Chamber and committees

When planning for housing, household trends are a more relevant indicator of current and future housing need and demand than population.

Household projections are nationally available datasets from the National Records of Scotland (NRS). Household projections are a key input to Housing Need and Demand Assessment (HNDA) as they are an indicator of future households yet to form. Household data is distinct from population data as they can be one person or a group of people living together. They therefore reflect both changes in population trends and changes in the number of people living in each household.

The following local authorities conducted some form of survey work to support their Housing Need and Demand Assessment (HNDA) and Minimum All Tenure Housing Land Requirement (MATHLR) processes:

For the HNDA -

Local authorities are required to update their HNDAs every five years. In the latest round of updates during 2021 and 2022 eight local authorities updated their HNDA and these have been appraised by the Scottish Government’s Centre for Housing Market Analysis (CHMA). Of these one, Argyll and Bute, undertook an HNDA Household Survey. South East Scotland authorities (City of Edinburgh, East Lothian, South Fife, Midlothian, West Lothian, Scottish Borders) and South Ayrshire undertook some form of local survey work to inform parts of their HNDA. All eight authorities also used some form of local data to prepare their HNDAs.

Additionally, Tayside authorities (Angus, Dundee, Perth and Kinross and North Fife) undertook a Primary Research Study, however, the appraisal process for this HNDA has not, as yet, been finalised.

For the MATHLR –

In total, five authorities used primary research to inform their MATHLR – Argyll and Bute and Tayside authorities (Angus, Dundee, Perth and Kinross and North Fife).

Draft National Planning Framework (NPF) 4 was accompanied by a Housing Lan Requirement Explanatory Report , which provides an explanation on the proposed Minimum All-Tenure Housing Land Requirement (MATHLR), and Assessment Reports for each authority area. Information provided by each authority to inform the MATHLR is also available online at: www.transformingplanning.scot/national-planning-framework/supporting-information-for-draft-npf4/housing/

Local authorities, as both the statutory housing and planning authority, are responsible for assessing housing requirements and set out priorities in their Local Housing Strategies.

The Housing Need and Demand Assessment Tool helps local authorities to access robust, quality assured data sets and to reduce the cost and complexity for local authorities in undertaking such assessments. The Tool is designed to use recognised national datasets and also provides flexibility to incorporate a variety of types of housing need where there is robust local information and evidenced policy drivers. Local authorities are able to augment this data with a range of additional sources including primary data where they have it.

The Housing Need and Demand Assessment (HNDA) Tool contains a default count of households who are both overcrowded and concealed. The Scottish Government's Centre for Housing Market Analysis (CHMA) also publishes separate counts of overcrowded and concealed households which local authorities may choose to use. Alternatively, local authorities may choose to use local information about overcrowded and concealed households using sources such as waiting lists or local survey work, where they can evidence that this is robust.

Specific details are published as bespoke separate documents, as follows:

• Single count of overcrowded households and single count of concealed households (see Table 3)

Estimating concealed family rates with overcrowding using Scottish survey data (2016-2018) (www.gov.scot)

• Count of households who are both overcrowded and concealed (see Excel worksheet called ‘HoTOC’)

Housing Need and Demand Assessment (HNDA): tool 2020 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

We expect clinicians to adhere to current guidelines from authoritative sources such as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). The NICE quality statement on surveillance for hepatocellular carcinoma, published in 2017, states that adults with cirrhosis should be offered six monthly surveillance for hepatocellular carcinoma. The European Association for the Study of the Liver published updated recommendations in the Journal of Hepatology in 2020.

We awarded a contract through a competitive tender for independent VAT advice from Anderson Anderson & Brown LLP. AAB have been commissioned to provide advice and support to SG on VAT implications. This work is ongoing. We will engage with the wider sector and HMT prior to any decision being taken which would have a VAT impact.

We awarded a contract through a competitive tender for independent VAT advice from Anderson Anderson & Brown LLP. AAB have been commissioned to provide advice and support to Scottish Government employees on VAT implications, to produce an options paper exploring the VAT implications of different NCS scenarios, and to produce a final report on the considerations of VAT and eventual outcome. This work is ongoing.

In 2022-23, funding of £18 billion is provided for health and social care. This substantial investment is already benefitting a range of services that are supporting the needs of people living with long COVID.

Health funding for 2023-24 will be confirmed through the forthcoming budget process.

We engage with NHS Boards on a regular basis regarding their capacity needs, and will continue to do so in order to inform the allocation of the long COVID Support Fund.

After competitive tender, a contract was awarded to Anderson Anderson & Brown LLP to obtain expert independent advice on the implications of VAT on the NCS and associated Care Boards. This work is ongoing. We will engage with the wider sector and HMT prior to any decision being taken which would have a VAT impact.

As committed to in the National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care we will, for the first time, publish our high level indicative projections for the Health and Social Care Workforce.

As part of the development of the indicative workforce projections a Short Life Working Group, comprising of key stakeholders developed an initial specification for workforce projections. Development of any projections is complex with many interlinking factors and as such we will look to continue to build the complexity of our workforce projections over time. Initially we will include job families from across the health and social care sector and utilise data from existing workforce data sets. Unfortunately we currently do not hold national level workforce data on consultant hepatologists, liver nurse specialists and alcohol liaison nurses and are therefore unable to include these specialities in initial workforce projections beyond the level of nurse and medical job families.

As part of the strategy we have also committed to taking forward specific actions to improve how we gather, use and assess workforce data. This includes taking steps to improve the demographic data we collect and the analysis we undertake of data obtained at different geographic levels within our health and social care system. This work to improve workforce data will be done in concert with development of workforce projections and the continued development of these.