Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-04230 on 11 November 2016. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

No. The recently published Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) statistical publication contained an inaccurate statement. We apologise for this inaccuracy and will revise the relevant entry in the report.

The reason for introducing a simplified higher education student support package in academic year 2013-14 was to increase the amount of support available to students and deliver a minimum income guarantee of £7,250 per year for students from the poorest households. We worked with stakeholders, including NUS Scotland, to achieve this, putting more money in the pockets of students to support their living costs during their period of free higher education study. The introduction of the new support package was welcomed at the time by these stakeholders.

The Scottish Government has not replaced grants with loans. Eligible students remain entitled to apply for a mixture of both. This is in contrast to the UK Government, which abolished maintenance grants entirely for new students in England from academic year 2016-17. The Scottish Government increased the maximum bursary for the poorest household to £1,875 last year and, effective from the current academic year, increased the household income threshold for award of the maximum bursary (£1,875) from £17,000 to £19,000.

We’re committed to ensuring the public sector workforce is fit-for-purpose and can deliver on our digital transformation ambitions. This includes ensuring the resources we have are invested in front-line services.

Digital transformation in itself requires the employment of a range of professions as we design digital services, standardise our processes across the public sector and simplify processes for the user. Potential effects of ‘automation’, are problematic to quantify, as there are often unforeseen developments in any given labour market with technological advances.

However, the report by Deloitte also indicated that Brexit was an important threat to Scotland’s economy, jobs and long-term prosperity.

Analysis shows that the potential cost of leaving the European Union to the Scottish economy is up to £11.2 billion per year by 2030. And the independent Fraser of Allander Institute has forecast that Brexit could cost Scotland up to 80,000 jobs over the next decade.

There is no analysis undertaken as the data is not gathered or held centrally. As digital transformation plans are developed, a full assessment of the impact at all levels including equality, business and people, will be undertaken.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting all staff to have a healthy work-life balance. The Flexible Working Policy is a key part of this and in line with the Scottish Government vision for the future. Flexible working is one way we can adapt to the challenges of being more open, responsive and capable.

The majority of Scottish Government staff have informal flexible working arrangements that are agreed by individual staff and managers to respond to the changing needs of the organisation. All Staff except those working shift patterns can apply to work flexibly. The different types of flexible working available are detailed in the following table.

As at end June 2016 we had 5,416 directly employed staff in the core SG. This number is consistent with our published headcount, which can be found in table C1 here: http://www.gov.scot/About/Information/workforce-information/workforce-information-q2-2016

Of those, the staff who are less likely to have access to flexible working arrangements include:

Offshore marine staff (161)

House Teams (91)

Motor Services (27 staff)

These three groups of staff comprise 5.2% of our directly employed staffing complement.

Responsibility for implementing the Commission's 34 recommendations is distributed across a number of education sectors and organisations. For those recommendations that are directly for Government we remain focussed on delivering within the timescales set out by the Commission.

Many of the recommendations involve systemic change and do not entail an additional cost. The Commission also argued that a significant sum is already invested in access and that it is important to ensure this resource delivers maximum impact. We are committed to working with delivery partners to ensure this happens.

Funding of £2 million was allocated in 2014-15 and £6.8 million in 2015-16. Further funding was included in the Outcomes Framework funding that was issued to Health Boards for 2016-17. Our planned funding levels should allow us to meet the manifesto commitment by 2018 but the final 2017-18 budget value is subject to the Spending Review and will be published in the 2017-18 Draft Budget on 15 December 2016.

Our consideration of relevant statistical information indicates that there has been clear progress on access since the reintroduction of free tuition in 2008. In 2014-15 14.0% of Scottish domiciled, full-time first degree entrants to Scottish universities were from the 20% most deprived areas, up from 11.3% in 2008/09.

We recognise there is more to do. That is why we have accepted the recommendations of the Commission on Widening Access, including the target that, by 2030, students from the 20% most deprived communities should represent 20% of entrants to University.

We do not collect specific data on the number of parents not using funded early learning and childcare. We do collect data on the number of funded registrations through an annual census in September which is published in December.

Scottish government provided significant additional capital funding to local authorities to support implementation of the early learning and childcare elements of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014: £71 million in 2014-15, £69 million in 2015-16 and £30 million in 2016-17.

Local authority capital expenditure on pre-primary education for financial years
2010-11 to 2014-15 (most recent data available) is shown in the following table.

Scottish Futures Trust have not provided any funding for capital investment during the last five years.