Chamber and committees

The Scottish Motor Neurone Disease Association is represented on the group set up by NHS Quality Improvement Scotland to develop clinical standards for Motor Neurone Disease. This will help ensure that the standards focus on the aspects of services of greatest importance to those for whom they are provided.

We shall use our national review of the way in which NHSScotland supports third sector organisations to explore the issue of the relationship between services provided by NHS boards and by the voluntary sector.

I am pleased to announce that the taskforce plans to publish our interim report on 24 June 2008. The report will be accessible at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Education/UniversitiesColleges/16640/hetaskforce.

The report sets out:

a shared ambition for universities in the 21st century;

the agreed context within which universities will operate and their staff and students will live, work and study in the next 20 years;

resource commitments which the taskforce believe should guide the Scottish Government in the funding of universities in the future;

challenges that the Scottish Government is setting universities, and

challenges that universities are setting the Scottish Government.

I will be encouraging stakeholders to feed in their comments over the summer. The taskforce will reconvene in September to consider how best we respond.

In parallel, John McClelland, Chair of the Scottish Funding Council will be undertaking a review of the funding council’s processes and procedures in readiness for the new role it will play in the future in relation to the governance of and funding policies for our universities.

The Scottish science baccalaureate and Scottish language baccalaureate will be important elements within the wider Curriculum for Excellence programme. They will also contribute to the government’s principal purpose and strategic objectives. The awards aim to encourage more of our young people to study science and language courses in the later stages of secondary school. They will raise the status of S6 and assist our young people in making the transition from school to higher and further education and employment. As the baccalaureates will not constitute an exclusive programme of study, young people will also be able to study additional subjects and take part in other activities.

The baccalaureates will include existing qualifications in science and languages at Higher and Advanced Higher level. The new element of the awards will be an interdisciplinary project to be taken in S6. This is intended to give young people the chance to work across subject boundaries, study a topic in greater depth and link their learning to areas of future interest in higher education, further education and employment. It will be important to give young people good opportunities for choice in the projects that they undertake. However, examples of the topics that could be studied within the science baccalaureate are exploring the engineering industry, investigating how the life sciences are used in industry and ethical issues in science. Examples of topics in the languages baccalaureate are how Scotland’s tourism and cultural provision is perceived by speakers of other languages and Scotland and global citizenship issues.

A summary of the structure of the awards and courses that will be included in the Baccalaureates is attached.

The Scottish Government and the Scottish Qualifications Authority will be taking forward work on the Baccalaureates with stakeholders in schools, colleges, higher education and representatives from business and industry. We expect the first baccalaureates to be awarded in August 2010.

This is an exciting development which offers our young people new opportunities to develop their skills in science and languages and better prepare them for higher and further education courses and employment.

Proposed structure of the Scottish Science and Language Baccalaureates

Content

Science Baccalaureate: ? Interdisciplinary project at Advanced Higher ? Maths at Higher ? 2 sciences at Higher ? 1 science at Advanced Higher   Language Baccalaureate: ? Interdisciplinary project at Advanced Higher ? English or Gidhlig at Higher ? 2 modern or classical language courses at Higher (one of the Higher courses could be replaced by the equivalent in modern language units). ? 1 modern or classical language course at Advanced Higher

Grading >

Pass: Passes in all courses Distinction: A grade in Advanced Higher; at least B in all other courses

 

Course options to be included in the Scottish Science and Language Baccalaureates

Eligible Science Courses	Eligible Language Courses
Biology*
Biotechnology	French*
Chemistry*	German*
Computing*	Italian*
Geology	Russian
Human Biology	Spanish*
Information Systems*	Classical Greek*
Managing Environmental Resources	Latin*
Mechatronics	Gaelic (Learners)*
Physics*	Urdu
Technological Studies*
Building Construction	Mandarin**
Fabrication and Welding Engineering	Cantonese**
Graphic Communication
Product Design**

Notes:

*Currently available at Advanced Higher level.

**Will become available at Advanced Higher level from session 2009-10

The SQA’s course catalogue is kept under constant review: new courses may be added, or existing courses may be deleted or replaced.

I undertook a number of engagements to highlight Fairtrade Fortnight 2008. These events are listed below:

Date	Event	Purpose
Tuesday 26 February	Visited Whitelees Primary School in Cumbernauld.	To meet with pupils at Whitelees Primary School who have been involved in Fair Trade activities.
Thursday 28 February	Met with Julius Ethang''atha, Kenyan Tea Producer.	To meet local producer and discuss the benefits of Fair Trade. Mr Ethang''atha was undertaking a producer tour hosted by the Scottish Fair Trade Forum.
Saturday 1 March	Addressed the Fair Trade Experience in Glasgow.	To deliver key note address and engage with Fairtrade businesses, producers and other stakeholders.
Tuesday 4 March	Attended a Fair Trade Coffee Morning with Scottish Government officials.	To meet with officials engaged in Fair Trade raising awareness of Fair Trade across the Directorate.
Friday 7 March	Visited St Elizabeth''s Primary School in Hamilton.	To meet with pupils at St Elizabeth''s Primary School who have been involved in Fair Trade activities.
	Participated in live phone in discussion on Lesley Riddoch Show on the subject of Fair Trade.	To participate in live phone in and be part of panel discussion.
	Visited Thornlie Primary School in Wishaw.	To meet with pupils at St Elizabeth''s Primary School who have been involved in Fair Trade activities.

 

I refer the member to the events mentioned in the answer to question S3W-11693 on 14 April 2008. The Scottish Government has provided support to the Scottish Fair Trade Forum to take forward the campaign for Scotland to achieve Fair Trade Nation status.

The Scottish Fair Trade Forum receives core funding from the Scottish Government''s International Development Fund of £60,000 a year for three years. I was pleased to announce further funding of up to £40,000 from within the current financial year (2007-08) to assist the forum with awareness raising activities.

This funding has enabled the Scottish Fair Trade Forum to take forward a number of initiatives during Fairtrade Fortnight including a reception at the Scottish Parliament and hosting a producer tour of Scotland by a Kenyan tea producer.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament''s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

The Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004, which commenced in November 2005, aims to ensure that the additional support needs of all children and young people are addressed. Education authorities are required to identify, meet and keep under review the additional support needs of all pupils, for whom they are responsible.

The concordat that we have signed with COSLA is founded on improving educational outcomes and providing more choices and more chances for all children and young people, including the most vulnerable. In addition, we have recently launched a policy statement, jointly with COSLA, that will set out an approach to early intervention across education, health and other services.

The ScotRail Franchise Agreement does include clauses relating to industrial action and these clauses are already published in the Public Register version of the Franchise Agreement.

The Public Register is maintained by Transport Scotland on behalf of Scottish ministers in accordance with the 2005 Railways Act.

Ministers have no powers to reverse school closure decisions once such decisions have been taken. In certain limited circumstances, set out in statute, local authorities cannot implement a proposal to close a school, rural or urban, without the consent of the Scottish ministers. Since 1999, Scottish ministers have declined to give their consent to two rural school closure proposals in 2007 and to one in 2008. The decisions are, in law, attributed to the Scottish ministers collectively rather than to an individual minister.

I have asked Mike Ewart, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service to respond.

His response is as follows:

In order to receive support to undertake a higher education course in a Scottish prison, a convicted prisoner requires to apply to the Scottish Prison Service Higher Education Access Board which considers applications under the Higher Education Access Scheme.

The principle provider of higher education courses under the scheme is the Open University who has a long history of supporting higher education prisoners throughout the UK. If a prisoner gains approval they can expect to receive support with their studies through the prison learning centre and from the higher education provider.

Currently, there are 30 prisoners undertaking 38 higher education courses.

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With the global economicoutlook suggesting a challenging period ahead, the effect of the reductions in businessrates delivered by our Small Business Bonus Scheme will be a key element in helpingto sustain existing small businesses and in allowing more people to start up newbusinesses.