I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-26746 on 17 July 2015 that provided the total costs* of employing special advisers in 2014-15 which is the last complete year for which the information is available.

Special advisers are appointed in accordance with Part 1 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 by the First Minister as a special adviser for the purpose of providing assistance to the Scottish Ministers. With the resignation of Alexander Anderson on 31 December 2015, there are currently 13 special advisers. The special advisers and their specific responsibilities are as follows:

Name	Role	Appointed
Liz Lloyd	Chief of Staff to the First Minister including the co-ordination of the Special Adviser team Senior Special Adviser on the Constitution and Europe Responsible for the First Minister’s Strategic Programme in Government.	30 January 2012
Noel Dolan	Senior Special Adviser to the First Minister First Minister’s Questions Policy advice to the First Minister	26 May 2011
Stuart Nicolson	Head of Communications Senior Political Spokesperson for the First Minister	26 May 2011
Colin McAllister	Head of Policy and Special Adviser to the Deputy First Minister Senior Special Adviser for Finance and Local Government First Minister’s Questions Programme for Government	3 October 2012
Malcolm Fleming	Senior Special Adviser for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism, for Rural Affairs, Food and Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform and for International Development	25 July 2011
Campbell Gunn	Communications Special Adviser Deputy Spokesperson for the First Minister	8 July 2013

 

 

 

 

 

Name	Role	Appointed
Ross Ingebrigtsen	Communications Special Adviser Deputy Spokesperson for the First Minister Strategic communications planning	20 January 2014
John MacInnes	Political and Media Research Support for First Minister’s Questions Support to Communications Special Advisers	3 June 2011
Davie Hutchison	Special Adviser for Health, Wellbeing and Sport and for Broadcasting	8 June 2011
John McFarlane	Special Adviser for Justice and for Infrastructure, Investment and the Cities Lead on Parliamentary Business including liaison with the Parliamentary Group	26 May 2011
Jeanette Campbell	Special Adviser for Social Justice, Communities and Pensioners’ Rights and for Fair Work, Skills and Training	1 April 2015
Kate Higgins	Special Adviser for Education and Lifelong Learning	1 April 2015
Katy Bowman	Support for the First Minister and the First Minister’s Private Office. Outreach and stakeholder engagement. Special Adviser for Culture and External Affairs and policy support to the Chief of Staff.	13 July 2015

 

The special adviser pay bands and ranges and the number of special advisers within each pay band currently in place are:

Pay Band	Current Pay Range	Number of Special Advisers
1	£39,445 - £52,904	9
2	£51,041 - £67,709	1
3	£65,017 - £83,963	3
3 (premium)	£83,549 - £100,942	0
4	£86,965 - £104,462	0

*Total Costs include salary, ERNIC and employer pension contributions.

The teacher census is conducted in September each year. The table shows the number of teachers identified in each year's census who were probationer teachers in the previous year and have not found a permanent post in a publicly funded school by the time of the census in the year after their probationary year.

	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015
Number of probationers without a permanent post after their first year of emploment (i.e. after their probationary year)	2,264	2,553	2,494	2,608	2,363	1,331	1,290	1,312	1,318

Significant numbers of these probationers had secured temporary posts by the time of the census. The overall proportion of post probationers in permanent or temporary employment at the time of the census in 2015 was 86% compared with 66% in 2007.

Prior to academic year 2014-15, student teacher intake targets for Post Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) secondary programmes of initial teacher education were not set on a subject specific basis. The table indicates the targets that have been set since 2014-15.

	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17
Science*	175	211	226
English	139	170	194
Maths	120	146	179
PE	39	37	33

*Science = Biology + Chemistry + Physics

In addition to the target for PGDE PE, 100 undergraduate PE places are allocated to the University of Edinburgh each year.

In addition to the target for PGDE science, 30 undergraduate places are allocated to the University of Strathclyde for concurrent degrees in chemistry, maths and physics, and 115 undergraduate places are allocated to the University of Stirling for combined degrees in a broad range of subjects including biology, English, maths and PE.

This is a matter for the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA). I have asked the chief executive of SQA to write to you.

The information requested is already in the public domain. It is published annually by the Scottish Funding Council and can be viewed at the following links:

http://www.sfc.ac.uk/guidance/guidance.aspx?Search=SFC/AN/01/2016&Type=Announcements&Sector=&From=01/01/2016&To=01/02/2016 

http://www.sfc.ac.uk/guidance/guidance.aspx?Search=SFC/AN/04/2015&Type=Announcements&Sector=&From=01/01/2015&To=28/02/2015 

http://www.sfc.ac.uk/guidance/guidance.aspx?Search=SFC/AN/03/2014&Type=Announcements&Sector=&From=01/01/2014&To=28/02/2014 

http://www.sfc.ac.uk/guidance/guidance.aspx?Search=SFC/02/2013&Type=Circulars&Sector=&From=01/01/2013&To=28/02/2013 

http://www.sfc.ac.uk/communications/Circulars/2012/SFC0312.aspx

 http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20110411221734/http:/www.sfc.ac.uk/news_events_circulars/Circulars/2011/SFC0111.aspx

 http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20110411230019/http:/www.sfc.ac.uk/web/FILES/CircularsSFC0510/sfc0510.pdf

 http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100411231559/http:/www.sfc.ac.uk/news_events_circulars/Circulars/2009/SFC1809.aspx

 http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100411231556/http:/www.sfc.ac.uk/news_events_circulars/Circulars/2009/SFC0809.aspx

 http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100411234441/http://www.sfc.ac.uk/web/FILES/CircularsSFC0808/sfc0808.pdf

 http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20081012001058/http:/www.sfc.ac.uk/information/info_circulars/sfc/2007/sfc4407/sfc4407.html

 http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20101011225710/http://www.sfc.ac.uk/news_events_circulars/Circulars/2007/SFC1307.aspx

The following table shows the number of teachers registered by the General Teaching Council for Scotland as being on the teacher induction scheme recorded in post in a publicly funded school at the time of the annual teacher census.

	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015
Number of probationers	3,502	3,102	3,044	2,857	1,944	2,044	2,215	2,448	2,524

A small proportion of probationer teachers do not join the teacher induction scheme, preferring to follow the 'flexible route' but the Scottish Government does not gather data relating to them.

Scottish domiciled student teachers, studying in Scotland, on both undergraduate and postgraduate teacher training courses, are eligible for help with their tuition fees and living-costs.

In addition to free tuition, our support package provides a minimum income of £7,625, through a combination of bursaries and loans, for eligible student teachers with a family income of less £17,000 (rising to £19,000 in academic year 2016-17). All Scottish domiciled students, irrespective of circumstances are eligible for a loan of up to £4,750 a year.

Scottish domiciled student teachers who choose to study in the rest of the UK are eligible for a tuition fee loan of up to £9,000 in addition to the above living-cost support.

As I indicated in my response to Jackie Baillie's oral question on 8 December 2015, the functions relating to the care, conservation and management of Properties in the Care of Scottish Ministers, of which Dumbarton Castle is one, have been delegated to Historic Environment Scotland under the Historic Environment Scotland Act 2014.

Historic Environment Scotland is developing plans to invest in Dumbarton Castle over the next five years.

The timetable for their production has been set to take account of integration of health and social care going live in 2016. There is a legal duty for health and social care partnerships to produce a strategic plan and a duty for the delegating parties to be fully involved throughout that process. Health and social care partnerships are formally established from 1 April 2016 and it is important that they are involved in the preparation of local delivery plans (LDPs). The timetable for the development of the 2016-17 LDPs has been set to support and manage orderly planning and budgeting through alignment and collaboration.

Overall, these changes to the planning landscape mean that boards are due to submit draft LDPs in March 2016 with finalised LDPs to be submitted by the end of May 2016. Our published guidance said that NHS boards should submit a draft LDP by 4 March 2016, we have extended that slightly to enable further work on the draft plans to take place. Draft plans will still be submitted in March 2016 before the start of the financial year and these will be reviewed as part of our planning and performance cycle.

We expect to sign-off local delivery plans (LDPs) in June 2016 and NHS boards will publish their final LDPs immediately after sign-off. As in previous years NHS boards will be taking their draft LDPs through appropriate local boards and committees.