Chamber and committees

We know from the Scottish Survey of Achievement that the majority of children develop a good grounding in literacy skills in early primary. However, a minority do not and we are determined that everything that needs to be done to support them is done.

Curriculum for Excellence is designed to help drive up standards and literacy and numeracy are at its heart. It provides schools and teachers with the framework within which they can develop appropriate assessments in order to recognise and assist pupils with a range of literacy and numeracy support needs. For the first time, literacy and numeracy are the responsibility of all teachers. We expect all local authorities to have effective literacy and numeracy strategies in place and to develop and provide professional development programmes to support their strategies.

In addition, the new Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy will sample and assess progress in numeracy and literacy skills in alternate years at P4, P7 and S2 beginning with numeracy in May this year.

Information on the number of specialist nursing or occupational therapist roles supporting people with autism is not captured separately in the workforce statistics. NHS National Service Scotland, Information Services Division (ISD) publish data annually as at 30 September. Information showing the head count and whole-time equivalent of clinical nurse specialists by specialty, including mental illness, by NHS board is available at:

http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/servlet/FileBuffer?namedFile=Clinical%20Nurse%20Specialists%202010.xls&pContentDispositionType=attachment

Information on allied health professionals, including occupational therapy staff, by NHS board is available at http://www.isdscotland.org/isd/5332.html

Latest published information is at 30 September 2010.

The arrangements for remunerating the chair of the National Performance Management Committee were approved by the then Health Minister, Andy Kerr, in 2006. These are based on the ceiling of the Band 2 daily fee for chairs, as set out in paragraph 5.19 of the annex to the Scottish Government Public Sector Pay Policy for Senior Appointments:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/public-sector-pay/senior-appointment-pay.

The terms of the appointment provide for up to 24 days per annum to be paid, which, at the current daily rate, would equate to an annual remuneration of £9,648. However, in practice, the actual number of days remunerated has been below 24 in each year of the appointment.

Ministers have never met the National Performance Management Committee.

I meet representatives of COSLA regularly, and have done so several times in the last few weeks.

The detailed information requested is currently being collated and I will write to the member as soon as this is available. A copy of the response will be placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 51698).

The Scottish Government does not hold this information. Information relating to board membership details of the public bodies which are regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments in Scotland are shown on the Scottish Government''s public appointments website “ http://www.appointed-for-scotland.org/About-public-bodies/NDPB-Directory/. The directory does not hold details of any past appointments.

Each of the funds is delivered by a different body, each of which has put in place specific monitoring mechanisms.

(a) The Social Entrepreneurs Fund is delivered by Firstport who are measuring the journey travelled by awardees against five indicators: governance, leadership, business planning, operations, and marketing.

(b) The Third Sector Enterprise Fund is delivered in-house by Scottish Government. Each awardee is asked to provide a regular monitoring report and a final report at the end of the funded period, covering the following areas: what the investment has been used for; the difference it has made; progress achieved towards meeting expected outcomes, and any unexpected outcomes.

(c) The Scottish Investment Fund is delivered by Social Investment Scotland, who are using Social Return on Investment (SROI) to measure the social impact of the investment.

In addition, the Scottish Government has recently commissioned EkosGen to carry out an evaluation of the three third sector funds and business support package. The main focus of this work is to look at the needs of the sector going forward but it will also give some initial indications of the impact of the funds. However, much of the money has only recently been allocated so it is a little early to measure fully the impact of the funds.

The Scottish Government is committed to encouraging investment in, and development of, the Scottish economy. This includes encouraging lenders to support the cash, credit and capital needs of viable businesses, including those in the third sector.

The Scottish Government has committed, over two years until March 2011, £82,000 to the Business on Board programme, delivered by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations. The Business on Board programme includes encouraging and supporting people with business skills to join the boards of third sector organisations. To date over 50 third sector organisations have signed up and 42 business contacts have been identified and are being carefully matched to third sector organisations.