Chamber and committees

I have written to the Immigration Minister four times (on 13 August, 10 September, 8 December and 16 December 2015) to express the Scottish Government’s concerns about the impact on asylum seekers of proposals contained in the Immigration Bill relating to asylum. The Scottish Government has not made representations to non-governmental organisations or children’s charities about the Immigration Bill, although ministers and officials are in regular contact with organisations working with refugees and asylum seekers, including on this issue.

The provision and use of B&B accommodation to provide temporary accommodation in meeting its legislative duties on homelessness is a matter for City of Edinburgh Council.

The Homeless Persons (Unsuitable Accommodation) (Scotland) Order was strengthened by the Scottish Government in 2014, and outlines a number of standards that need to be met in temporary accommodation for households with children and pregnant women.

The Minister for Housing and Welfare wrote to City of Edinburgh Council about the use of B&B accommodation for households with children and pregnant women in September 2015.

This correspondence made clear that such accommodation should only be used in exceptional circumstances for a short period of time. The response from City of Edinburgh Council was encouraging and the council have outlined the priority that they are giving to this issue.

The Scottish Government has put in place a number of measures to ensure that the experience of temporary accommodation is as positive as possible for children and pregnant women before they move to settled accommodation.

This includes a strengthening of the Homeless Persons (Unsuitable Accommodation) (Scotland) Order 2014, which makes it clear that a number of standards need to be met in temporary accommodation for households with children and pregnant women. These standards ensure accommodation is ‘wind and watertight’ and also address proximity to schools and health services and provision of room to play.

Local authorities have a legal duty to provide housing support to homeless households with children, where this has been assessed as being required. The Scottish Government has also published guidance on Meeting the Best Interests of Children Facing Homelessness in 2011.

Scotland has strong housing rights for homeless households with all those assessed as being unintentionally homeless by local authorities entitled to settled accommodation.

The Scottish Government is increasing affordable housing supply to expand settled accommodation options for households. We are investing over £1.7 billion to deliver 30,000 affordable homes and we have now met and exceeded the current target, and within that the constituent parts – 20,000 social homes including 5,000 council homes. We have also increased the grant funding available for next year by over £90 million, as the first stage in our determination to boost housing supply still further.

We are committed to continual improvement and consistency in the delivery of the housing options approach with guidance published on 2 March 2016. A training toolkit is being developed to assist in delivering housing options and the Scottish Government recently announced continued funding of £150,000 to the five Housing Options Hubs for 2016-17.

The Schools (Health Promotion and Nutrition) Act (Scotland) 2007 places a number of duties on local education authorities including ensuring that schools are health promoting. This includes promoting physical, social, mental and emotional wellbeing by supporting pupils to make positive lifestyle choices in relation to their health and wellbeing. Under Curriculum for Excellence, all adults who work in schools have a responsibility to support and develop mental, emotional, social and physical wellbeing.

Our National Approach to Anti-Bullying for Scotland’s Children and Young People forms part of our wider attempts to improve the health and wellbeing of our children and young people and is currently being updated to reflect recent legislative and policy developments.

The approach sets out a common vision and aims to make sure that work across all agencies and communities is consistently and coherently contributing to a whole school approach to anti-bullying in Scotland.

We fully fund respectme, Scotland's national anti-bullying service to build confidence and capacity and deliver free training to schools and local authorities to address all types of bullying including homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying. respectme has trained, to date, 6,463 adults in Scotland. 52% (3,377 adults) are working in education and have attended training which includes a specific component on prejudice based bullying. respectme have approximately 700 teachers/education staff trained as anti-bullying trainers.

Education Scotland also continue to provide support around promoting positive relationships with children and young people, which includes providing support and resources for schools around anti-bullying strategies.

The Scottish Government is clear that there is no place in Scotland for prejudice or discrimination, and that everyone deserves to be treated fairly regardless of age, disability, gender, gender identity, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or sexual orientation. We must continue, unrelentingly, to tackle prejudice and discrimination and promote equality and diversity; and we must begin this work early in schools.

It is for local authorities and schools to decide how to develop their own approaches to ensure staff have the appropriate skills to implement Curriculum for Excellence, based on local needs and circumstances. In 2015 the Scottish Government published guidance on the conduct of relationships, sexual health and parenthood (RSHP) education which clearly states that RSHP education addresses diversity and reflects issues relating to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex (LGBTI) young people or children with LGBTI parents. The Glow intranet site, available to all local authorities, has links to both LGBT Youth Scotland and Stonewall Scotland resources within the RSHP section to support LGBTI inclusion in schools.

The Standards for Registration from the General Teaching Council for Scotland requires teachers to commit to the principles of democracy and social justice through fair, transparent, inclusive and sustainable policies and practices in relation to the protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010. Further, part 5 of the Code of Professionalism and Conduct on ‘Equality and Diversity’ requires teachers to engage and work positively with pupils, help pupils understand different views, perspectives and experiences and develop positive relationships as well as recognise that they are role models. Education Scotland continue to offer rights training based on equality and universal dignity and this is available to all local authorities.

The Scottish Government very much advocates training around RSHP education and would encourage local authorities and schools to provide training for their teachers. We encourage organisations who offer training on LGBT issues to contact schools and local authorities directly.

Education Scotland continues to improve resources for inclusion and equality within its webspace and recently offered a ‘Glow meet’ to celebrate Transgender Awareness Week. This Glow TV event aimed to raise awareness and understanding of issues relevant to trans-inclusivity within educational contexts and had a target audience of teaching and service staff.

We have established and wholly fund respectme, Scotland’s anti-bullying service. respectme is managed and delivered in partnership with LGBT Youth Scotland and the Scottish Association for Mental Health. respectme works with all adults who work with children and young people to give them the practical skills and confidence to deal with all types of bullying behaviour, wherever it occurs, and for whatever reason.