Educational Attainment for Looked After Children

As an amendment to motion S1M-03943 in the name of Cathy Jamieson (Educational Attainment for Looked After Children), leave out from “the use” to end and insert “funding and other initiatives to improve attainment of looked after children; regrets, however, that progress has been so slow, particularly as the Scottish Executive has brought this and associated issues with regard to looked after children to debate in the Parliament on no less than four previous occasions; recognises that the issues cannot be resolved without adequate qualified staff in the system; supports wholeheartedly better integrated children’s services but suggests that the Executive desist from blaming local authorities and local authority staff for the problems caused by its own and previous governments’ policy failures, and therefore urges the Executive to acknowledge and address the financial and staffing pressures that local authorities face every day in attempting to meet their statutory duties.”