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Glasgow City Council received additional discretionary funding of £769,000 to further help businesses affected by the increased period of level 3 restrictions from 17 May. Grants have already been paid and over 2000 businesses received additional support through this fund.

Neither the Scottish Government or any of its agencies have had engagement with David Moulsdale or his company Spring Depot SPV Limited prior to, or since the purchase of the St Rollox site.

The money we provide to NHS boards is provided to fund drug and alcohol services.

In 2018-2019 Ayrshire and Arran received £3,538,392 baseline funding to support the delivery of alcohol and drug services.

In addition, in 2018-2019 Ayrshire and Arran received £1,259,555 from Programme for Government allocation.

In 2019-2020 Ayrshire and Arran received £3,538,392 baseline funding to support the delivery of alcohol and drug services.

In addition, in 2019-2020 Ayrshire and Arran received £1,259,555 from Programme for Government allocation.

In 2020-2021 Ayrshire and Arran received £3,538,392 in baseline funding to support the delivery of alcohol and drug services.

In addition, in 2020-2021 Ayrshire and Arran received –

1. £1,878,903 from Programme for Government Allocation.

2. £ 260,970 from additional funding of £3 million made available to Alcohol and Drug Partnerships to support work to reduce drug deaths in Scotland.

3. £ 216,641 in funding through the Drugs Death Task Force,

We have declared that a national mission is required to tackle drug-related death and have committed additional funding of £50 million per year over the next session of parliament. This is in addition to baseline funding.

Details of funding to NHS Boards can be found here - Alcohol and Drug Partnerships: funding allocations - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Details of additional funding through Local Improvement Fund can be found here –

Local Improvement Fund: allocations - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Details of Additional funding for ADPs in 2020/2021 can be found here - Alcohol and drug partnerships: additional funding 2020-2021 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The previous Minister for Further Education, Higher Education and Science was in regular contact with both the Employers’ Association and EIS-FELA in relation to the national dispute regarding instructor/assessor roles in the college sector, which has now been resolved.

The Scottish Government has been clear throughout this dispute that both the employers and trade unions must continue with negotiations in an attempt to resolve this situation, which is absolutely not in the best interests of our learners. EIS-FELA have suspended local industrial action at Forth Valley College to allow the matter to be referred to the National Joint Secretaries for review and I urge both sides to resolve this dispute without the need for further industrial action.

The Scottish Government remains firmly of the view that it is for the college unions and the employers to negotiate pay and terms and conditions voluntarily in the spirit of collaboration and co-operation. We do however continue to work with the Scottish Funding Council (SFC), who work closely with the sector, to ensure any actions taken are compliant with the Scottish Public Finance Manual, the SFC Financial Memorandum and are in line with Fair Work principles.

Tim Hair, Turnaround Director of Ferguson Marine, updated the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee on the delivery timetable and budget for vessels 801 and 802 in March 2021. The next of the regular quarterly updates on progress, as requested by the committee in their report on ferry procurement is expected at the end of June 2021.

Compliance with the Nutritional Requirements for Food and Drink in Schools (Scotland) Regulations 2020 is monitored by Education Scotland Health and Nutrition Inspectors who support local authority caterers to undertake a nutrient analysis of school lunch menus using appropriate software to assess compliance with the nutrient standards. They also support local authority teaching and catering staff to assess compliance with all other food and drink provision across the school day against the relevant specifications.

Under the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 each local authority is responsible for ensuring that they comply with the statutory duties set out in the Regulations. The Regulations are flexible enough to allow for local variations in menu design which helps to ensure that local needs and preferences can be taken into account. As such we would expect to see different menus between local authorities and between schools within a local authority area.

Since the start of the pandemic, businesses have directly benefitted from £3.6 billion in support and the Scottish Government has provided more funding than the consequentials received to support businesses. The Scottish Government publishes statistics, management information & budget allocations relating to its Covid-19 business grants on its website at Coronavirus (COVID-19): business support funding statistics - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The next management information update is scheduled to be published on 11 June 2021.

The Scottish Government is providing local authorities across Scotland with £21.75 million to provide targeted free school meal support during the school holidays throughout the forthcoming school year. We wrote to local authorities on 14 May to inform them of their allocations and I can confirm that North Ayrshire Council will receive £704,000 in additional funding to support the delivery of free school meal approaches in all school holidays.

This support will be available to all families who are in receipt of any of the qualifying benefits which would enable them to receive free school meals, regardless of whether their children are in primary or secondary school and this support will begin at the start of the forthcoming summer holidays.

Local authorities will be given the flexibility to support eligible families through any method which they feel will best meet local needs and circumstances within their respective areas.

The Scottish Government is providing local authorities across Scotland with £28 million to expand the universal provision of free school lunches to include all children in primary 4 starting from August 2021, and to include all children in primary 5 starting from January 2022.

We wrote to local authorities on 14 May to inform them of their allocations and I can confirm that North Ayrshire Council will receive £651,000 in additional funding to support the expansion of universal free school meals to primary 4 and primary 5 children in 2021-22.

The appeals process was developed following consultation and stakeholder engagement. This included consideration of teacher workload.

Teachers are encouraged to have discussions with their learners in advance of submitting their provisional grades and, if learners are unhappy with these results, will have a further dialogue in advance of any appeal to advise on the process.

Schools and colleges are expected to support their learners in accessing the appeals service where needed and, where a learner is appealing against the academic judgement made, will be asked to provide all the necessary evidence and materials that were used to determine the learner's result.

SQA will review the learner's submission and may, if necessary, discuss aspects with the relevant teacher.