Chamber and committees

Since 2016, the Scottish Government has provided funding to ensure that adult social care workers, delivering direct care in the third and independent sectors, are paid at least the Real Living Wage (RLW).

From April 2023, these workers will see their pay increase to a minimum of £10.90 per hour; in line with the RLW rate for the 2023/24 Financial Year. This represents an increase of 3.8% from the £10.50 minimum rate that was introduced in April 2022 and is a 14.7% increase for these workers in the last two years; with pay rising from at least £9.50 per hour in April 2021 to at least £10.90 in April 2023.

This funding will be delivered through Local Government contracts and the Scottish Government will transfer £100 million to Local Government to deliver this uplift to providers in the third and independent sectors; this investment takes Scottish Government recurring funding for adult social care pay in commissioned services to £0.6 billion per year.

As the implementation of the City Centre Recovery Task Force report continues, the Scottish Government is supporting our cities to decide how best to prioritise their own recovery plans. This includes investing £2m in a Recovery Fund, with a focus on inclusive and sustainable growth.

Important progress to deliver the ambitions of the Town Centre Action Plan Review and the City Centre Recovery Task Force has been made by the recent approval of the National Planning Framework 4. This strengthens support for development in centres to be considered first, while limiting out-of-town retail development. In addition, we continue to roll out our Place Based Investment Programme which last year meant local authorities received £33m to invest in their town centres, 20-minute neighbourhoods, community wealth building and community-led regeneration programmes. £140m is allocated to Scotland’s local authorities over 5 years.

The Scottish Government has received correspondence from business representative organisations and individual businesses within the retail, hospitality or leisure sectors, or their elected representatives.

Prior to the publication of the Scottish Budget 2023-24, the number one ask of business organisations was to freeze the non-domestic rates poundage, which we have delivered, saving businesses £308 million compared to an inflationary increase, along with a package of reliefs worth £744m. We expect around half the properties in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors to be eligible for 100% Small Business Bonus Scheme relief next year. Properties in these sectors may also be eligible for the transitional relief schemes set out in the Budget.

The Scottish Government is continuing to take steps towards achieving the World Health Organisation’s targets to eliminate cervical cancer.

83.9% of S4 pupils in 2021/22 completed the two dose schedule for the HPV vaccine in Scotland. From January 2023, a one dose schedule will be introduced for all those eligible in the programme up to their 25th birthday. It is expected this simplified schedule will increase uptake further. One-dose HPV vaccine coverage is currently 91.5% for girls in S4. The Scottish Government will continue to work with Public Health Scotland (PHS) and Health Boards to maintain this.

Data regarding cervical screening uptake in Scotland is due to be published by Public Health Scotland this Spring, and efforts are on-going to improve uptake. We have awarded £456,000 to Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust to support campaign work on screening benefits. Additionally, in preparation for a potential UK National Screening Committee recommendation, the screening programme continues to lay the groundwork for introducing cervical self-sampling, which has the potential to remove some of the barriers which deter people from attending their screening appointment.

Finally, treatment of cancer, including cervical cancer, has continued to be prioritised throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent pressures on NHS Scotland. We are developing a new 10 year cancer strategy which will launch in Spring 2023, and take a comprehensive approach to improving patient pathways from prevention and diagnosis through to treatment and post-treatment care.

The Scottish Government is working closely with a range of partners, including the Scottish Football Association, the other partner football associations, and governments across the UK and Ireland to consider a joint bid to host EURO 2028. The Scottish Government meets with partners regularly at a Ministerial and official level. Engagement with partners is supporting ongoing assessment of the case for investment and how the potential of the event to deliver long-lasting economic and social benefits to Scotland could be maximised. The deadline for final bid submission is in April 2023.

The Scottish Government is aware of the importance of rural bus services and is committed, in conjunction with operators and local authorities, to looking at ways of improving services. I recently convened the first Bus Taskforce to bring key players in the sector together to make bus travel a more attractive choice for passengers through joint commitments to reform and improve bus services.

We are supporting bus use through the under 22s free bus travel scheme, which means that around half of Scotland’s population are now eligible for free bus travel. As of 21 November, 71.6% of eligible children and young people in Fife had an active National Entitlement Card allowing them to access the Young Persons' Free Bus Travel Scheme, and those cardholders have already made over 2.6 million journeys.

We continue to provide financial support for bus services to keep services more extensive and fares more affordable than would otherwise be the case. Payments are based on the distance buses are operated, which is a particular advantage in rural areas where the routes are generally longer. Funding is also provided to local authorities in their annual settlement to support services they consider socially necessary and for community transport services, which can play an important role in rural transport networks.

In addition, the Scottish Government is supporting a number of local projects within Fife. This includes: multi operator ticketing schemes such as the ABC scheme and OneTicket; investing in the the University of St Andrews “MaaSterplan” pilot which aims to increase the utilisation of the existing Go-Flexi Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) service; and the £1.6 million award from the Bus Partnership Fund to Fife Bus Partnership to appraise bus priority options along key corridors in Fife.

Over the course of the last Parliament, there was demonstrable progress on a number of long-term measures to close the poverty related attainment gap, with attainment gaps in literacy and numeracy narrowing pre-pandemic in primary schools. We know that the pandemic and cost of living crisis has made our ambition of achieving equity in education harder but we are committed to substantially eliminating the poverty related attainment gap and are investing
‎ £1 billion over the course of this parliamentary term in the Scottish Attainment Challenge (SAC) – a substantial increase on last term’s £750 million funding.

The Scottish Government gathers a range of data via the National Improvement Framework, which includes 11 key measures of particular relevance to the attainment gap in both the Broad General Education and Senior Phase. A detailed breakdown of attainment and the poverty related attainment gap can be found on the Scottish Government website - Supporting documents - Achievement of Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) Levels 2020-21 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) and Supporting documents - Summary Statistics for Attainment and Initial Leaver Destinations, No. 4: 2022 Edition - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

From 2015-16 to 2021-22, £97.6 million was allocated to local authorities in Mid Scotland and Fife region, through a range of funding streams that contribute to the SAC: Pupil Equity Funding (PEF), Care Experienced Children and Young People (CECYP), Challenge Authority and Schools Programme.

From 2022-23 onwards, investment in the refreshed SAC programme is continuing with all Local Authorities now receiving direct funding for the first time through Strategic Equity Funding (SEF) along with the continuing of PEF and CECYP. In 2022-23, £16.8 million has been allocated to Clackmannanshire, Fife, Perth & Kinross and Stirling. Through the introduction of SEF, Fife, Perth & Kinross and Stirling Councils are receiving funding for the first time to develop strategic local authority plans to close the poverty related attainment gap. This funding empowers schools and Councils to drive education recovery and accelerate progress in tackling the poverty related attainment gap.

Through the SAC Framework for Recovery and Accelerating Progress , all local authorities are now required to set ambitious stretch aims for progress closing the gap. These should be published on local platforms as part of local authority education service improvement plans. A national aggregation of these aims will be published later this month and will be available to access here .