Milestone passed as women break through the glass ceiling
For the first time, women now account for half of all board members appointed to public bodies across Scotland. Of the 680 appointments to boards with regulated ministerial appointments, 341 are now women. Continue reading Representation on public boards: government hails gender parity
The charity Who Cares? Scotland has published first of their kind statistics, revealing that young people in care across Scotland are continually having to fight for basic rights every single day. These have today been published in a report entitled, “We Don’t Have to Wait.” Continue reading Scotland ‘risks a forgotten generation’
Young carers aged 11-18 are to benefit from a new nationwide Young Scot package of discounts and opportunities. Continue reading Extra support for young carers
Legislation to introduce an opt-out system of organ and tissue donation for deceased donors has been passed by the Scottish Parliament. Continue reading Opt-out system for organ donation gets green light
The Scottish Youth Parliament and the Children’s Parliament are to create a package of advice on the healthy use of social media and screen time. Continue reading Social media advice for young people, by young people
More than 83,000 carers in Scotland will this year get an extra £452.40 in Carer’s Allowance Supplement as a result of Scottish Government spending. Continue reading More financial support for Scotland’s carers
New awards recognise Early Learning and Childcare success
A nursery where children built a car out of old tyres and recycled wood is among the inaugural winners of a new awards scheme to boost the quality of childcare.
Other winners of the Scottish Government’s Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) Innovation Award include a nursery where children set up a café for parents and a nursery where children now grow their own food for lunch.
All six winning nurseries set up new creative experiences to challenge children and improve their social and language skills and self-confidence.
The six are:
All of the winning nurseries will receive £5,000 to further develop their innovative ideas.
Children’s Minister Maree Todd visited Clober Nursery and said: “Every winning nursery has gone above and beyond to give their children outstanding opportunities to learn and develop.
“Staff have come up with amazingly creative and fun ways to develop children’s understanding of the world around them, with great results already for the children, their families and staff.
“As quality is at the heart of our expansion plans, the awards will showcase best practice and encourage nurseries to share success with each other.”
Louise McHugh, an ELC practitioner from Clober Nursery, said: “Outdoor learning is an exciting and daily part of Clober Nursery.
“We strive to provide children with opportunities to learn and develop their risk-taking strategies, educate them to understand where food comes from as well as providing them with the opportunity to use their imagination with loose part play.
“We are only at the beginning of our outdoor learning journey and we cannot wait to see where the children’s investigations take us.”
Full Best Start Grant package now available
A brand new benefit for low income families is now open for applications. The £250 School Age Payment is for families with a child old enough to start primary school this August.
The payment is part of the Best Start Best Grant, a package of three payments for families in receipt of eligible benefits – including Universal Credit, Income Support, Housing Benefit and tax credits – to help at key stages in a child’s life.
The Best Start Grant package also includes the Pregnancy and Baby Payment, which has been open for applications since December 2018 and the Early Learning Payment, which launched in April.
Social Security Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said: “Covering the costs of a child starting school puts pressure on family finances, and we have created this new payment to help ease that burden, putting more money into the pockets of families at a time when they need it most.
“We are committed to doing all we can to make sure Scotland is the best place for a child to grow up. We want to increase financial support to families, bringing equality to children by giving them help towards a fairer start.
“We also want to encourage everyone who is entitled to a payment to apply, so will be working with services to promote the benefit to ensure as many people as possible are aware they can access this new additional support.”
Communities will face less disruption with new standards to manage road works and speed up the installation of fibre broadband. A national code of practice will see the standardisation of faster and more modern techniques for trench digging for improving utility services.
The development of more compact cables has seen modern techniques, such as requiring narrower holes and less excavation required, increasing the speed of delivery. The technique also safeguards the roads by reducing the need for return visits to repair failed trenches.
As well as broadband cable installation, this will mean shorter periods of disruption for power, water and gas works who use this technique.
Connectivity Minister Paul Wheelhouse (above) visited a Virgin Media dig to see a new broadband installation taking place and discuss the new code with the installation team. He said: “The Scottish Government has listened to the views of companies who tell us that narrow trenching can help companies deliver fibre broadband faster and with less disruption to communities.
“We understand that utility companies operate in a competitive market. They are therefore constantly looking for ways to improve their efficiency and to reduce their costs in order to keep ahead of their competition. This has led to innovation in how infrastructure, such as broadband, is deployed.
“We have updated the code to enable narrow trenching to take place consistently, and in a manner which protects our pavements and road network, and this has the added benefit that will result in the faster deployment of broadband across Scotland and a reduction in the disruption communities face during the roll out itself.”
Julie Agnew, Regional Director for Scotland at Virgin Media, said: “As Virgin Media continues to invest in bringing ultrafast broadband to more areas of Scotland, this new code gives much needed clarity for networks to be built in a fast, flexible and efficient way with minimal disruption.
“We thank the Scottish Government for working with us and creating an environment that encourages and supports broadband builders like Virgin Media.”
The Code of Practice comes into force immediately.
Continue reading More of Scotland’s bathing waters rated ‘excellent’ but Porty’s just ‘sufficient’
