Chamber and committees

The following table details annual spend on signage on the trunk road network during the period 2021 to 2024 within the Scottish Parliament Highland and Islands electoral region. These figures include spend on sign plates, sign poles and sign bases.

Signage on Local Authority roads is a matter for the relevant Local Authority.

Pension Credit is reserved to the UK Government and is the responsibility of the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). The Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice has written to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to ask her to do more to increase take up rates. We have also offered to work with the DWP to improve take-up rates. This will include working with stakeholders across Scotland to increase awareness of Pension Credit and the link to eligibility for Pension Age Winter Heating Payment.

Our welfare advice services, supported by Scottish Government investment, also work very closely with people who may be entitled to benefits, devolved or reserved, but have not yet applied. These efforts include increasing the awareness and take-up of assistance to support people who are struggling financially.

This is why we have committed to investing over £12 million for the provision of free income maximisation support, welfare and debt advice services in 2024-25, including support for the Citizens Advice Scotland Money Talk Team Service, which last year supported over 9,000 older people.

Non-domestic rates are administered by local councils, and the Scottish Government does not routinely hold information on the amounts actually paid by individual businesses or properties. However, we are able to estimate the amounts some property types would have been liable for in some years where individual property level relief data has been collected nationally.

Table 1 presents estimated historic rateable values and estimates of net non-domestic rates income for hotels, public houses, and restaurants. Property level reliefs data, and therefore net income estimates, for years before 2012-13, and for 2014-2015, 2017-2018, and 2023-2024 are not available, and are not yet available for 2024-2025.

Hospitality premises are identified by property classes “public houses and restaurants” and “hotels”. Property class is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, and does not necessarily accurately reflect the use of a property. There may be properties within those classes which are not actually used for hospitality, and properties within other classes which are used for hospitality. Rateable values are as at 1 April in each financial year, and do not take into account any subsequent changes, even if backdated. A revaluation occurred in 2017-2018, and in 2023-2024. Reliefs information is derived from councils’ billing data, as at end April 2012, 1 October 2013, 8 October 2015, 5 October 2016, 1 June 2018, 31 May 2019, 1 July 2020, 1 June 2021, and 1 July 2022. The relief percentages reported in these billing data snapshots are applied to the gross income estimates based on rateable values on 1 April in each year to derive the net estimates. Net income in 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 was affected by the Retail, Hospitality, and Leisure (RHL) relief introduced in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. RHL relief awarded in 2022-2023 is not included, as this relief was not reported on the 2022 billing snapshot. Figures are rounded to the nearest £100,000.

Table 1: Total rateable value and estimated net NDR income related to hotels, public houses, and restaurants

It is the responsibility of Local Authorities to plan, develop and deliver flood protection schemes and other flood resilience actions.

It is best practice for options development to be carried out by local authorities using an appraisal framework. The options should go through a robust and transparent appraisal of costs and benefits, and positive and adverse impacts in order to deliver best use of public money taking full account of economic, environmental and social priorities

The Scottish Government remains committed to developing plans to deliver free breakfasts to all primary and special school children.

The Scottish Government worked with AssistFM and the Improvement Service from September 2023 to June 2024 to map breakfast provision across Scotland at both local authority and school level. A survey of all primary and special schools showed that almost half are already delivering breakfast provision. We will use the information provided by this mapping exercise to develop plans to build on this provision in line with our commitment.

In addition, we are delivering free or subsidised school age childcare through our Early Adopter Communities and Scottish Football Association ‘Extra Time’ projects, many of which include free breakfast club places for children from families most at risk of living in poverty.

The work to define a Minimum Income Guarantee for Scotland, including the role of social security, continues to be led by an independent Expert Group. the Expert Group’s Interim report which published in March 2024, contained recommendations for actions around social security elements of a Minimum Income Guarantee. The report is available at: Minimum Income Guarantee Expert Group: Interim report - gov.scot (www.gov.scot). The Chair of the Expert Group also brought early thinking on the vision for the social security aspects of a Minimum Income Guarantee to the Steering Group meeting on 27 March this year. The minutes for that meeting can be found at Minimum Income Guarantee Steering Group minutes: March 2024 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot). The Scottish Government look forward to receiving the recommendations for the Expert Group’s final report later this year and will respond in due course.

The independent Minimum Income Guarantee Expert Group commissioned a public participation charity to appoint an Experts by Experience Panel to ensure the policy is developed with the voices and experiences of financial insecurity at its core. Panel members were initially recruited through a civic lottery database, additional recruitment then took place through the Expert Group member’s organisations, following an extension of the project. Further details regarding the recruitment process are available online at: Minimum Income Guarantee: Experts by Experience Panel report - gov.scot (www.gov.scot).

Fair Start Scotland launched in April 2018 with an initial referral period of 3 years. Contracts were subsequently extended for an additional 3 years.

New referrals to the service ended on 31 March 2024, with the delivery of Scotland’s devolved employability support being met through our No One Left Behind approach from 1 April 2024.

The Fair Start Scotland employability service was procured, and national contracts awarded to public, private and third sector Service Providers across Scotland. The Scottish Government does not have any staff directly employed to deliver the service. There are 4.75 full time equivalent staff assigned to manage the delivery of the contracts with the Service Providers.

Transport Scotland will consider suitable reliability targets in the next contract. As part of monitoring performance we will ensure these reflect the lived customer experiences. Using enhanced Performance Indicators, reliability statistics will be reported through the Enhancement and Change Plan, which has been developed in collaboration with CalMac and was published on 25 July 2024.