Chamber and committees

Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) and Scottish Forestry are keeping the impact on deer management targets of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) guidance under regular review. Where these targets form part of contractual leases, Scottish Rural Development Programme (SRDP) commitments, Management Arrangements or agreements under the Deer (Scotland) Act 1996, SNH and Scottish Forestry expect to show flexibility with any grant payments and will continue to provide advice and guidance in order to support land managers.

We are determined to help keep companies in business and our financial support now exceeds the £2.3 billion passed on from the UK Government and actively works to fill the gaps in the UK scheme.

Owners, tenants and occupiers of Deer Forests and Shooting Rights will be able to benefit from the 1.6% universal non-domestic rates relief in 2020-21, which will apply automatically to their non-domestic rates bills. As with any other rateable property, they may apply for different reliefs. The majority are eligible for 100 per cent rates relief through the Small Business Bonus Scheme, and unutilised shooting rights may qualify for Empty Rates Relief.

In addition, the Scottish Government has also announced a £100 million fund to help micro and SME businesses and the newly self-employed not eligible for other schemes experiencing immediate cash flow issues.

The UK Government has also announced the Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) to support self-employed individuals whose income has been negatively impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic. This scheme will provide a grant to self-employed individuals or partnerships, worth 80% of their profits up to a cap of £2,500 per month.

The Scottish Government published the Pollinator Strategy for Scotland in 2017. Implementation of the strategy is led by SNH who work in partnership with others to encourage and support a range of initiatives to help all pollinating insects. These range from creating new habitat and enhancing existing habitats through to public engagement and monitoring. SNH produces an annual Pollinator Progress Report and this highlights the many projects being carried out across Scotland by a range of groups to make Scotland a more pollinator-friendly environment.

SNH also increasingly identifies cross cutting opportunities within its own work to deliver its ambitions for pollinators. Hence programmes such as Green Infrastructure and the Biodiversity Challenge Fund support projects that help pollinators. The SNH website outlines the various initiatives in place to help Scotland's pollinators.

Priorities for the Agricultural Transformation Programme funding were announced in the Programme for Government 2019-20 and are detailed on page 57. It will include, for example, developing pilot schemes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and encouraging more tree planting across Scotland including woodland integration and agro-forestry on Scottish farms.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

SPS does not use the services of volunteers to deliver educational programme in Scotland's public sector prisons.

Annual Learning Plans (ALPs) provide the detail of educational provision and responsibilities required at each individual establishment. Accordingly, SPS need to ensure that the skill sets of those delivering educational interventions are consistent with the presenting educational needs of distinct populations within our care.

Contractual obligations also include requirements and assurances that all staff delivering educational interventions are appropriately qualified and have successfully undertaken the range of mandatory training programmes to ensure compliance with health and safety and other relevant considerations working with vulnerable groups. These requirements include: Enhanced Disclosure; Personal Protection Training (PPT); Suicide Awareness Training, Health and Safety Training; Professional Boundaries Training and Key Training.

These essential and detailed requirements cumulatively demand a significant resource investment by SPS and are consistently in high demand by the agencies who work across Scottish prisons. Accordingly, it is not feasible to provide this type of intensive training to volunteers on a regular or ad hoc basis.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

SPS does not hold the information in the format requested for the period 2007-08 to 2013. We do however hold data from 2013 onwards and this is provided in the following table.

The table provides cumulative data on all qualifications achieved by prison based learners for the periods 2013-14 to 2017-18 inclusive and also includes details of qualifications achieved since 2018 broken down by Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) which is not available for previous years.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

A wide range of educational programmes are available in all Scotland’s prisons to help rehabilitate prisoners and prepare them for future employment opportunities and community reintegration. These programmes range from basic skills through to university degrees and are available to all those in our care depending on educational need and sentence length.

Courses will vary in education units across the estate to meet the distinct requirements of particular prisoner groups: short-term, long-term, women, young people and elderly. In general terms course types will be available in Core Skills SCQF Levels 2-6 (Communications, Numeracy, ICT, Working with Others & Problem Solving); a wide range of social science subjects and arts and humanities. Moreover, a range of basic life-skills including health and hygiene, financial management and employability skills will be available to assist prisoners with accessing and sustaining employment.

While SPS believe all of the educational programmes contribute to rehabilitation and personal change, SPS also provides a range of specific offence focused interventions. These interventions are designed to directly address a wide range of offending behaviours and aim to provide risk reduction strategies to assist with future management and progression to the community.

These interventions target high and medium intensity violence and sexual violence offending needs, problem solving and substance related offending. The programmes aim to build life skills, improve self-management and coping strategies and increase self-efficacy and self-worth. The interventions are designed with specific offence related criteria and are identified through generic programmes assessment and delivered by SPS programmes and psychology teams.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

A wide range of educational programmes are available in Scotland’s prisons to help rehabilitate prisoners and prepare them for future employment opportunities and community reintegration. Educational programmes are structured around stimulating engagement and addressing the presenting and disparate educational needs of distinct population groups e.g., women, young people, long-term prisoners etc. Moreover, we have recently implemented a new screening process to identify the possible presence of a learning difficulty/disability for those who require additional support for learning.

Literacy and numeracy programmes provide core activity and are often embedded within the fabric of vocational training courses to highlight the relevance of core skills within the context of delivery in practical activities and employment. Small group work, therapeutic arts and specific 1:1 tuition is also available to help learners enhance their communication abilities, improve confidence and self-esteem and to develop critical thinking skills.

Project themed learning has proved an innovative and effective means of stimulating engagement across a range of ability levels. Such themes will often tackle offence related attitudes such as racism, sectarianism, domestic violence, bullying etc. which helps learners develop empathy and also an appreciation of the impact their negative behaviours have on others.

A range of distance learning modules further expands curricula choice for mid-range learners while a number of degree level studies are provided to a small number of learners in partnership with the Open University Scotland. Our range of visual and expressive arts have also proved extremely useful in stimulating engagement, developing confidence and esteem and identifying latent talents and skills.

Our focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) has been enhanced through our ongoing collaboration with Scottish universities providing award winning educational courses that enrich curriculum choice and stimulate engagement.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Interim Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

The SPS resource budget envelope, provided by the Scottish Government, includes funding for educational programmes.

Prior to 2017, education services in Scotland’s public sector prisons were provided through commercial arrangements by 2 further education colleges: New College Lanarkshire and Fife College. These contracts were agreed following rigorous procurement processes to ensure best value and the most economically advantageous service.

In 2017, our New Generation learning and skills contract was awarded to a single provider (Fife College) for the delivery of education services across all of Scotland’s public sector prisons. The decision to procure a single provider for education services across public service prisons was based on the need to ensure consistency of culture, staffing flexibility and benefits of economies of scale.

Details of contract costs are provided in the following table.

The Scottish Government and local authorities are fully focused on our national response to the Covid-19 pandemic. There is a vital role for the childcare sector in that response.

We are working to ensure that key workers who have no option but to access childcare to allow them to attend work can continue to do so. This will be based on local need and implemented by the local authority, who may set slightly different criteria to meet the needs of their local communities. The Scottish Government has published the following guidance on this: https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus---school-and-elc-closures-guidance-on-critical-childcare-provision-for-key-workers/ . This makes clear that local authorities will decide what learning and childcare arrangements for the children of key workers are most appropriate for local circumstances.

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Scottish Government were in the process of developing an implementation plan for delivery of all the Women in Agriculture Taskforce recommendations and actions including those relating to rural childcare. There are also unique challenges our island communities encounter in accessing childcare, as was highlighted in the recently published National Islands Plan. The Scottish Government will come back to implementing the actions and recommendations from the Women in Agriculture Taskforce and National Islands Plan in due course.

The Scottish Government promotes the use of Integrated Pest Management (IPM), which aims to help land managers in all sectors, including agriculture, reduce their reliance on the use of pesticides, including those containing glyphosate. IPM is a site specific approach that integrates a full range of measures to manage pests, weeds and diseases, while minimising risks to people and the environment.

The Scottish Government will continue to work with land managers to further reduce reliance on pesticides as outlined in our recent Programme for Government.