Chamber and committees

After assessment, the Scottish Government was pleased to be able to offer 12 month extensions to 5 of our projects in Rwanda and 2 in Zambia. In total, £1.6M of additional funding has been allocated between our Rwanda and Zambia programmes for financial year 2022/23.

We are currently working on restructuring our current funding schemes, in line with the outcomes of our 2021 Review. New funding streams will therefore include:

• funding under a new Equalities programme;
• funding to support sustainable recovery from COVID; and
• funding to support institutional resilience.

New programmes in Rwanda, Zambia, and Malawi will commence in 2023.

We will update the Parliament further in due course.

The Scottish Government commissioned independent research into the state of the steel sector in Scotland from the University of Warwick. This report is available to read online and can be found here .

The Master Policy is the compulsory professional indemnity insurance arrangement which covers all Scottish solicitors working in private practice, arranged by the Law Society of Scotland it exists to ensure that where someone establishes a valid claim for negligence against a solicitor, that claim will be paid - even if the solicitor is no longer in practice, no longer solvent or cannot be traced.

Prior to making a claim one must establish that a solicitor acted in a negligent way. Many claims are resolved by negotiation. Where negotiations fail, one may wish to raise court proceedings. In respect of a civil claim for negligence, an individual may choose to take this forward using a success fee agreement provided for by the Civil Litigation (Expenses and Group Proceedings) (Scotland) Act 2018. Success fee agreements provide clarity on the amount a client can be asked to pay their solicitor and place a cap on the level of the success fee that a solicitor can recover from a client’s damages, providing for greater consumer protection.

In addition, the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission has an oversight function, to monitor and make recommendations on the effectiveness, including improvement, of the Master Policy professional indemnity arrangements to the Law Society of Scotland. The Scottish Government liaised with the Law Society of Scotland and the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission to consult on amendments to the Master policy in December 2020, which would seek, as far as possible, to ensure that where awards of redress are made under the statutory complaints process, the complainer will receive redress in full.

As stated in the Business Ventilation Fund Guidance published on 23 November 2021, the deadline for works to be completed was 31 March 2022, as the budget for this fund was only available for financial year 2021-22.

The Scottish Government extended the deadline for submitting claims to 15 April 2022 to allow businesses to get works done and provide the paperwork required for claims to be made.

The Scottish Government will evaluate the impact of the Business Ventilation Fund and consider more widely how organisations can be supported to improve ventilation in their premises.

Funding for devices was provided to local authorities by the Scottish Government. As such, local authorities undertook their own procurement exercises and devices purchased became assets of, and are managed by, individual local authorities. Decisions on their use are taken locally. We do not hold information on how devices are used and monitored.

Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) is an executive Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB), established under the Education (Scotland) Act 1996. It operates at arm’s length to Ministers and is responsible for making its own evidentially based operational decisions.

I have asked the SQA to reply.

SQA has advised that it does not employ psychologists and their guidance draws on a range of teams and specialisms.

The following is a breakdown of the funding provided by the Scottish Government to the Scottish Huntington’s Association (SHA), since 2012.

2012 - £103,000

2013 - £93,000

2014 - £88,000

2015 - £138,000

2016 - £133,000

2017 - £133,000

2018 - £145,600

2019 - £50,000

2020 - £40,000

2021 - £15,000

Total Funding - £938,600

This funding largely comprises support for the development of a national care framework for Huntington’s Disease, and organisational core and project funding for the SHA, to support the provision of their specialist services and initiatives for people affected by Huntington’s Disease and their families.

We have continued to monitor and engage with industry. We are aware that the sector is still under unprecedented pressure due to the backlog of pigs and the shortages in skilled labour, compounded by the more recent situation with Ukraine and increased input and energy prices. Given this, I can advise that we have made the decision to further extend the Pig Producers Hardship scheme and the sector will now have an additional £410,000 of support made available, this will bring the scheme total to just over £1.8 million. The scheme extension announcement was made on 9 May.

I refer the member to the answer to PQ S6W-08279 on 10 May 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

Funding for devices was provided to local authorities by the Scottish Government. As such, local authorities undertook their own procurement exercises and devices purchased became assets of, and are managed by, individual local authorities. Decisions on their use are taken locally. We do not hold information on how devices are used and monitored.