Chamber and committees

I want to move on to an issue that relates to the important points on preventing homelessness that Mark Griffin raised but which does not seem to have become a key part of what is being done. For example, with regard to responsibility for homelessness services, the City of Edinburgh Council is currently missing out on about £9.3 million of funding, because those services are administered by the council and not by the integration joint board. I have raised the situation about five times with ministers and have not got an answer on why it is being allowed to occur. I believe that the council is also still trying to get answers.

Why has something like that, which is really important, not been part of these measures, in order to try to fix that sort of problem, which we see across Scotland? I imagine that I will try to have that dealt with in relation to the housing bill, but lots of things have been highlighted to us, and it is only the specific issue that we are dealing with today that ministers have taken forward in this bill, when, in fact, there are lots of other things that we should be looking at.

It certainly did; it was very helpful and there was a lot of information in there. Could you provide the committee separately with information about access, or lack of access, to interpreters? I know that Glasgow City Council has more than 100 interpreters for various languages, but the picture will be different in other parts of the country. If you could provide any information about that, it would be very helpful. Thank you.

In the interests of time, I will try to merge my questions into one. I know that we have seen some progress, such as the incorporation of the Domestic Abuse (Protection) (Scotland) Act 2021 into the updated Scottish social housing charter. Some of the submissions to the committee specifically pointed towards the need for funding around different prevention models. From your experience—and perhaps from your knowledge of what is happening globally—what different models do you think that Scotland should be looking at and the committee should be aware of? I will start with Dr Marsha Scott, and if anyone else wants to come in, they can put an R in the chat box.

Funding and beyond that. For example, one of the things that I have specifically been looking at is the family court model in Australia. I know that is more within the criminal justice side of what we might look at, but I just wondered what we should be looking at on this topic in terms of experiences and learning from around the world.

I totally realise that I have just put on the table a huge topic, so I would appreciate it if you could write to the committee with any further information.

I thank the witnesses for joining us this morning. I want to look across the two themes that we have been talking about today.

What are the barriers to leaving an abusive relationship in Scotland? Are there cultural barriers that we have not looked at properly? Is there more that we need to consider? I know from my work in Edinburgh supporting constituents in a couple of cases that one barrier is whether they can take their pets when those animals are also being abused. What additional services need to be put in place?

My second question—I do not know whether the witnesses want to answer it at the same time—is about funding gaps in specialist services.

I will hand that to Carolyn Fox McKay first. If anyone else wants to come in, please do.

During the pandemic, 1.1 million of our fellow Scots have become unpaid carers and we, as a society, owe them so much. There is support from parties across the Parliament for the extension of support when the caring role ends due to bereavement and when cared-for people are in hospital or residential care. Will the First Minister commit to including those potential reforms in the next programme for government?

To ask the First Minister whether she will provide an update on the Scottish Government’s plans to replace carers allowance with a devolved benefit. (S6F-00864)

This is an important debate, not just a technical one. I thank all those who work in our local authorities across Scotland for their hard work, especially for going the extra mile during the pandemic.

The Local Government Finance (Scotland) Order 2022 comes at the tail end of the budget process. Given that we have spent weeks debating the Scottish National Party and Green Government’s tax and spending choices, it might seem at this point that there is little more to add. Nevertheless, it is important that today’s parliamentary process gives us all an opportunity to highlight what needs to change.

The order allocates funding to each of Scotland’s 32 local authorities. We do not intend to oppose it, as that would simply deprive local government of much-needed resources for the coming year, but we have serious concerns about the overall allocation of resources to local councils across Scotland.

As has already been mentioned, I attended the COSLA conference on Friday, alongside other spokespeople, including Alex Cole-Hamilton. It is fair to say that SNP and Green ministers were left in no doubt about how council leaders and councillors across the country feel about the settlement.

Yet again, councils have been left in a situation in which they have to find savings or cut local services. It is a simple fact that SNP and Green ministers have cut next year’s local council budgets by £251 million in real terms. That cut to local government finance has been carried out despite Scotland receiving a record £41 billion block grant from the United Kingdom Government this year. The decision to cut budgets was taken by SNP and Green ministers.

Councils across Scotland have joined together to condemn the cuts. As the COSLA president Alison Evison said,

“It is beyond frustrating that the importance of Local Government’s role in enabling Communities to Live Well Locally across Scotland, has not been reflected in the Budget announcement.”

Scottish ministers have said that they want the £150 cost of living payment to go out before the end of April. Will the minister confirm that the software and information that councils will need if they are to deliver the payment are in place?