Chamber and committees

The deadline for priority appeals was originally set as 16 August to ensure that SQA and their appointees have sufficient time to process these cases to meet with UCAS deadlines of 8 September.

Following discussion with education partners on the National Qualifications 21 Group, this date has now been extended to 24 August to ensure that there is sufficient time after the start of the new session for centres to submit appeals and supporting evidence for those learners with immediate progression needs for further education, higher education or workplace progression. In moving to this date, the proposal is that centres will submit evidence digitally.

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.

Estimated costs for the Government Car Service (GCS), including purchasing and maintenance, for 2021-22 and actual spend for each of the last 5 years, are provided in the following table.

This information is not held centrally. Altering images or producing deepfake pornographic material is not a specific offence, therefore:

(a) the Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal service are unable to separately identify such offences from their database and provide number of charges and

(b) The Scottish Government is also unable to separately identify convictions from their database for the same reason.

Altering images or producing deepfake pornographic material is not a specific offence and the production of such material in itself, would probably not amount to a criminal offence. However, the distribution, publication or sale etc. of such material, where it appears to depict a person who has not consented to such a depiction may amount to a criminal offence. Depending on the facts and circumstances, this may be capable of being charged under offences including section 2 of the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016 (non-consensual sharing of intimate images), section 38 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 (threatening or abusive behaviour) or section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 (misuse of a public electronic communications network). However, the Scottish Government’s and COPFS data only details numbers of convictions and charges under these acts, and not detailed information on the specific conduct which resulted in the charge or conviction.

Students will be able to register an intention to appeal from 25 June. However, the formal appeals process will not commence until the results are issued on 10 August. Universities will not confirm offers until they have received the certificated grades in August.

For those students waiting on a result for a university or college place or for an employment or training programme, appeals will be processed as a priority.

The SDS Helpline will be available through the summer for students to talk to an experienced adviser, with the dedicated Results Helpline opening from 10 August. The National Qualifications 21 Group has issued a letter to learners highlighting a range of support available. This is available online and can be accessed at:

https://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/files_ccc/NQ21-letter-supports-for-learners.pdf

SQA is arranging for a hard copy of the letter to be sent out to all learners.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6T-00019 on 26 May 2021. The answer is available on the Parliament's website at: Official Report - Parliamentary Business : Scottish Parliament .

The national public bodies directory has been updated to reflect the most up to date funding information for individual public bodies. I refer the member to the website: https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-public-bodies-directory/pages/executive-non-departmental-public-bodies/

The Scottish Government has launched a 10 week consultation into New Year’s Day trading for large retail stores today.

The consultation is seeking the views of shop workers and retail businesses and their representatives on whether the current law should change so that large retail businesses must close on New Year’s Day, as they currently do on Christmas Day. I would encourage all relevant parties to access the consultation on the Scottish Government’s consultation hub to ensure their views are taken into account.

While it is for the local authority or national park authority to ensure it has sufficient services in place, the Scottish Government has in recent years supported authorities through its Rural Tourism Infrastructure Fund which has helped create new toilets, car parks and waste disposal facilities. To support critical tourism projects in our more remote areas we are more than doubling this Fund to £6.2 million in 2021-22, bringing our total investment to over £15 million.

The Visitor Management Group, consisting of public bodies, National Parks and local authorities, was also established last September and has now developed an interim strategy and a list of associated actions for this year.

A number of actions are already underway including the establishment of the new Better Places Green Recovery Fund by NatureScot. This Fund has provided over £400,000 to 35 community and third sector projects so far, with a new round of £2.75m allocated to deliver additional short-term action for the 2021 season. This includes support for temporary toilets and ranger posts. We are also providing our National parks with an extra £3.6m in 2021 which will support, among other things, seasonal rangers and improved infrastructure to better manage visitors this summer.

Responding to incidents is an operational matter for our Emergency Services and the Scottish Government does not hold information centrally on response times to specific incidents or locations.