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Online materials have been published this year through Education Scotland's National Improvement Hub to give teachers and school leaders access to effective interventions to help close the poverty related attainment gap which are based on practice examples from around Scotland. We continue to work with partners to ensure this suite of materials is continuously updated and refreshed with examples of successful approaches. This includes working with the Education Endowment Foundation to provide a dedicated Scottish specific version of its toolkit data and application interface. An initial version was launched on 15 February 2017. Additionally on 18 April 2017 was published which sets a framework for activity on how the most relevant evidence can be made available to all levels of the school system.

The Scottish Government is in the process of finalising a contract with the Education Endowment Foundation over a three year period, at a cost of £300K including VAT, for the provision and updating of its toolkit data and application interface to support the development of a Scottish specific version. As part of the agreement there will be information sharing on research projects so that we can consider any potential interest or involvement. Education Endowment Foundation provided an initial dedicated version of their learning and teaching toolkit on 15 February 2017 that has been accessible to schools and authorities through Education Scotland’s National Improvement Hub. The next development of the Scottish version will be delivered in July 2017 with the toolkit hosted alongside the hub and links made with the Interventions for Equity examples and other practice and research materials articles on the hub. Thereafter the Scottish version will continue to evolve with links to related projects in Scotland; references to and summaries of Scottish based research; other evidence bases and exemplars. These measures will allow schools and authorities to benefit from global and national research on the impact of interventions to support learners from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The Scottish Legal Complaints Commission is an independent statutory body and operates independently of both the Scottish Government and the legal profession. It is for the Commission to determine the annual levy to be paid by the legal profession, in accordance with legislation. Scottish Ministers have no statutory powers regarding the Commission and cannot intervene in operational matters.

Data is not collected for nursery settings specifically, but for all centres providing the funded entitlement of Early Learning and Childcare (ELC). The following tables show the number of teachers working in ELC settings from 2010 onwards, broken down by the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) quintiles, based on the location of the setting. This analysis is based on data collected through the ELC census in September each year.

Comparable data is not available prior to 2010 as the census process was changed in this year.

From 2014 onwards, data on centrally employed teachers in ELC was collected separately. This affects the breakdown by SIMD since these teachers work in various settings across their local authority, and therefore cannot be assigned to a particular or single SIMD area. This means that the results from 2014 onwards are not directly comparable to those from earlier years.

We have therefore presented the figures in two separate tables, with table 1 covering the period 2010-2013 and table 2 covering the period 2014-2016 and showing the number of centrally employed teachers which could not be allocated to an SIMD quintile.

Table 1: Teachers working in ELC settings by SIMD quintile, 2010-2013

1. SIMD 2012 was used for analysing 2010 to 2013 data. There were a small number of teachers that worked in settings for each year that could not be assigned to an SIMD quintile.

Table 2: Teachers working in ELC settings by SIMD quintile, 2014-2016

1. SIMD 2012 was used for analysing 2014 and 2015 data, and SIMD 2016 was used for 2016 data. There were a small number of teachers that worked in settings for each year (apart from 2016) that could not be assigned to an SIMD quintile.

2. Centrally employed teachers cannot be assigned to an SIMD quintile as they work in various locations across the local authority, from the most to the least deprived areas.

Consultations and published responses are available on the Scottish Government website:

Consultations and published responses are available on the Scottish Government website:

Although we currently do not collect data on graduates working within nurseries in Scotland, we will add questions on graduates to the Early Learning and Childcare census in September 2017 to be published in December. This will include the location of where graduates are based. Collecting this information each year will help us monitor our commitment to ensure that nurseries in the most deprived areas will benefit from an additional graduate by 2018. We are currently working with local authorities to consider how this data could be complemented by additional local information.

Neither programme has been in operation for five years.

Foundation Apprenticeships are in the early development phase. They are two year courses delivered in the senior phase since 2014. They were tested during 2014-16 with pilots running in West Lothian and Fife.

Statistical reporting for Foundation Apprenticeships is different from Modern Apprenticeships as they are one option in senior phase curriculum at school. They allow pupils to replace one of their subject choices with a foundation apprenticeship. Like other subject choices Foundation Apprenticeships can be changed or dropped by pupils.

In 2014-16 pathfinder there were 72 starts that delivered 42 completers and 21 early leavers. Early leavers include staying on at school, going to College, University, Apprenticeships and employment. The reporting for the 15/17 cohort will be available in the autumn of 2017.

Foundation Apprenticeships are undertaken at school so individuals are not employed and can’t be made redundant.

Graduate Level Apprenticeships were introduced from February 2016. 27 Graduate Level Apprentices have started between February 2016 (first intake) and January 2017. None have left the programme to date.

No Graduate level apprentices have been made redundant. SDS has a process in place that will ensure that any GLA apprentice facing redundancy will be supported to continue their apprenticeship with another employer where possible.

The Scottish Government has corresponded with European Free Trade Association (EFTA) officials to make practical arrangements for the meetings referred to in the answer to S5W-07503.

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The Scottish Government has similarly been in contact with representatives of the Faroese and Danish Governments to make arrangements for fact-finding meetings to discuss a range of issues.

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