Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is clear that physical intervention should only ever be used appropriately, as a last resort, to prevent harm and when in the best interests of the child or young person.

The Scottish Government is working with partners, including the Children and Young People’s Commissioner, on new human rights-based non-statutory guidance to minimise the use of restraint in schools. This new guidance will replace existing advice provided within Included, Engaged and Involved Part 2: Preventing and Managing School Exclusions ( Supporting documents - Included, engaged and involved part 2: preventing and managing school exclusions - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) ).

The physical intervention working group began work on the new guidance in January 2020. Progress was affected by group members’ focus on the Covid-19 response. However, work resumed in June 2020 and positive progress has been made since then. Working Group members have now reached agreement that the draft guidance can be put to public consultation. The Scottish Government is currently preparing this consultation.

Details of the membership and notes of the meetings of the physical intervention working group are available on the Scottish Government’s website: Physical Intervention Working Group - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

We are committed to ensuring that all children and young people get the support that they need to reach their full learning potential.

Under the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 local authorities have duties to identify, provide for and review the additional support needs of their pupils, including those with disabilities. Local authorities and schools should continue to prioritise personalised support to meet the individual, physical and emotional needs of all children and young people, and particularly in light of the impact of Covid-19. This approach is set out in our continuity in learning guidance. As work to enable recovery progresses across Scotland, those working directly with children and young people remain best placed to identify needs and offer support within a model of inclusive learning policy and practice and in line with their statutory duties under the 2004 Act.

The report of the independently chaired review of additional support for learning implementation set a clear direction in how we can continue to build on progress in improving educational experiences of children and young people with additional support needs. The joint action plan, published in October 2020 and updated in November 2021, set out the measures we will take to implement the report’s recommendations. Despite challenging circumstances we have made significant progress against a number of key actions. However, we recognise that there is more to do. We continue to work closely with the Additional Support for Learning Implementation Group (ASLIG) to review the action plan, take stock of our achievements and agree future priorities to deliver meaningful change.

During the COVID-19 pandemic children and young people with additional support needs were prioritised. In the initial phase of school closures educational hubs were made available for those children and young people who were the most vulnerable. During the 2 nd phase of school closures in January 2021 schools were asked to open and prioritise the attendance in person of those learners with additional support needs. In addition, our education recovery work has improving educational outcomes at its heart and the Scottish Government has put in place a number of measures including;

• Funding of 3,500 additional teachers and 500 support staff over this Parliamentary term – over and above the 1,400 teachers recruited during the pandemic – and ensuring more time for teachers to plan high quality learning and teaching by reducing their class contact by 1.5 hrs per week.
• 500m provided to support education recovery in 2020-21 and 2021-22.
• ?Investing £260m in 2021-22 to support local authorities to recruit additional teachers and other staff, including £20m to provide extra support such as tutoring and mentoring or other local interventions to support children and families.
• Delivery of £25m in 2020-21 for over 72,000 devices, and more than 14,000 internet connectivity packages distributed to learners across Scotland.
• Delivery of £3m for targeted youth work to support children and young people.

On the 30th March we also launched the refreshed Scottish Attainment Challenge programme, with up to £200m funding for 2022-23, part of our increased £1bn investment over this Parliament, representing a substantial increase on last term’s £750m funding, to support our most disadvantaged children and young people.

The Scottish Government has provided record-breaking levels of investment, including our £120 million Mental Health Recovery & Renewal Fund. As part of that work, we have made an additional £40 million available to improve Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), with £4.25 million of that specifically dedicated to clearing waiting list backlogs by March 2023.

NHS Boards have submitted local improvement plans, setting out how they will meet the standard and eliminate long waits by end March 2023. In February 2020, the Scottish Government published a National CAMHS Service Specification, which included nationally agreed referral criteria and we are closely monitoring the implementation over the coming months, including, reviewing the numbers of referrals received by Boards, the numbers accepted for treatment on a regular basis and the numbers receiving personalised and meaningful signposting to other services.

The Scottish Government takes bullying very seriously. Bullying of any kind is completely unacceptable and must be addressed.

In November 2017, the Scottish Government published updated anti-bullying guidance ‘Respect for All: The National Approach to Anti-bullying for Scotland’s Children and Young People’

In August 2019, we introduced a consistent and uniform approach to recording and monitoring incidents of bullying in schools. All schools and local authorities are expected to be using the new approach.

The Scottish Government currently has no plans for the numbers of bullying incidents to be collated at a national level. Recording and monitoring is essential and best carried out locally where recurring patterns can be understood and acted upon. An evaluation will be undertaken later this year to assess how successfully the new system has been embedded.

respect me, Scotland’s anti-bullying service, continues to provide support to all adults working with children and young people to give them the practical skills and confidence to deal with all types of bullying behaviour.

The Scottish government’s principle engagement mechanism with disabled people and the organisations which represent them is through regular meetings with the Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland (MACS), an independent advisory non-departmental public body. Their role is to consider matters about the needs of disabled persons in connection with transport that the committee think are appropriate.

Transport Scotland has consulted and engaged with disabled people’s groups to deliver updated Cycling by Design guidance, Inclusive Design Guidance for Town Centres and Busy Street and more specific work including Free Bikes for Children who cannot afford them and ongoing work on accessible bike hire.

The Lord President of the Court of Session is responsible for making and maintaining appropriate arrangements for the training and guidance of Scotland’s judicial office holders as set out in the Judiciary and Courts (Scotland) Act 2008, the Tribunals (Scotland) Act 2014 and the Criminal Proceedings etc. (Reform) (Scotland) Act 2007. Judicial training is delivered by the Judicial Institute for Scotland.

The Scottish Government currently publishes a range of intersectional equality data, for example Scottish Household Survey data can produce a variety of intersectional breakdowns where sample sizes allow. However, there remain many costs and challenges to collecting, analysing, and reporting this. Despite improvements in recent years, there remain gaps in Scotland’s equality evidence base.

The Scottish Government launched the Equality Data Improvement Programme (EDIP) in April 2021 to address these gaps. The EDIP is aligned with the Scottish Government’s wider Mainstreaming Equality and Human Rights Strategy which is currently under development and aims to make intersectional equality data more wide-ranging and robust, enabling policy makers to develop sound, inclusive policy.

Work is underway to produce equality data improvement plans for each Analytical Service Division (ASD) across the Scottish Government. These plans will be shaped by equality stakeholders and will form the basis of the next iteration of Scotland’s Equality Evidence Strategy. Better data will in turn help identify intersectional discrimination.

To share learning and good practice, the Scottish Government led an evidence review which focused on how to apply the concept of intersectionality to public sector analysis and policymaking. This review showcased examples of how organisations have collected data on intersectional discrimination and was published in March 2022.

From the 26 July to the 31 December 2021, there were 25 instances where a client submitted more than one application, accounting for 50 applications in total. Of these 50 applications, 20 have been withdrawn and five have been denied.

Social Security Scotland conducts an eligibility check with the submission of part 1 of the application, which checks if the child is already in receipt of a Disability Living Allowance for children award. At present, this information is not stored in a way that can be quantified.