Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government intends to update the School Premises (General Requirements and Standards) (Scotland) Regulations 1967.

Given the previous consultation exercise took place in 2017-18, we must now consider the updated context that the regulations will exist in.

We are now taking this work forward and will re-consult on the Regulations in due course.

The Scottish Government is committed to evidence-based policy making. National Mission activity undertaken to date has been based on the evidence available and informed by people with lived and living experience, as well as the National Mission’s Clinical Advisory Group and National Mission Oversight Group.

For example, our approach to setting up the UK’s first Safer Drug Consumption Facility has been based on evidence from 300 existing safer drug consumption facilities already in operation around the world.

To ensure that our future strategic plans are evidence-based, they will be informed by the National Mission evaluation due to be published in 2026.

We will ensure that any new approaches to reducing deaths and harms is accompanied with evaluation as a matter of course, such as the Safer Drug Consumption Facility (The Thistle Service), which is due to open in the near future.

A full evaluation of the Thistle Service will be carried out, details of the evaluation package will be made available shortly but it will use a range of data to examine the impact of the facility on health, social, community, environmental, and economic outcomes.

The Case for Investment for Clyde Metro is being led by Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT), supported by Glasgow City Council, with Transport Scotland providing a project assurance and support role.

This key stage of the development process, which will include consideration of access improvement to Glasgow Airport, will inform decisions around network selection, phasing and implementation. This work is already underway and progressing in earnest with completion currently anticipated by early 2027.

Further details on the progress of the Case for Investment stages can be obtained by contacting SPT directly at [email protected].

Noise mitigation measures do not form part of the current scope of works being undertaken at Charing Cross.

Glasgow City Council are currently constructing an active travel scheme to install cycle lanes at Charing Cross and along St George’s Road. Therefore, as the area around Charing Cross is changing substantially, it is our intention to undertake noise monitoring in the area on completion of these works to ensure that any noise mitigation works implemented in the future work effectively following these major works.

Transport Scotland is committed to ensuring noise management is included in all their activities and responsibilities, including the work being undertaken on the M8 at Charing Cross. Transport Scotland has also been working closely with Glasgow City Council on providing noise management advice to the Future of the M8 Motion, and related schemes.

Carer Support Payment is replacing Carer’s Allowance in Scotland. Ahead of delivering the benefit we engaged extensively with carers and support organisations to consider how our benefit could work better, and we know the earnings limit is an area where people would like to see change.

Carer Support Payment largely mirrors Carer’s Allowance rules on earnings to protect a safe and secure transfer for people in Scotland already getting Carer’s Allowance. We have already improved how these rules are applied, for example with better ways of averaging earnings, reducing the impact of the ‘cliff edge’ for many carers.

We have also considered further changes which could be made once the transfer of benefits from Carer’s Allowance is complete. Our analysis found that an earnings taper to address the cliff edge earnings limit would add significant complexity for carers, operationally, and in terms of interactions with wider support. However we took feedback in our 2022 public consultation on two proposals which would help address this issue – an increase to the earnings threshold, with a link to 16 hours at a specific rate, such as Real Living Wage, and a proposal for a run on of support where carers earn over the limit so that they don’t lose all support immediately.

The legal powers to mandate the reporting of pay gaps is largely reserved to the UK Parliament and is currently limited to the reporting of gender pay gaps under the Equality Act 2010 (Gender Pay Gap Information) Regulations 2017. There is no requirement for data to be disaggregated or collected to the level of parental status and Scottish Ministers have no plans to expand pay gap reporting in this way.

The Scottish Government’s policy towards local authorities’ spending is to allow local authorities the financial freedom to operate independently. As such, the vast majority of funding is provided by means of a block grant. It is then the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

Decisions on Local Government budget allocations for future years are subject to the outcome of negotiations with COSLA, the results of which will be confirmed in future Scottish Budgets.

Furthermore, although it is the statutory responsibility of local authorities to manage and maintain their school estate, East Dunbartonshire Council will receive significant funding support from the Scottish Government - through the £2bn Learning Estate Investment Programme - for their Lenzie Academy project.

As part of their statutory responsibilities in relation to home to school transport local authorities are also required by the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 to have regard to the safety of pupils.

Where local authorities conclude a route used by pupils to walk to school is unsafe transport should be provided even though the distance falls short of their normal distance criteria. Existing guidance sets out that Ministers expect local authorities to keep their criteria for providing school transport under review and be flexible enough to take into account factors, relative to the nature of the route, which might affect pupil safety.

The Cabinet Secretary for Transport, the Minister for Agriculture and Connectivity and I have commissioned an update to the Scottish Government’s school transport guidance for local authorities to provide further clarity on our expectations in relation to safety.

The statutory minimum walking distances set out in legislation are a long-standing feature of our education system and there are no plans to change them. The Scottish Government published guidance for local authorities regarding home to school transport in 2021.

Officials have met with education leads in the local authorities expecting to be most affected to understand their assessment of the potential move of pupils to the state sector. We have also sought assurance from local authorities that they have the capacity to support pupils in the event of an independent school closing. I have met with the Scottish Council for Independent Schools and officials will continue to engage with them directly, following this policy change from the UK Government.

Tackling alcohol related harm remains a priority for Scottish Government, and we are treating our policies to reduce alcohol and drug deaths as twin public health issues in Scotland.

We are working to ensure that people who experience harms as a result of alcohol use receive the same quality of care and support as people who experience harms as a result of drug use. We work closely with Alcohol and Drugs Partnerships and regularly monitor services through the annual ADP survey. The most recent one, reflecting activity for 2023-24, was published on 12 November 2024 and notes the following on data surveillance.

Almost all ADP areas reported having specific groups or structures in place at ADP level to inform surveillance and monitoring of drug harms or deaths. All but two (93%) of ADPs reported having a drug death review group and 77% reported having a drug trend monitoring group or early warning system.

Fewer ADPs reported groups relating to alcohol, with a quarter (27%) reporting having an alcohol death review group and 30% reporting having an alcohol harms group.

A third of ADPs reported having other structures in place for informing surveillance, which included multi-agency groups working on drug death prevention and action plan groups, wider public health monitoring which included drug and alcohol harms and sudden death groups whose remits include both drug death reviews and suicides reviews. Several ADPs indicated that alcohol harm and death review groups are currently in development.

It is our expectation that future Alcohol and Drug Partnership (ADP) funding letters will ask ADPs to undertake local alcohol death review. This message will also be reinforced in our National Specification for treatment of drug and alcohol misuse in Scotland, which is currently in development and will build on the recommendations of the forthcoming UK Clinical Guidelines for Alcohol Treatment.