local government policy

This is an evaluation report of the Boarding Provision for Vulnerable Children Pathfinder announced in the white paper 'Higher standards, better schools for all' (2005). The Pathfinder was intended to explore whether boarding school provision might be used to provide support, stability and improved life chances for a larger number of vulnerable children and young people. Ten local authorities and fifty boarding schools originally signed up to the Pathfinder.

This report from the Social Justice Policy Group, chaired by Iain Duncan Smith, identifies five 'pathways' to poverty and makes proposals for tackling them. These pathways are: educational failure, family breakdown, economic dependence, indebtedness and addictions. A sixth section considers how the third sector might be better supported to help people escape poverty.

This document sets out a new framework for local partnerships on alcohol and drugs. It aims to ensure that all bodies involved in tackling alcohol and drugs problems are clear about their responsibilities and their relationships with each other; and to focus activity on the identification, pursuit and achievement of agreed, shared outcomes.

This is the report of the Alcohol and Drugs Delivery Reform Group. In January 2008 the Delivery Reform Group to improve alcohol and drug delivery arrangements and ensure better outcomes for service users was established by the Scottish Government. Members were invited from the Scottish Advisory Committee on Drug Misuse (SACDM) and the Scottish Ministerial Advisory Committee on Alcohol Problems (SMACAP).

This toolkit is intended to provide guidance to Alcohol and Drugs Partnership (ADP) in operating in an outcomes based environment and to support working relationships with local partners and service providers. This toolkit is intended to assist ADPs to identify local priority outcomes relating to alcohol and drugs.

These government guidelines have been prepared to help local authorities carry out their statutory responsibilities and manage their relationships with home educating parents. Where parents have chosen to home educate, it is important that home educated child to have a positive experience. These guidelines aim to clarify the balance between the right of the parent to educate their child at home and the responsibilities of the local authority. ‘Parents’ should be taken to include all those with parental responsibility, including guardians and carers.

Scottish Government interim guidance to local authorities on assessing the capacity of a child's relatives as potential kinship carers for a looked after child and the support they will require.

The assessment process should help kinship carers to feel more involved and consulted and able to identify the kinds of supports they believe they need to look after the child safely and in a way that promotes the child's best interests.

There is a growing realisation that service uses and carers should be involved in developing the services they receive. Their expertise as users of services and what they want from services should be heard. It is particularly important that service users are involved in the national organisations that regulate services, the workforce, education and training n social care.

This framework complements the Early Years Framework, and Equally Well, the report of the Ministerial Taskforce on Health Inequalities, all of which taken together form a coherent approach to addressing disadvantage in Scotland. This framework builds on the good work already underway across Scotland and illustrates progress with actions in support of our shared objectives.

Report on how local authorities spent additional funding to make progress in raising the attainment of children in care.