Chamber and committees

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.

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.

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.

A draft of the Skills Investment Plan for the Early Learning and Childcare sector will be produced by January 2017 and shared with partners. The final version of the Plan will be published in spring 2017.

Through our consultation, A Blueprint for 2020: The Expansion of Early Learning and Childcare in Scotland, we are seeking views as to how payment of the Living Wage and wider Fair Work practises can be encouraged across the Early Learning and Childcare sector.

We will publish our response to the consultation in Spring 2017.

We will commission a Flexible Jobs Index for Scotland, which will determine the availability of flexible jobs in Scotland, by the end of 2016 and we will seek to publish as soon as practicable thereafter.

We will set out more details on our programme of infrastructure development in Spring 2017 as part of the Scottish Government’s response to the consultation.