Chamber and committees

As I announced to Parliament on 23 March, our vision for the expansion of the Early Learning and Childcare entitlement to 1140 hours will be underpinned by a new service model which prioritises and safeguards quality provision while offering parents a greater choice of settings.

This Funding Follows the Child model, which will be implemented nationally in 2020, will ensure financially sustainable provision and will be underpinned by a national standard which will make it a more open, proportionate and consistent process for becoming a funded provider.

We will establish a new Service Models Working Group, who will develop the details of the new funding follows the child model, and produce the new national standard for becoming a funded provider.

Furthermore, as announced by the First Minister on 18 March, we will invest
£50 million to extend payment of the Living Wage to all childcare staff delivering the funded entitlement in private and third sector nurseries by the end of this Parliament.

The Scottish Government is committed to supporting prisoners to secure appropriate housing on release and to addressing homelessness amongst prisoners and their families. All those assessed as unintentionally homeless by local authorities, including prisoners upon liberation, are entitled to settled accommodation as a legal right.

The Scottish Government recognises the particular challenges that may be faced by prisoners and their families and the support that may be required. The Scottish Government and the Scottish Prison Service, together with a number of partners, are supporting on-going work to develop a consistent and shared approach to housing provision for prisoners across the country. This work focusses on the coordination and planning of offenders’ housing needs while in custody and on liberation.

Local authorities help prisoners with their immediate housing needs and, through the housing options approach, may consider other issues such as employability, need for mediation and the life skills needed to cope in society.

Through the Reducing Reoffending Change Fund (RRCF), the Scottish Government funds a range of offender mentoring services that provide practical one-to-one support to individuals leaving prison, and helping them to engage with the public services they need to reintegrate into the community – including housing or homelessness services. Over 2012-17 the Scottish Government has committed £13.5 million to the RRCF.

Drug taking amongst the general population in Scotland is falling and the number of young people taking drugs remains low, but we remain determined to tackle the damaging impact of all problem drug use, and to make recovery a reality, through our national drugs strategy, The Road to Recovery. This has already led to reduced waiting times, with 94% now being seen within three weeks of referral, and the introduction of ‘Quality Principles’ ensuring that those accessing drug and alcohol services have access to the highest quality services to enable and support their recovery. Furthermore, through the Partnership for Action on Drugs in Scotland (PADS) and its subgroups we are engaged in a range of activities with our partners to reduce the impact of problem drug use. We continue to invest significant resources to support this strategy and have invested over £630 million since 2008 to tackle problem drug and alcohol abuse.

The Scottish Government note that there has been an increase in the number of unsolved sexual crimes between 2013 and 2016. This increase is, in part, a consequence of the increased number of sexual crimes reported to Police Scotland over this period.

Police Scotland note that there can be multiple reasons why crimes remain unsolved, including evidential shortfalls occasioned by factors beyond the control of the police which prevent the crime recording detection test being met. They note that this especially true of historical crimes where there can be investigatory challenges around the lack of forensic evidence and witnesses.

The Scottish Government's Youth Employment Strategy, Developing the Young Workforce, sought from the outset to expand the Modern Apprenticeship offer to create more opportunities and to better align the Modern Apprenticeship programme with key sectors and areas of economic growth, as well as to increase participation from under-represented groups. The introduction and expansion of Foundation Apprenticeships provides young people in their senior phase at school the opportunity to start their apprenticeship journey and complete elements of a Modern Apprenticeship while they are still at school, further promoting the career opportunities a Modern Apprenticeship provides.

The Scottish Government supported Scottish Apprenticeship Week 2017. This was the most comprehensive to date with all Scottish Government Ministers undertaking an event related to it. Also involved in the activities were schools, employers, apprentices, colleges, councils and training providers.

In addition the Scottish Government's skills agency Skills Development Scotland have recently promoted events and campaigns including:

The Scottish Apprenticeship Shows in Glasgow and Edinburgh in October. These events were aimed at pupils from S2 to S4 and their families. The shows provided the chance to meet apprentices and their employers to get hands-on experience of the opportunities available.

Additional regional events were held throughout November where SDS worked with a range of partners to promote apprenticeships to young people in Inverness, Dundee, Aberdeen, Ayrshire, Forth Valley, Dumfries and Galloway, Argyll and Bute and the Borders.

Furthermore, Skills Development Scotland promote Modern Apprenticeships in a number of ways including its new Apprenticeship.scot website and My World of Work. It is also widening the reach of the programme through its equality action plan and as part of its regular engagement with businesses across Scotland.

These are important means to help with the Scottish Government's ambitious plans to grow and enhance the Modern Apprenticeship programme to 30,000 new starts a year by 2020.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that healthier lifestyles are adopted by people from all age groups including young people through a wide range of actions. We know that young people not in education, employment or training are particularly vulnerable to poorer health outcomes including cancer-related conditions. Our priority is to reduce youth unemployment.

That is why we are implementing the recommendations of Commission for Developing Scotland’s Young Workforce on our Youth Employment Strategy to reduce youth unemployment by 40% by 2021.

In 2016, we announced a £59million investment of European Social Funds for the Youth Employment Initiative to support young people in South West Scotland into secure and sustainable employment.

As part of his independent ‘Review of the Implementation of the Recommendations of the Advisory Group on Tackling Sectarianism in Scotland’, Dr Duncan Morrow, former Chair of the Advisory Group, gathered evidence from a wide range of sources across Scottish society, including all political parties represented in the Scottish Parliament, and presented a number of constructive findings and recommendations. This highlighted concerns that a culture of denial and a lack of urgency exists in some quarters when it comes to tackling sectarianism.

It is very clear from the review that, while progress has been made, more work remains to be done to eradicate sectarianism and that we all have a responsibility to meet this challenge. I welcome Dr Morrow’s Review and will give full consideration to the findings and recommendations.

I am aware that a number of organisations, such as the Law Society, Stonewall and the Equality Network, have expressed support for the idea of consolidated hate crime legislation. That is why I have commissioned the independent ‘Review of Hate Crime Legislation in Scotland’ to ensure that all communities subjected to hate crime have appropriate regress to law and that our legislation is fit for the 21st century. The review, which began on 30 January 2017, will consider all hate crime legislation, including legislation which supports tackling sectarianism. I look forward to Lord Bracadale presenting his findings in due course.