anywhere in Scotland, including rural areas. The individual should use a Royal Mail priority post box to return their test to the laboratory if they have access to one.

Individuals in Scotland are able to book PCR tests and request lateral flow home devices free of charge via the government portal, however these cannot be used for international travel.

HM Inspectors of Education will restart scrutiny activity of schools soon and an announcement will follow shortly. The annual scrutiny programme outlining the range of scrutiny activity, including school inspections which will be carried out by HM Inspectors of education this academic year will also be published on Education Scotland's website.

The programme school and early learning and childcare inspections was paused on 16 March 2020 in response to Covid-19. A pause in the programme inspections was to allow education establishments to concentrate on providing support for learning throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills announced that the government will create a children and young people’s education council as part of her Parliamentary statement on Scotland’s curriculum on 22 June.

Following that announcement, a meeting was held on 21 July between Scottish Government officials and representatives from the national children and young person organisations, including those who have recently been involved in supporting the Education Recovery Youth Panel and contributing to the Covid Education Recovery Group as young people. This allowed officials to gain the benefit of their insights into the principles, working methods and detailed arrangements for the new council.

The Scottish Government is developing plans for the Council utilising this feedback, with a view to holding the first meeting of the new council as soon as possible in the autumn.

The Scottish Government will fully fund the manifesto commitment to 3,500 additional teachers and classroom assistants over the Parliamentary term. As part of this commitment the Scottish Government has already allocated funding of £50 million in 2021-22 to local authorities to increase teacher numbers by 1,000 and classroom assistants by 500.

A breakdown of this allocation by local authority area can be found on the Scottish Government website https://www.gov.scot/publications/education-recovery-additional-funding-2021---2022-local-authority-allocations---additional-gbp50-million/ This funding will be added into the General Revenue Grant annually from 2022-23, which will provide the certainty that councils need in order to continue to plan their future permanent workforce requirements.

The settings that these additional teachers will be employed in will be determined locally, based on local need.

My officials will conduct a trawl for the information requested and I will write to Mr Mundell when their findings are complete.

The following table provides information on gross revenue expenditure in Scotland per secondary school pupil.

Table 1: Gross revenue expenditure per secondary school pupil across Scottish Local Authorities in 2019-20

Throughout the pandemic the Scottish Government has, where possible, stepped in to help businesses and premises based travel-agents have benefited from a range of support packages including:

• Small Business Support Grant or Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Support Grant (March 2020)
• Strategic Framework Business Fund (November 2020 – March 2021)
• SFBF retail top up (January 2021)
• Strategic Framework Business Fund Transition Payment and Business Restart Grant (April 2021)
• Non-Domestic Rates Relief for the 2020-21 and 21-22 Financial Years.

This is in addition to the Scottish Government’s £5.3 million Travels Agents Support Fund (announced December 2020 as part of a £185 million package of business support) and the Contingency Plus Fund which offered additional funding to Travel Agents, Breweries and Indoor Football Centres in recognition of the specific challenges that businesses operating in these sectors experienced as a result of COVID-19 restrictions and regulations. The Contingency Plus Fund closed on 31 March 2021 and as at 25 June 2021, £3.6 million had been paid to 223 Travel Agent businesses who met the eligibility criteria.