Chamber and committees

Information on the number of full-time equivalent primary school teachers is published in table 1.1 of the Summary Statistics for Schools in Scotland, No 4: 2013 Edition publication. A link to this publication which is on the Scottish Government website is as follows:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2013/12/4199/4

The Scottish Government discussed this and other matters with the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) during the consultation period prior to the GTCS publishing the June 2013 version of the Memorandum on Entry Requirements to Programmes of Initial Teacher Education in Scotland which can be viewed at:

http://www.gtcs.org.uk/web/FILES/about-gtcs/memorandum-on-entry-requirements.pdf

The memorandum sets out at section 4(iii) the intention of the GTCS to have revised requirements in relation to the subjects referred to in place by 2020 at the latest.

This information is not held centrally.

Whilst recruitment of teachers is the responsibility of local authorities, the Scottish Government recognises the importance of a good grounding in science in the primary years and is providing support for primary school teachers to build their knowledge and skills in the teaching of science. In January 2014, Education Scotland launched TigTag, a comprehensive package of online science teaching support materials for primary teachers. We are also funding the Scottish Schools Education Research Centre to run a learning programme specifically targeting the science needs of primary teachers. It focuses on the development of primary teacher mentors, who in turn work with schools in their local area.

This information is not held centrally.

It is a criminal offence to drive in an impaired way while under the influence of drugs.

A new drug driving offence was provided for in the UK Crime and Courts Act 2013 which makes it an offence to drive with above specified levels of certain drugs within a person’s body.

The Scottish Government and the UK Government last year jointly consulted on possible approaches to setting a drug driving limit for the new offence for a specified range of drugs. We expect to publish an analysis of the Scottish consultation responses in the next few months. This will inform Scottish Government decisions about the next steps.

This information is not held centrally.

This information is not held centrally.

The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) published advice for Alemtuzumab (Lemtrada®) for the treatment of relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis on 7 July 2014. SMC reviewed this medicine in April 2014. However, publication of the advice was withheld at the manufacturer’s request until stock of the medicine became available for supply to NHS Scotland.

We are providing funding through the local government settlement for local authorities to continue to invest in major new flood protection schemes.

Local authorities can apply for this funding on the basis of criteria agreed by the Scottish Government and COSLA. A total of £73 million was available in this spending review period, on top of the £53 million funding that was allocated to existing projects and included within local authorities’ General Capital Grant allocations. Local authorities are also free to allocate additional resources to flooding from within the overall funding provided to them by the Scottish Government and from within their own resources.

While local authorities will continue to promote engineered schemes to help protect communities at risk from flooding, these cannot protect all properties and businesses. In future we will have to rely more heavily on building more resilient and better warned and informed communities that can take action for themselves.

We know that property level protection products such as flood doors, automatic airbrick covers, non-return valves for domestic and foul drainage systems are effective flood risk management measures; especially in areas that benefit from a flood warning scheme. For that reason we have recently commissioned a research project to find out more about the value of installing these products and to quantify the benefits they bring. The project will also assess how many properties in Scotland might benefit from property level protection products, survey people who own these products to get their views on the benefits and barriers. The research findings will help us develop our policy for building flood resilient communities.

We are also supporting the public and others to take practical actions through our additional funding for the Scottish Flood Forum.