1. To ask the Scottish Government how its cross-portfolio work on tackling adverse childhood experiences is contributing to closing the attainment gap. (S5O-02207)

I remind members that I am the parliamentary liaison officer to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills.

The Scottish Government recognises the negative impact of adverse childhood experiences on the wellbeing of children, which in turn has a direct impact on their attainment. The Scottish attainment challenge has a specific focus on health and wellbeing, alongside literacy and numeracy. Using funding from the £750 million attainment Scotland fund, schools are delivering a variety of health and wellbeing interventions to support their pupils, including those who have been impacted by adverse childhood experiences.

In addition, I hosted an event in March along with the First Minister and other ministerial colleagues to hear from people working across sectors about the actions that are needed to drive progress on ACEs. We have published a report on what we heard and I have committed to build on that important dialogue.

Research published last month by the Educational Institute of Scotland detailed the impact of poverty on Scottish education. Children are unable to afford school trips, they come to school hungry and they arrive at school in dirty clothes. Does the Cabinet secretary plan to address the impact of adverse childhood experiences with his United Kingdom counterpart? Does he agree that the Tories’ ideological obsession with austerity is damaging the—

No—you have had your question. I am sorry, but we are short of time.

Austerity is undoubtedly having an effect on the circumstances of young people, and the Government is taking a number of measures to try to address that through various interventions. We spend more than £100 million a year mitigating the effects of austerity. In the tackling child poverty delivery plan, we have set out a range of measures across Government to try to tackle those issues. Some of the substantial issues that Jenny Gilruth raised about young people missing out on opportunities can be alleviated by the utilisation of Scottish attainment challenge funding.

The Government recently reached an agreement with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to establish a minimum school clothing grant of £100, which will be a significant benefit to an overwhelming Majority of those young people in Scottish schools. I appreciate the agreement that we have reached with local government to take that step to assist in tackling the issues that Ms Gilruth has raised.

The Cabinet secretary referred to the engagement with COSLA. Obviously, local authorities are key to the delivery of the aspirations that he has set out. Will he outline the work that is being done with COSLA and the process for managing that on-going engagement?

We have regular discussions with COSLA at individual portfolio level and I met the COSLA education spokesperson just yesterday. Last week, as a team of ministers, we met the leadership of COSLA—the president, the vice-president and political group leaders across the political spectrum, including the leader of Orkney Islands Council, who was there on behalf of the independent group—to focus on how our combined efforts can support the same policy direction.

There was a very good example of that on Monday with the launch of the national performance framework, which has been endorsed by COSLA. Indeed, COSLA has been actively involved in its preparation, as have members of Parliament across the spectrum, to ensure that we overcome any effects of compartmentalisation in Government policy making. There is a need for cross-portfolio work to address the issues that are raised by adverse childhood experiences, as we will only address those questions if we work across boundaries.