Chamber and committees

There is no requirement to consult on proposed amendments to the NHS (General Dental Services) (Scotland) Regulations.

However, it is standard practice to inform relevant stakeholders of forthcoming amendments to regulations in advance of their parliamentary laying period. Therefore a copy of proposed amendments to the regulations, including an amendment to allow unannounced dental practice inspections, was sent by officials to the British Dental Association (Scotland) on 7 January 2016.

The Scottish Government launched A National Approach to Anti-Bullying for Scotland’s Children and Young People in 2010. The national approach forms part of our wider attempts to improve the health and wellbeing of our children and young people. It fits in with our ongoing work to ensure children and young people feel safe and secure and are able to build up strong and positive relationships with their peers and with adults, as well as our work to promote positive behaviour.

Following many legislative and policy developments since the publication of the national approach, a working group was established in January 2015 to refresh the guidance. This group is made up of experts from a number of organisations that have experience of working in this area of work including COSLA, Education Scotland, ENABLE, LGBT Youth, Stonewall Scotland, Youthlink Scotland, CELCIS and sportscotland.

The purpose of the refreshed national approach is to communicate and promote a common vision and aims to make sure that work across all sectors and communities is consistently and coherently contributing to a holistic approach to anti-bullying in Scotland. Following extensive consultation with children and young people, parents and carers and practitioners, the revised national approach will be published in spring 2016.

The refreshed national approach will refer to a range of strategies and programmes being used throughout Scotland that can improve relationships and behaviour and help prevent and address bullying. This includes restorative approaches which can be used to restore relationships that have broken down as a result of bullying. Education Scotland continue to provide support to local authorities and schools on implementing positive relationship approaches.

Unannounced inspections of dental practices will improve patient safety by allowing NHS boards to respond to specific concerns, such as infection control incidents.

No. The amendment to allow unannounced practice inspections was included as one of a number of amendments to the NHS (General Dental Services) (Scotland) Regulations.

<>All NHS dental practices are subject to a routine inspection by the health board on a three-year cycle. An unannounced inspection will be made if, following a routine inspection, a patient safety issue has arisen and needs to be followed up by the board, or where the NHS board receives information that necessitates immediate further investigation.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-29681 on 24 February. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

As an employer, the Scottish Government is committed to providing a workplace free from discrimination and to ensuring the fair treatment of staff. We are committed to dealing with staff grievances fairly, consistently, quickly through our robust Fairness at Work policy. We also recognise the potential value to all parties of being able to resolve a dispute in an alternative way. Therefore in addition to the informal and formal processes we have introduced the opportunity to resolve issues through mediation.

Through our People Strategy and Fairness at Work policy we set out clearly the culture and behaviours we as an organisation expect to see from our staff and managers. We recognise that, if concerns are not dealt with in a way that is perceived as fair or are left unresolved, the working relationship may deteriorate and impact on all individuals involved. We therefore have various methods in addition to the informal and formal policy through which we encourage people to record and report bullying and harassment, including via our trades unions and staff diversity networks. We capture through our People Survey areas where levels of bullying or harassment are higher and our diversity manager works with these areas to build confidence of both staff and managers to tackle the issues directly.

Our Equality Outcome – Equality And Diversity Matters sets out our ambition to raise the confidence of managers and staff to deal with issues around diversity and equality. As part of our improvement process we will be undertaking analysis to measure over time the level of knowledge about human resources policies and how staff feel about unfair treatment as well as to better understand the issues on which our staff most regularly require information.

We have established and wholly fund respectme, a national anti-bullying service, to build confidence and capacity to tackle bullying effectively, aligned to the National Approach to Anti-bullying for Scotland's Children and Young People. respectme provide direct support to local authorities, schools, youth groups and all those working with children and young people and support them in implementing local and organisational anti-bullying policies effectively.

The self-evaluation tool ‘How Good is Our School 4’ was launched in September 2015 and will come into force for all schools in August 2016. This includes a Safeguarding quality indicator and a specific quality indicator on ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusion which will support schools to effectively evaluate their own practice and support self-improvement. Education Scotland is currently reviewing its process of inspection, and new models of inspection are being tried out.

The Scottish Schools (Parental Involvement) Act 2006 recognises the vital role that parents play in supporting their children’s learning by strengthening the framework for supporting parental involvement in school education. There is a duty on Scottish Ministers and education authorities to promote the involvement and engagement of parents in children’s education and the wider life of the school.

The Act provides a framework for ensuring that parents have the opportunity to express their views and have these taken into account on policy matters affecting the education of their children, including bullying. It makes provision for parents to be a member of the parent council at school and to have the views of the wider parent forum (whole body of parents in a school) represented to the school, education authority and others through a representative parent council for the school. It also gives them the right to raise their concerns and/or make a complaint.

We have established and wholly fund respectme, the national anti-bullying service, to build confidence and capacity to tackle bullying effectively, aligned to the National Approach to Anti-bullying for Scotland's Children and Young People. respectme also provide direct support to local authorities, schools, youth groups and all those working with children and young people. respectme also provide training to parents and carers around internet safety which also includes bullying. respectme has recently produced a document ‘Bullying…a guide for Parents and Carers’.

In addition, the refreshed national approach (which is due to be published in spring 2016), makes clear the role of all adults (including parents) in preventing and dealing with bullying as well as what they can expect from others.

This government wants every child and young person in Scotland to grow up free from bullying and to develop respectful, responsible and confident relationships. Bullying of any kind is unacceptable and must be addressed quickly, whenever it arises.

Each local authority is responsible for the care, safety and welfare of pupils in school in the authority area. We all know that children and young people need to feel safe and secure in their learning environment to fully grasp the benefits of the curriculum. That is why anti-bullying policies should be at the heart of a whole school approach to creating a positive and welcoming ethos, and why health and wellbeing sits alongside literacy and numeracy as the responsibility of all staff. This includes each practitioner’s role in promoting open, positive, supportive relationships across the school community.

We have established and wholly fund respectme, a national anti-bullying service, to build confidence and capacity to tackle bullying effectively, aligned to the National Approach to Anti-bullying for Scotland's Children and Young People. respectme provide direct support to local authorities, schools, youth groups and all those working with children and young people.

We expect that all local authorities have an anti-bullying policy that covers all of their schools/establishments and each school/establishment should develop and implement an anti-bullying policy in line with this. All staff and partners working with children and young people should have a good understanding of the anti-bullying policy and clear expectations of their role in its implementation. This policy must be shared with a clear expectation that all staff, volunteers, children, young people and parents and carers have a clear understanding of the policy.

In particular, the anti-bullying policy and procedures should be communicated and shared to ensure that children and young people and their parents and carers know who they can talk to, what they can expect if bullying occurs and how bullying incidents will be resolved.

The refreshed national approach to anti-bullying, which is due to be published in spring 2016, makes clear of the role of all adults and children and young people in preventing and dealing with bullying, as well as what they can expect from others.