Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that all children and young people with additional support needs are supported. Under the Additional Support for Learning Act education authorities are responsible for identifying and meeting the additional support needs of their pupils. This includes the employment and provision of appropriate resources, including teaching and support staff, to meet children’s needs.

The Scottish Government remains committed to maintaining teacher numbers nationally and ensuring we have the right number of teachers, with the right skills, in the right places to educate our children and young people.

Figures published in December 2020 show that teacher numbers increased for the fifth year in a row – rising to 53,400 in 2020, an increase of 1,153 on the previous year. There are now more teachers than at any time since 2008, and the ratio of pupils to teachers is at its lowest since 2010.

We also continue to provide additional support to education authorities through investment of £15 million per year to further enhance capacity in education authorities and schools to respond effectively to the individual needs of children and young people, through the provision of support staff.

The Scottish Government has also established a Pupil Support Staff Working Group to explore how best we can empower and support pupil support staff, including taking action in response to the recommendations of the additional support for learning review. As part of this a Professional Learning Framework for Pupil Support Staff was launched at the Scottish Learning Festival, on 22 September 2021 .

Both organisations already deliver a range of activity, such as Creative Scotland’s delivery of the Youth Music Initiative. The action in the Culture Strategy “Work with Creative Scotland and Education Scotland to help improve cultural experiences for learners of all ages” is driving a programme of joint work between the two organisations.

Education Scotland and Creative Scotland have been working closely together to update their approach to joint working in response to COVID-19, and to implement commitments against two existing frameworks: Scotland’s refreshed Creative Learning Plan and the Culture Strategy for Scotland. The two organisations have jointly developed a new Strategic Agreement which sets out five areas of focus for joint working over the next 3 years:

• Learners’ mental health and wellbeing is improved through creativity and arts experiences
• Learners are more confident and able to articulate their creativity skills and can apply them in all contexts.
• High quality cultural and expressive arts experiences are more widely accessible to all learners.
• Learners are directly influencing more of their own creative learning and creative experiences.
• Creative approaches are further embedded in curriculum design.

An action plan, aligned to the Strategic Agreement, is now being finalised, putting programmes in place to deliver on these areas of focus. Some of these actions are already underway, including the launch of the Creative Wellbeing Fund , offering six grants of between £12k -£15k to support schools to take a creative approach to addressing learner wellbeing, and the recent opening of the Creative Learning Network Fund for applications, offering grants of up to £7k per Local Authority to support the Creative Learning Networks to implement Scotland’s refreshed Creative Learning Plan. As per the agreement between Education Scotland and Creative Scotland, the Creative Learning Networks are being asked to look across the Culture Strategy for Scotland and explore their role in helping to improve cultural experiences for learners of all ages.

Additionally, the two organisations are currently overseeing artform-led research with both the visual arts and theatre for young audiences’ sectors to map and analyse the current level and extent of provision available in schools across Scotland. The concluding reports will suggest ways the delivery of expressive arts in schools could be enhanced.

The previous Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Economy and Fair Work met with the local authority culture conveners on 2 March 2021. This was the second meeting since the Culture Strategy was published. Scottish Government officials are working with COSLA to organise a further meeting soon.

Our shared policy programme with the Scottish Green Party recognises the important role that community housing trusts play in supporting our remote, rural and island communities and the delivery of more affordable homes in these areas. We will work with these organisations to achieve this aim, including through the availability of Scottish Government operated funds, for the continuation of their important work.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting the development of skills to realise the full potential of our screen sector. As set out in the Programme for Government 2021-22, working with Screen Scotland through its partnership with the skills agencies, we will continue to increase skills provision across the sector, including through increasing training and apprenticeship placements. Work is already underway to deliver training targeted at areas of skills needs. This includes two programmes backed by £426,500 from the Scottish Government’s National Transition Training Fund, one which supported trainees learning new skills in production and a second offering training in animation, visual special effects and production accountancy.

The First Minister announced as part of the Programme for Government on 7 September that the Scottish Government would restart work on the prospectus for independence. The Scottish Government is now determining how this work will proceed, as we do for delivering our commitments across the whole range of our responsibilities in the interests of the people of Scotland.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-02844 on 23 September 2021. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-02844 on 23 September 2021. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers .

The Scottish Government is now determining how this work will proceed and the resourcing it requires, as we do for delivering our commitments across the whole range of our responsibilities in the interests of the people of Scotland.

A range of civil servants will be responsible for overseeing different aspects of work relating to an independence referendum. Overall leadership of the civil service supporting the Scottish Government lies with the Permanent Secretary and Executive Team.