Chamber and committees

Our COVID-19 Status Certification scheme already recognises people who have been vaccinated outwith the UK and Common Travel Area. People who want to attend a venue or event covered by the certification scheme should obtain proof of vaccination status from the country in which they received their vaccination.

If the person lives in Scotland they can upload their official proof of vaccination from that country to their Scottish vaccination record. This will mean they will have a combined fully vaccinated status to show for travel or domestic purposes. Further information on this is at NHS Inform: Request an update to your coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccination record This process will also update their record for the purposes of using the app.

If the person is visiting Scotland from outwith the UK and the EU, provided they have evidence of having had a MHRA approved vaccine that can be used for domestic certification in Scotland.

The Scottish Government have published ‘ Vaccine certification scheme – information for business and event organisers ’ and ‘ Vaccine certification scheme – information for customers ’. This provides guidance so both people attending events and the venue staff are fully aware what can be accepted.

On 22 November Child Disability Payment was launched across Scotland. This has followed an initial pilot, whereby families of children and young people with a disability living in Dundee City, Perth & Kinross and Western Isles council areas, could apply for the benefit.

We have received positive anecdotal feedback throughout the pilot. Both parents and support workers have said that the application process has been easier and less daunting, and that the support offered by Social Security Scotland has been helpful and caring.

The first high level statistics covering the first 5 weeks of the pilot were published on 18 October 2021 and are available at gov.scot . The next set of Child Disability Payment statistics are due to be published in January 2022. This will cover the period from 26 July to 21 November 2021, and will provide us with the data that will allow us to carry out a more detailed evaluation.

We have also been inviting clients, staff and stakeholders to take part in research to share feedback and help us learn from their experience of the service during the pilot phase. This will be published in Spring 2022. Research will continue beyond national launch as we continue to look for ways to improve and enhance the service for the people of Scotland.

As set out in Evaluating the Devolution of Disability Benefits , we will begin a thematic evaluation of the policy changes that are being implemented with the roll-out of the disability benefits, including use of supporting information, client consultations and supporting information.

During 2021-22 the main focus will be to define the size, scope and research questions, and assessing the potential methods and data sources available. In addition, we have commissioned the evaluation of Child Winter Heating Assistance to report in Summer 2022.

Over the past decade the Scottish Government has invested over £50 million in ChargePlace Scotland, investing ahead of need to create a publicly available network of EV charging infrastructure, which now consists of over 2000 charge points across Scotland.

It is for Local Authorities to determine local priorities and demand for charging infrastructure. Encompassing decisions such as required locations of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and the most appropriate charger type, when requesting funding support.

Through Transport Scotland funding initiatives, we have supported the following list of EV chargers for Falkirk Council.

• Bo’ness Academy     (x1, commissioned)
• Denny High School     (x1, commissioned)
• Falkirk High School     (x1, commissioned)
• Grangemouth High School   (x1, commissioned)
• Braes High School     (x1, commissioned)
• Carron Grange High School   (x2, commissioned)
• St Mungo’s High School   (x1, commissioned)

Whilst Local Authorities have access to request funding from the Scottish Government to support the development of charging infrastructure; this is not a sole source of charge point provision, therefore other charge point installations could exist, which would be outside of our records.

To date North and South Lanarkshire have not requested funding from Transport Scotland for charging infrastructure to be installed at schools in their respective areas’.

The list of premises that are eligible for financial support through the Business Ventilation Fund has now been published on the Scottish Government website. I can confirm that community halls are included in the list of eligible businesses.

Coronavirus (COVID-19): Business Ventilation Fund - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Scottish Government has made clear its support for our indigenous languages, including Scots. It is essential that those that wish to use the Scots language are given every opportunity to use the language of their choice. For many, Scots is the language of home and community and its use in other areas of Scottish life should be encouraged.

The Scottish Government provides around £460,000 of funding to various Scots organisations and Scots projects such as the Scots Language Centre, Dictionaries of the Scots Language, Association of Scottish Literary Studies, Scots Radio and Scots Hoose to develop and promote Scots and deliver high quality Scots language learning and resources to open up the educational access to Scots for young people. In addition, the Scottish Government works alongside Education Scotland and the SQA and they have worked to standardise, promote and make the Scots language more readily available in schools.

The Scottish Government is committed to taking the forward the manifesto commitments for a new Scottish Languages Bill which takes further steps to support Gaelic, acts on the Scots language and recognises that Scotland is a multilingual society. This work is at an early stage and we intend to consult in 2022.

Engagements and events are an essential part of official government business. Ordinarily, the Scottish Government will routinely publish this information online. However during the Covid response it has been necessary to reprioritise staff resources to support the Covid recovery and the publication schedule has been delayed.

The Scottish Government are working hard to address this and anticipate that transparency data publication will return to normal mid-December.

Future transport investment by the Scottish Government, will be set out in the second Strategic Transport Projects Review.

In February, we published of the Case for Change report for Ayrshire and Arran, which included transport options being appraised as part of the Review. Under consideration are options for active travel; bus priority; getting more freight onto rail; improving the safety and resilience of the transport network and the decarbonisation of the transport system.

We intend to publish the STPR2 recommendations in the new year, however, until then I am not able to share further details.

We remain absolutely committed to strengthening residents’ rights in adult care homes through the introduction of ‘Anne’s Law’. This will give people who live in adult care homes the right to see and spend time with those who are important to them. Our public consultation on Anne’s Law closed on 5 November . We have received a considerable number of responses Scottish Government officials are currently working through the responses to consider the impact this may have on how we implement Anne’s Law. It is important that we carefully consider the views from the public and stakeholders that took the time to submit a response to our consultations. We intend to publish the responses in the coming weeks and results of the consultations on Anne’s Law and the strengthening of health and social care standards in the early part of the new year.