Chamber and committees

No one should have to compromise on food or other essentials. Food insecurity is driven by insufficient and insecure household income

State Pensions remain reserved to the UK Government, and it is crucial that they remain committed to retaining the Triple Lock, in its current form, to ensure that basic State Pensions keeps up with the cost of living and allows pensioners to live with dignity.

The Scottish Government knows that the cost-of-living crisis hits pensioners hard and that women, especially those who are divorced or single parents, people from BAME backgrounds, disabled people and carers are at greater risk of hardship during their retirement. The UK Government must take responsibility for this inequality, and do more to encourage people to take up benefits they are entitled to including Pension Credit which continues to have one of the lowest take-up rates of all UK benefits.

Our “Cash-First: Towards Ending the Need for Food Banks in Scotland” Plan sets out the nine actions we are taking to achieve our ambition to improve the response to financial hardship and to reduce the need for emergency food parcels. The actions include the Cash-First Programme, which provides ready access to emergency income when someone had no money for food delivered alongside welfare rights and income maximisation advice and support to prevent future hardship. This Cash-First approach enables people to choose the essentials they need whilst maintaining dignity.

For anyone struggling financially, support is available through a number of resources. This includes the Scottish Welfare Fund, which is administered by local authorities, and provides assistance to help meet people’s emergency and immediate short-term needs. The Scottish Government’s cost of living website also provides information on support available.

The Scottish Government will allocate at least £15 million in 2025-26, for the provision of free income maximisation support, welfare and debt advice. This includes expanding provision of advice within services that people already go to, such as community centres and hospitals, in order to increase the accessibility and awareness of advice.

Between April 2024-September 2024, investment from the Equalities and Human Rights Fund resulted in a total of 16,087 individuals helped directly with the provision of support, information and advice, with the Age Scotland Helpline providing £1,184,367 of income maximisation with a further 1,039 organisations have also been supported via capacity building and information sharing.

As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water I have asked them to respond. Their reply is as follows:

Scottish Water has already taken action and made commitments to improve the sewer network under its improving urban waters routemap, published in December 2021 at https://www.scottishwater.co.uk/About-Us/What-We-Do/Urban-Waters-Routemap. The routemap set out how Scottish Water will invest to:

• improve water quality (to support Scotland’s River Basin Management Plan objectives)
• increase monitoring and reporting to cover all overflows that discharge into the highest priority waters
• significantly reduce sewer-related debris in the environment
• reduce spills from the sewer network

As this is an operational matter for Scottish Water I have asked them to respond. Their reply is as follows:

Scottish Water currently has around 1,400 overflow monitors in place (covering over one third of all intermittent discharges). Scottish Water has plans to increase monitor coverage to around 2,000 locations in total (nearly 50% of intermittent discharges) before the end of 2025 and this year will look to determine an approach to establish how many more monitors should be installed in 2026 and beyond.

A significant number of overflow locations are predicted never to spill and monitoring these locations would generate limited value beyond proving that overflow events do not occur. Monitors are relatively expensive to install and deploying these without generating any environmental benefit is unlikely to represent good value for customers.

No decisions on the future regulation of gene edited crops have been taken at this stage, and we will ensure that any future position is both informed by the evidence base and is in Scotland’s national interests.

We are both closely monitoring developments on gene editing in the EU, and liaising with Scottish stakeholders, and will decide whether or not to allow gene edited crops to be grown, or food using gene editing techniques to be produced, based on what is in the best interests and needs of the Scottish people.

Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) in Scotland are covered by both devolved and reserved regulations, including planning and fire safety. There is a statutory structure that must be followed for all decision-making.

The Scottish Government can only comment on the funding we provide, rather than all ‘public money’. Any funding issued by the Scottish Government is done so in line with the Scottish Public Finance Manual, and Grant Offer Letters to all third sector organisations clearly set out the conditions for which the funding can be used.

Charities must act in accordance with the requirements of the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005, which sets out that a charity cannot be set up to advance a political party. Any breach of obligations under charity law is for OSCR, who are independent of Scottish Ministers, to determine.

However, charities can and do undertake campaigning activity. The Scottish Government fully support the right of charities to campaign on behalf of those they represent and influence changes in policy.

The first table shows instances where local authorities are not able to fulfil their legal duties in offering temporary accommodation to households who make a homelessness application, annually for 2019-20 to 2023-24, and for the most recent six months April to September 2024.

We are working at pace to develop the systems needed to effectively mitigate the two-child cap in 2026. We recently carried out an online consultation to inform policy development and are engaging with the Department for Work and Pensions to develop the necessary systems and data sharing arrangements needed to deliver the payments effectively. Impact assessments will be published in due course to inform Parliament’s consideration of the required legislation.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that finances remain on a sustainable trajectory and that we continue to reach a balanced position each year. We will continue to take forward our strategy for doing this, which will be updated in the next Medium Term Financial Strategy due to be published later this year, alongside the fiscal sustainability delivery plan.

We do not want to see the closure of good quality care homes and we understand the concern this causes for residents and their families, as well as for the wider community. Of course, when a home closes this can have a knock-on impact to the local economy, this particularly is felt in rural and remote areas of the country.

The economic impact on families and communities can go beyond traditional economic measures and can be greatly influenced by individual’s own circumstances and their reactions to any such changes.

We know that Scotland’s Adult Social Care sector is a significant contributor towards the Economy, adding multiple billions in Gross Value Added and employing tens-of-thousands of people. Whilst challenging to estimate we do note recent reports, commissioned by the Skills for Care and Development Alliance, which provides some indication of the potential scale of the economic value of social care in Scotland (Economic and social value of the UK adult social care sector: Scotland).

Additionally, I would highlight that although we have overall responsibility for health and social care policy in Scotland, the statutory responsibility for delivering, commissioning, providing appropriate social care capacity at a local level lies with local authorities, NHS boards and integrated Health and Social Care Partnerships. This includes the responsibility for these local authorities to develop contingency plans for each service they commission or provide, to have robust plans in place should a service close, as well as risk assessments to determine potential impacts on the local social care sector, wider system and economy.

While I recognise the seriousness of the risks faced by the social care sector, the projections from partners such as Scottish Care are the worst-case scenario. Investment by the Scottish Government into the social care sector has increased quite substantially, during a period in which pressures on public finances have been most acute

We do understand the anxiety and growing concerns within the care home and wider social care sectors regarding the current pressures on the financial viability of the sectors. Pressures that have been significantly added to by decisions taken by the UK Government, such as the increase in employers National Insurance Contributions, changes to the social care visa system and salary threshold levels.

Scottish Government officials are undertaking a programme of work to understand and respond to the current financial viability pressures in the sector and the impact that this change will have. That work remains ongoing and will continue to work with partners across social care to help manage the current risks and move towards a more sustainable future for social care within the country.

We are providing this information as at 31 December 2024 using data from the most recent official publication of the Scottish Government's workforce statistics. As at that date, the total number of staff employed within SG Core was 9,349.

As at that date, 115 Scottish Government staff were registered as taxpayers elsewhere in the UK and earning over £50,000 (inclusive of any pay allowances). This represents 1.2% of staff and includes staff who are based in Scotland House, London; are in overseas postings; or are in off-shore Marine seafaring roles (where it is a feature of that labour market for the workforce to be resident in a range of different countries).

This information has been compiled with reference to address information held on our HR systems as at December 2024. It is therefore a snapshot as at that date and does not, for example, reflect where individuals may have since relocated to Scotland following their appointment to the Scottish Government or where a revised tax code is awaited from HMRC.