Chamber and committees

The information requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government.

However, in 2021-22, sport scotland invested approximately £1,315,600 into Scottish Swimming. Over the past five years, sport scotland has invested £6,836,282 into Scottish Swimming. Scottish Swimming developed and introduced a National Learn to Swim Framework in 2014 to support aquatic providers to enhance their community learn to swim programmes.

The Framework, which is supported by Scottish Water and delivered by aquatic partners every week already helps children to become safe, competent, and confident swimmers and these water safety themed lessons are an essential part of the Framework to help educate on water safety.

Delayed discharge data can be broken down by age, gender and specialty of treatment. Ethnicity and disability is not routinely collected although there is potential for ethnicity to be identified through linked data.

I responded to the Committee’s pre-budget scrutiny report on 23 December and my letter is published on the Parliament’s website.

Local authorities and Police have a range of powers under the current Coronavirus regulations, including the power to issue notices and directions on businesses to take specific actions. Similar powers have been in place under previous regulations. Enforcement action is the last step of the 4 Es approach (Engage, Explain, Encourage and Enforce).

No Fixed Penalty Notices have been issued to hospitality businesses by local authority officers under these regulations. Local authorities have sought to resolve any issues with businesses without resorting to formal enforcement, and where this has been necessary direction powers and improvement notices are the tools that have been used. Engagement and enforcement of the regulations on business premises has been led by the local authorities, rather than Police Scotland. Police Scotland do not publish data on FPNs issued.

The Scottish Government continues to work with partners, including Skills Development Scotland (SDS), Local Government and the UK Government, to ensure that access to quality data helps to improve our understanding of the employment and training activities undertaken by young people in Scotland.

A key development is the access of Universal Credit data for 16-24 year olds. Since September 2021 this data has been regularly shared by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and is used by SDS and the Scottish Government to monitor activities young people are currently participating in. As a result, employability support work to young people has been better targeted at those who most need it. In addition, SDS have been able to extend the age range of the published snapshot participation measure to 16 – 19 year olds having originally covered 16 – 17 year olds.

However, this analysis could be enhanced with access to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) data which would improve our understanding of the destinations of young people and enable services to maximise the number of young people they support to enter employment, education or training. We will continue to work with SDS to look to establish a data sharing agreement with HMRC.

The Kickstart scheme is a UK Government programme and is operated by the DWP. We will continue to work closely with DWP, who are evaluating the programme, to ensure that this evaluation takes account of how the programme has worked in Scotland and specifically, how it aligned with the Young Person’s Guarantee and existing employability provision. This analysis will be fundamental in future programme design and in improving the accessibility of services for young people and employers.

Public Health Scotland publish a monthly census of delayed discharges in Scotland, broken down by Health Board and Local Authority, which allows for public scrutiny of progress in every partnership.

The Scottish Government will continue to engage with the Chief Executive of NHS Lothian, the Chief Executive of City of Edinburgh Council and the Chief Officer of Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership to monitor progress in tackling delayed discharges in Edinburgh.

Information on the number of patients delayed waiting for an Intermediate Care bed is published by Public Health Scotland within the delayed discharge monthly census which is available at https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/delayed-discharges-in-nhsscotland-monthly/delayed-discharges-in-nhsscotland-monthly-figures-for-october-2021/

The development of services at a local level is the responsibility of individual health and social care partnerships, in consultation with their NHS, local authority, housing and third sector partners, and we are encouraging partnerships across Scotland to develop and grow a range of Intermediate Care services.

To support this the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care announced on 5 October 2021 additional £300 million funding to address winter pressures on Health and Social Care services, which included £20 million to help develop and enhance multi-disciplinary working.

Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership has been experiencing a period of significant hospital flow pressures due to a combination of sustained front door attendances and workforce issues and a drop in packages of care at home capacity, which has contributed to the increase in delayed discharges in Edinburgh. These are in addition to long standing recruitment and retention of Social Care staff within Edinburgh, and the availability of staffed care home places.

It is not currently possible to identify the number of hospitality businesses nor the proportion of hospitality businesses that use the Check-in Scotland service. Whilst the collecting of customers contact details is a legal requirement, use of the Check-in Scotland service is entirely voluntary and can be used by many different types of business and venues, not just in hospitality. It is also possible to register different parts of a single venue so that they have different check-in locations (e.g. a bar with a separate address in a cinema complex could have a different check-in code to the cinema itself) and a single business may register multiple venues meaning that total figure does not equate to the number of businesses that may be using the service. Further details can be found at www.checkin.scot .

Other than the Check-in Scotland service, hospitality businesses may also use the NHS Scotland Covid Check app to verify a customers Covid Status. No personally identifiable or venue information is collected by the Covid Check App so it is it not possible to identify the number of businesses using the Covid Check app. Further details can be found at www.covidcheck.scot.

No businesses have access to any other Test & Protect systems.

The Scottish Government continues to promote the requirement for hospitality businesses to collect contact details from visitors to their premises, in line with regulations and guidance, to support the work of local Health Protection teams. Use of the Check In Scotland app, by premises or the public, is not a legal requirement; it is a tool to support settings to more easily comply with regulations and public health guidance.

In terms of monitoring the collection of contact details by settings covered by regulations, Environmental Health Teams within Local Authorities, as part of ongoing engagement with premises or in response to members of the public notifying them of non-compliance, encourage compliance within settings, and take any enforcement action deemed necessary.