Fiona Hyslop MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism and External Affairs met with Joan McAlpine MSP, Convener European and External Relations Committee on Tuesday 16 August to discuss European, Tourism and Cultural Matters.

Jamie Hepburn MSP, Minister for Employability and Training met with Sandra White MSP, Convener to the Social Security Committee on 7 September to discuss Employability and Training matters.

The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) will take forward the new approach and will publish more detail for teachers in due course. As this is an operational matter for SQA, I have asked the Chief Executive to write to you.

The Scottish Government recognises the value of a successful and vibrant retail sector and regularly engages with the Scottish Retail Consortium (SRC) and its members across a wide range of policy priorities.

We provide various mechanisms of support to the sector, including zero or reduced rates for around 100,000 properties under the Small Business Bonus Scheme; almost two-thirds of shops benefit from some form of rates relief. The annual cost of the Small Business Bonus Scheme is estimated at around £178 million.

We also provide skills support for the sector through Skills Development Scotland, with over 2,000 Modern Apprenticeships having started in the sector during the last financial year 2015-16: and wider business advice via Business Gateway. Furthermore, the Scottish Government supports work with the grocery sector through a partnership approach with the food and drink industry. We remain focused on maintaining Scotland’s position as the most competitive environment for business and will continue to work closely with the retail sector.

The Scottish Government works closely with the independent Regulatory Review Group (RRG) to actively promote an improved regulatory landscape and reduce unnecessary burdens on business. The RRG has members drawn from the main business organisations in Scotland and the retail sector is represented by the Scottish Retail Consortium.

The national forum forms part of the activity associated with our proposed Research Strategy for school education. The Strategy is being drawn up following engagement with the academic community and stakeholders within the education system, and in light of the deliberations of the International Council for Education Improvement Advisers, which first met on 31 August 2016.

As part of the process, consideration is being given to the shape of engagement with practitioners and the academic community that will be required to implement the strategy’s objectives in the future, including the structure and role of a national forum.

Local action research projects to close the attainment gap are driven locally and no central register is kept.

The Scottish Government through its improvement agency, Education Scotland, promotes the use of action research based approaches across all local authorities and is actively engaged in supporting this work, for example through opportunities for local authorities to share their projects and the learning from them. This will build upon a conference held earlier in the summer.

It is the responsibility of individual schools to develop the most appropriate approach to reducing the vocabulary gap, as they best understand their local needs, context and priorities. However, the Scottish Government have set out in Delivering Excellence and Equity In Scottish Education – A Delivery Plan for Scotland an expectation that all schools have clear strategies in place across the curriculum in school session 2016-17 to reduce the gap in their context. This should include the vocabulary gap where appropriate.

The Scottish Government, through its education improvement agency, Education Scotland, is working with schools and early years settings to focus the curriculum to meet children’s needs fully including work to close the vocabulary gap. As part of this work, a number of professional learning resources related to education leadership as well as support materials on how schools can develop a literacy-rich curriculum in Primary one to Primary three to help to close the vocabulary gap have been published on the Education Scotland National Improvement Hub. These will support schools in developing their approaches.

The proposal to remove the current mandatory requirement for unit assessment at National 5 and Higher was discussed with the Assessment and National Qualifications Group prior to the announcement on 21 September 2016. The group includes a range of education stakeholders, including teacher unions, head teachers, the National Parent Forum of Scotland, COSLA, the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland, college and higher education representatives, and national education bodies. Members of the Teacher Panel were also consulted prior to the announcement.

The proposal was approved by the Curriculum for Excellence Management Board on 29 September 2016, which agreed that mandatory unit assessments would also be removed from Advanced Higher courses.

The Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) will take forward the new approach and will publish more detail for teachers in due course. As this is an operational matter for SQA, I have asked the Chief Executive of SQA to write to you.

The following table shows the number of jobs in the Scottish retail sector from
2009 - 2015.

The figures are the latest retail jobs figures as published by the Office for National Statistics on Wednesday 28 September.

 Table 1: Retail Jobs, Scotland, 2009 to 2015

Source: Business Register and Employment Survey (BRES) Office for National Statistics

The First Minister met with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on 29 June 2016 to raise awareness of the result of the EU Referendum vote in Scotland and to highlight Scotland’s desire to protect its relationship with the European Union. In addition, discussions between the European Commission and the Scottish Government take place regularly at both Ministerial and official level. Routine discussions have continued since the EU Referendum to ensure continuation of EU related business and to underline the Scottish Government’s commitment to working with the European Commission.