Chamber and committees

As part of the response to the cost crisis, the Scottish Government has engaged closely with business organisations, industry groups and individual businesses to hear their concerns during this significantly challenging time.

As noted in the Emergency Budget Statement on 2 October, this crisis is unprecedented; since the advent of devolution Scotland has not faced a situation that has combined the significant reduction in the Scottish Government's spending power with the massive impact of the cost crisis on households, businesses, public services and the third sector. We are constrained by both the limitations on our powers and on our budgets. This is why the Scottish Government has consistently called for more support from the UK Government to businesses.

Nevertheless, we committed to looking at what we do have devolved competence over, such as devolved regulation. That is why the Deputy First Minister announced that we will be establishing a Joint Regulatory Taskforce with COSLA, local authorities, regulatory agencies and businesses. This will support and drive early progress towards meeting our commitments in the National Strategy for Economic Transformation to review and improve the process of developing, implementing and reviewing regulation to meet our economic and societal aims. Reviewing regulatory burdens on business will be a critical component of this work and we will seek to balance the essential role that regulation plays on driving innovation and achieving economic, societal and environmental goals with the concerns that businesses have expressed about the impact of new regulations during the cost crisis. The intention is to bring members together as soon as possible, hopefully before the end of the year.

There has been no change to the programme timeline.

The Scottish Government does not hold this data centrally.

Associated monthly data on the stock of private rented properties is as set out in my answer to S6W–11915 and a description of available rented stock data in provided in S6W–11913 and S6W-11915 on 17 November 2022.

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/written-questions-and-answers

The procedure for handling complaints by civil servants about a current or former minister’s behaviour will be updated to improve transparency. The Deputy First Minister will discuss the updates to the procedure and the Ministerial Code with the Finance and Public Administration Committee on 22 November 2022.

In future, where the outcome is upheld or partially upheld, Ministers will be named and the outcome of the complaint published, together with an appropriately redacted version of the decision report.

The privacy and confidentiality of complainants and witnesses remain fundamental to the process. Any information that could lead to their identity being disclosed will be redacted.

The procedure applies to all Scottish Government staff and civil servants working in the Scottish Government’s executive agencies. Information on the number of formal complaints will be proactively published on the Scottish Government website every six months.

In cases where a complaint is not upheld, the Minister's name and the outcome will be published for a period of six months.

Changes to the Ministerial complaints procedure will come into effect by the end of the year.

The Scottish Ministerial Code is being updated to take account of the updated procedure and will be published in due course.

The content of the Cancer Strategy is still being developed, however, a Breast Screening Modernisation Programme has been established which will drive forward work around the 17 recommendations that were included in the Major Review of the Breast Screening Programme, published May 2022 – Scottish Breast Screening Programme: major review - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

A Breast Screening Modernisation Programme Board has also been established with an independent chair – Dr Marzi Davies. The work of this Board will strengthen the breast screening programme and address inequalities, including additional support and equal access for all.

We regularly review our temporary accommodation in order to provide the best support to our Ukrainian guests and do not want people spending any longer than necessary in temporary accommodation. Disclosing this information may result in a significant risk to the health and safety of the individuals staying in these hotels. Therefore, we currently have no plans to disclose this information.

The Scottish Government publish regular Scotland-level data and information on people displaced by the war in Ukraine. The latest data, published, 20 October 2022, can be found on our website: https://www.gov.scot/publications/ukraine-sponsorship-scheme-in-scotland-statistics-october-2022/pages/welcome-accommodation/

There will be no impact to homeowners as the overall budget remains unchanged.

This information is not collected by Scottish Government.

We do collect information for the number of people accommodated on the MS Victoria. This is published in our monthly statistics on our website. The latest publication was on 20 October 2022 and can be found via: https://www.gov.scot/publications/ukraine-sponsorship-scheme-in-scotland-statistics-october-2022/pages/welcome-accommodation/

The budget allocated to the Scottish Information Commissioner in the last five years is set out in the table below.

The average number of FTE staff employed by the Scottish Information Commissioner in the last five years broken down into the total number of staff employed and those employed for the purpose of handling FOI request appeals is set out in the table below.

(1) The figures include all members of the Commissioner’s Enforcement Team which handle FOI request appeals made to the Commissioner.  The Enforcement Team consists of the Head of Enforcement, Deputy Heads of Enforcement, Freedom of Information Officers (Investigators), Validation Officers, and the Enforcement Team Support Assistant.