Chamber and committees

There is no centrally held information on what the longest and average waiting time has been for breast screening in each year since 2010-11, broken down by NHS Board.

Healthcare Improvement Scotland set clinical standards for breast screening invitations, uptake and referral rates to reduce breast cancer mortality and ensure breast screening takes place in a timely manner and in line with the advice of the UK National Screening Committee.

The Scottish Government has also set two standards for patients diagnosed with cancer. The first is that patients who have been urgently referred with a suspicion of cancer or are referred from one of the national cancer screening programmes, should begin treatment within 62 days. The second standard is that all patients diagnosed with cancer, irrespective of the route of referral, should begin treatment within 31 days from the date that the decision to treat was agreed with the patient.

These standards help to speed up the screening and diagnostic pathway and reduce the period of uncertainty that can exist whilst trying to establish a diagnosis. While there is no centrally held information on average waiting times for breast screening these standards provide assurance to patients that the immediate cancer control measures are being started as soon as possible.

The Scottish Government uses information from the ONS Annual Population Survey (e.g. on self-employment) and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Small Business Survey, to monitor change in business ownership/leadership by gender. We have funded boosts, to the sample sizes for both these surveys, to improve the robustness of the results for Scotland.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-19980 on 29 November 2018. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-19980 on 29 November 2018. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

The Scottish Government is committed to tackling the gender gap in enterprise through supporting the Scottish Framework and Action Plan for Women in Enterprise. As part of this, we have committed nearly £400,000 this year on projects to support and encourage greater levels of female entrepreneurship. For example, the Business Women Scotland Live Events programme and the Ambassador programme led by Women's Enterprise Scotland.

Since the Women in Enterprise Action Framework was launched in 2014 the proportion of women who are actively starting a business has risen significantly and the early-stage entrepreneurial activity (TEA) rate has caught up with the UK average. The gender gap in people starting businesses has also reduced in Scotland – whereas in the rest of the UK it has increased. In Scotland the enterprise gender gap is now on par with other leading entrepreneurial nations like the US & Canada. We continue to work with partners through the Women in Enterprise Action Group to maintain and accelerate progress.

In 2017, 21% of SMEs in Scotland were women led, ahead of the UK figure of 19%.

We do not hold official estimates for business employment or business Gross Value Added broken down by the gender of the business owner or management team. The source for official estimates of business employment and economic indicators is the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR), which is maintained by the office for National Statistics and is an administrative database of all Value Added Tax and Pay As You Earn registered businesses. The IDBR, does not include information on the characteristics of business owners as this information is not collected via tax returns.

The Scottish Government is committed to helping more women-owned businesses to grow. As part of our support for the Scottish Framework and Action Plan for Women in Enterprise, we have committed nearly £400,000 this year on projects to support and encourage greater levels of female entrepreneurship. This includes continued support for Investing Women, which plays a key role in enabling women-led businesses to access high levels of finance. In their first two-and-a-half years’ of activity, Investing Women has backed 10 companies with £900K invested from their women angel members, and seen a total value of investments of over £10M. Through the Women in Enterprise Action Group we will continue to work closely with public and private partners to help more female owned or led businesses to succeed. More broadly we are delivering upon the outcomes of the Enterprise and Skills Review. This will ensure that the public enterprise support network in Scotland is responsive to the real needs of Scotland’s business base.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-19980 on 29 November 2018. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

We are committed to bringing forward proposals during the course of this Parliament to introduce a Compulsory Sales Order mechanism to help tackle the blight of abandoned buildings and small plots of land in our towns and communities.