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Under the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007, local authorities have a duty to assess someone’s need for adoption support services and then provide that support. This may include counselling and guidance for parents who have adopted or may adopt a child, as well as assistance in relation to the adoption process, including preparation for adoption.

In 2023-24, the Scottish Government allocated over £480,000 directly to organisations delivering support for adoptive families and practitioners. This funding supports a range of initiatives, including: a national helpline; services for practitioners; an Adoption Contact Register; Adoption Week Scotland; and Adoption UK’s PATHways service. PATHways is a free therapeutic intervention programme which helps adoptive parents to achieve better outcomes for their children by giving them early access to a clinical psychologist and peer support.

The Scottish Government has also allocated £32 million in 2023-24 to Children’s Services Planning Partnerships in local areas as part of the Whole Family Wellbeing programme of activity, which aims to deliver transformational change to improve holistic whole family support, including for adoptive parents.

Under the Adoption Agencies Regulations (Scotland) 2009, each local authority or adoption agency which is carrying out functions such as the assessment of prospective adopters must appoint an adoption panel.

The Scottish Government’s 2011 Guidance on the Looked After Children (Scotland) Regulations 2009 and the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007 sets out that the adoption panel should reflect the community from which children and families may come, as adopters are wide ranging and panels need to be informed and sensitive to issues around ethnicity, beliefs, sexuality and lifestyles.

Scottish Government grant making is allocated across portfolios to various parts of the third sector to improve a wide range of outcomes. Some Scottish Government funding will be issued through third sector intermediary organisations. Spending is not all specifically classified as to whether or not it is allocated to third-sector organisations to deliver services. Consequently the information requested is not available.

Investing in skills across people’s lifetimes is critical to our future productivity and success as the economy and labour market continues to evolve over the coming decades. This is underlined by our commitment to a skilled workforce set out within the National Strategy for Economic Transformation.

Apprenticeships are a key tool for employers to invest in their workforce, providing the skills the economy needs both now and in the future. There are currently over 80 Modern Apprenticeships (MAs) frameworks available in Scotland, including Freight Logistics which has a pathway in Driving Goods Vehicles.

Skills Development Scotland (SDS) provide funding contributions towards the cost of training and assessing MAs on behalf of Scottish Government. Funding contributions are available for Freight Logistics (Driving Goods Vehicles) across all age groups. Full details of the current contribution rates can be found on the SDS website at 2021-22-appendix-1-ma-contribution-table010623.pdf (skillsdevelopmentscotland.co.uk)

The effectiveness of Project Bank Accounts is monitored and reviewed on a regular basis. Applicability was expanded in 2019 and the current considered position is that further expansion is not justified at this time. Scottish Government actively facilitates PBA use beyond mandated applicability in two main ways (1) flexibility to use a PBA on projects which are marginally below threshold (2) organisational freedom to use a PBA on lower value projects where they consider it appropriate.

Expanding PBA coverage would increase the number of applicable projects but risks upsetting the current fine balance of commercial viability, corporate capacity, skilled capability and budget affordability. Keeping those factors in a reasonable state of equilibrium is fundamental to ensuring PBAs remain a viable means of delivering prompt and insolvency-protected payment to supply chain firms.

No formal assessment has been carried out on the impact of increased mortgage rates on First Time Buyers (FTB’s), however we are aware that an increase in mortgage rates will make it more difficult for many FTB’s to obtain mortgage lending or in fact access it due to a decreased number of products available.

The latest data suggests a slowdown in housing market activity for first-time buyers, with mortgage advances falling to 5,520 in Q1 2023, this is 8% lower than the pre-pandemic baseline. This is potentially due to successive increases in the Bank Rate since December 2021.

We continue to support home ownership and have interventions in place to help first time buyers through our Low Cost Initiative for First-Time Buyers (LIFT) scheme which helps people on low to moderate incomes to buy their first home.

Our first-time buyer relief for Land and Buildings Transaction Tax has the effect of raising the nil-rate threshold from £145,000 to £175,000, saving first-time buyers up to £600.

While application numbers to our schemes have yet to show a decline we anticipate that the current mortgage market conditions will make delivery of our schemes more challenging.

Social Security Scotland routinely publishes information on Scottish Child Payment applications, payments and an estimate of the number of children actively in receipt of the payment.

While Social Security Scotland has not published the number of parents or carers in receipt of Scottish Child Payment to date, development is currently underway to do so in the next edition of the Scottish Child Payment Official Statistics publication. This will also include the number of parents or carers actively in receipt of Scottish Child Payment by age group. This next edition will cover the period to the end of June 2023 and is due to be published on 29 August 2023.

As of March 2023, around 12% (37,560) of applications for Scottish Child Payment were made by parents or carers aged under 25. It is important to note that these statistics relate to applications, not receipts of Scottish Child Payment. This information can be found in the latest Scottish Child Payment Official Statistics publication:

https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/publications

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-19380 on 11 July 2023. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

As Minister for Higher and Further Education, and Veterans, Scotland's Shared Apprenticeships sit within my portfolio of responsibilities.

Scottish Government officials last met with their Welsh Government counterparts on 29 June 2023. The meeting was a Four Nations introductory meeting to share knowledge, policy and practice on foster care. Officials have met their Welsh counterparts on 16 occasions since 2021 to discuss a range of policies relating to children in care and social care.