Chamber and committees

As pay negotiations are a matter for local authorities as the employer and trade unions representing the local government workforce, the Scottish Government has no role in negotiations in relation to equal pay claims.

Whilst the Scottish Government remains committed to working in partnership with local government to ensure equal pay policies apply across the public sector, the information requested is not routinely gathered or held centrally by the Scottish Government. Information of this nature can be obtained by approaching individual local authorities or COSLA accordingly.

The ETSU steering group comprising of the four Governments of the UK is considering, under the lead of the UK Government, how best to take forward the recommendations of the WSP report .

Until this work concludes, ETSU-R-97 should continue to be followed by applicants and used to assess and rate noise from wind energy developments.

Scottish Government officials continue to engage with UK Government officials on this work.

Since January 2022, the primary focus of the Caledonian System has been on reaccreditation with comprehensive material provided to the Scottish Advisory Panel on Offender Rehabilitation (SAPOR) earlier this year. Accreditation is an important step in independently re-checking the current programme design prior to further roll out. There has also been work servicing demand for training from existing delivery sites with a series of training events now set through to 2024. An Outcomes Monitoring Report has been compiled and will be published shortly which will look at: change in men’s beliefs, attitudes and behaviour; change for women who engage with the programme around safety, empowerment, and wellbeing; and the extent to which the wellbeing of children improved and the risk of harm to children reduced.

Since January 2022 there has also been work within the Scottish Government to conclude a procurement exercise to secure a licence arrangement for use of the SARA-V3 risk assessment tool. This tool is embedded in the Caledonian System and is also used by justice social work and other professionals in assessing the risk posed by domestic abuse offenders across all of Scotland. For the first time this has been procured on a long-term (5 year) basis, providing certainty for ongoing delivery and securing savings on the annual cost of the licence. Conversation is also continuing direct with individual local authorities about readiness for any further roll out of the Caledonian System to new geographical areas.

We continue to work in partnership with local authorities and COSLA on delivery plans to ensure every school-aged child has access to a digital device by the end of this parliamentary term in 2026.

This work includes consideration of procurement processes and other costs related to devices, as well as developing a digital strategy for education to help ensure that digital provision supports the wider aims of the education system.

Inspiring Scotland through the ‘Support in the Right Direction’ (SiRDS) programme, provides access to independent advice and advocacy in 31 local authorities, with a forthcoming scoping project tasked with identifying a SiRD partner to offer services in the Moray area from FY 2023-2024. SiRDS is supporting over 9,000 people and families.

The Scottish Government funds the Personal Assistant Network Scotland (PANS) , which is a Personal Assistant (PA) national membership organisation offering a free photo ID card as well as advice. PANS has also helped to promote the first ever online PA handbook which provides valuable information for PAs.

Social Security Scotland routinely publishes information on Scottish Child Payment applications, payments and the number of children actively in receipt of the payment.

As of 30 June 2023, 316,190 children aged 0-15 years were actively benefitting from Scottish Child Payment. Of those children, 10,165 children resided in Aberdeen City. This information along with other local authority areas can be found in the latest Scottish Child Payment Official Statistics publication:

https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/publications .

The next edition of the Scottish Child Payment publication which will cover the period to the end of September 2023, is due to be published in late November 2023.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-18317 on 8 June 2023. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at:

https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/questions-and-answers .

The total number of free bikes issued during the free bikes pilot until the end of March 2023 was 3800. This number relates to bikes issued to school age children between P1 and S6. The bikes would have included a number of specialist and adaptive bikes, which can cost anything between £812 to £2,980.

Cycling Scotland has been awarded further capital grant funding to continue to offering cycles to young people through a free bikes partnership. In the first quarter of the year the partnership confirmed £219,000 to 13 organisations that will deliver 612 bikes throughout the year, further funding will be confirmed as the programme continues.

The Scottish Government have delivered the largest financial increase to date for community pharmacy funding, increasing both the remuneration Global Sum by 6% (£12.3 million) and an increase in the Guaranteed Minimum Income of 15.9% (£15.9 million). This delivers a guaranteed minimum funding package of £399.955 million for the financial year 2023-24.

The Scottish Government will commence discussions on the 2024-25 settlement with the representative body, Community Pharmacy Scotland, in the coming weeks. Preliminary discussions have begun on setting out agreed negotiation principles which continue the partnership working between the Scottish Government and Community Pharmacy Scotland to deliver settlement which is fair to community pharmacy providers and is an affordable offer in the current fiscal position.

We have previously noted that it is for organisations responsible for buildings to make information on this issue available for affected buildings.

Survey work is underway across public buildings and is at various stages of discovery in different sectors.

Where the presence of RAAC is confirmed in a public building, we expect the owner to take appropriate measures to assess and manage any risk identified, following the Institution for Structural Engineer’s current guidance on this process.

We remain in regular contact with organisations across the public sector on this matter, directly and through our cross-sector working group.