Chamber and committees

Curriculum for Excellence provides the framework for schools and local authorities to explore opportunities such as UNICEF’s Rights Respecting Schools Award (RRSA) to provide active and engaging opportunities for Scotland’s learners.

Education Scotland is working with a range of partners to provide opportunities for Scotland’s children and young people to develop as responsible global citizens. This includes support for local authorities and collaboration with UNICEF.

RRSA is well established in Scotland. The first schools registered in 2007 and these has been significant growth since 2009, with Scottish schools now having the highest take-up rate of anywhere in the UK. 583 primary schools (24%) and 74 secondary schools (16%) are currently involved in the initiative.

The Scottish Government does not receive reports, nor does it hold information on what reports are made to NHS boards or Area partnership forums, on the incidence of workplace racial discrimination.

The Equal Opportunities PIN Policy sets out boards’ obligations in terms of local policies developed in line with the PIN. Area partnership forums should agree a set of equality objectives, which may include the incidence of workplace racial discrimination, and should receive reports on the outcomes. Individual NHS boards may therefore have information on local incidents.

UNICEF’s Rights Respecting Schools Programme is a further tool to promote and advance children’s rights in Scotland and is complementary to Scottish Government wider policy and legislative activity on this issue.

Currently, in Scotland, the course is set as a two Year Master of Science Degree in Educational Psychology. Course eligibility and criteria is set by the British Physiological Society and the qualification is accredited by them.

This information is not held centrally.

Number of trained students:

This information is not held centrally.

The Scottish budget faces real and significant long term cuts and tough decisions have had to be made to prioritise spending. The decision to align the funding of trainee educational psychologists with funding for other post-graduate funding programmes reflects this.

Those students who are currently in training will not be affected, this means that there will be new educational psychologists entering the system for the next two years. We will use this time to work to ensure a sustainable approach going forward.

The Scottish Government will continue to support the Workforce Planning Group to consider potential future impact, how we might monitor this and to identify, within the constraints that exist, any action needed to minimise risks.

The overarching objective of the Scottish Government is to promote economic growth across the whole of Scotland and for the benefit of all. Over £216 million has been directly invested in Regeneration activity since 2007 to regenerate communities across Scotland.

There is no specific funding available for the regeneration of seaside towns as tourism destinations, although we recognise they are an important asset for Scottish tourism. However, the Coastal Communities Fund aims to support projects in Scotland’s coastal communities that promote sustainable economic growth and jobs in tourism.

In addition to this, VisitScotland supports local initiatives through its Growth fund and provides business support for individual tourism businesses and tourism groups.

Scottish Enterprise also provides support specifically to Edinburgh through the Edinburgh Tourism Action Group (ETAG). ETAG aims to improve business performance, enhance the visitor experience and strengthen Edinburgh’s position as a world class visitor destination. Portobello is seen as part of the overall Edinburgh tourism product and not as a tourism destination in its own right. Tourism businesses in Portobello are able to benefit from the range of support ETAG offers.

The Scottish Government are working closely with the Big Fund (the brand that the Big Lottery Fund used to distribute non lottery funds) to ensure that the Coastal Communities Fund is accessible to all Scottish coastal communities.

As administrator of the Coastal Communities Fund, the Big Fund in Scotland will notify key Local Authority stakeholders at the programme launch as well circulate information in their next newsletter which has a recipient list of over 2000, and on their BIG Scotland Blog. The Big Fund will also run a series of events across the country at which they will provide information and advice on all programmes including the Coastal Communities Fund.