Chamber and committees

Information on investment since 2007 in infrastructure is included within the annually published draft budget.

The Scottish Government works with a number of delivery partners including Transport Scotland, local authorities, NHS boards, Scottish Funding Council and Scottish Water who are responsible for managing publicly owned infrastructure and ensuring that their respective infrastructure is fit for purpose and appropriately maintained, upgrading or replacing when required.

On 28 June 2016 the Scottish Government received a clear mandate from Parliament to pursue all options to protect Scotland’s relationship with the EU and to engage with EU Member States to explain Scotland’s position, the work it is taking forward to protect its EU relationship and understand their concerns. EU Member State engagement on this basis has been progressing well. Since the referendum, Scottish Government Ministers have met with the Governments of the following fifteen EU Member States:-

Austria

Belgium

Croatia

Czech Republic

Denmark

Finland

France

Germany

Ireland

Italy

Luxembourg

Netherlands

Poland

Slovakia

Sweden

The Scottish Government is committed to regularly reporting progress on its EU engagement to Parliament including through regular engagement with relevant Committees.

The pilots will allow us to explore approaches to reducing the burden of upfront childcare costs for parents in low income households. There is a concern that these costs may present a real barrier to some parents starting or returning to work, or increasing their hours, after a period caring for young children.

We will work with delivery partners to identify potential approaches for delivering the pilots, and will announce more details as to how they will be taken forward in early 2017.

We are committed to ensuring that the necessary infrastructure, workforce and delivery models are in place to meet our commitment to expand early learning and childcare entitlement to 1140 hours per year by 2020. As I announced to Parliamentary on 29 September 2016, we will shortly be publishing a Policy Blueprint consultation document which will seek views on the Scottish Government’s vision and principles for the expansion, and will set out a timetable for key next steps.

The number of entries into SQA qualifications in STEM subjects, broken down by gender since academic year 2010-11 are shown in table one. The number of teachers whose main subject is STEM, broken down by gender, over the same time period, is shown in table two. Please note the caveats presented in the footnotes for each table when interpreting figures.

1. STEM comprises biology, human biology, chemistry, physics, computing science and mathematics. Other subjects may be considered STEM but the ones chosen here give the best continuity across time

2. Subjects are across SCQF levels 3 to 7 and include Standard Grades, Access 3, National 3, Intermediate 1, National 4, Intermediate 2, National 5, Previous Higher, Higher, Previous Advanced Higher and Advanced Higher qualifications.

3. The data include entries by third, fourth, fifth and sixth year school candidates, Other School candidates (which includes first year, second year and adults attending school), Further Education Colleges, and Other (which covers candidates outwith school or college, for example workplace candidates).

1. Excludes head teachers and depute head teachers.

2. Note that some teachers also teach an 'other subject', but this split is not collected by FTE. This data assumes that each teacher spends all of their time teaching their main subject.

Ahead of any recruitment campaign, the Scottish Government is currently working with delivery partners to explore all existing routes to recruit a high quality and diverse early learning and childcare workforce. A Skills Investment Plan is being developed and research is currently being conducted with target audiences. This work will inform the cost and scope of the recruitment campaign. We will start to target our marketing activity from spring 2017.

Information on waiting lists to early learning and childcare is not held centrally. Local Authorities are under a duty to provide early learning and childcare places to all three and four year olds from set times following their 3^rd birthday under the Provision of Early Learning and Childcare (Specified Children) (Scotland) Order 2014. It is for local authorities to manage their own registration and admission policies.

The Apprenticeship Levy was announced by the UK Government without any prior consultation with the Scottish Government, or indeed others who will be liable for paying the levy.

The consultation undertaken by the Scottish Government closed on 26 August 2016 and independent analysis of the near 400 responses is now underway, once that concludes we will form our response in Scotland. However, initial analysis does suggest broad support from employers and stakeholders to the areas proposed in the consultation.

We are acutely aware of the need to provide employers and training providers with clarity over our approach to the Levy in Scotland and will be looking to do so as quickly as we can.