Chamber and committees

The security of Special Customer Records is paramount. For that reason our policy on this will not be published.

As outlined in my response to S5W-17339 on 10 July 2018, the Scottish Government has worked with Children’s Hospices Across Scotland to address concerns around the introduction of an upper age limit for their services.

The Scottish Government published the Strategic Framework for Action on Palliative and End of Life Care in December 2015. The Strategic Framework for Action set out a vision that by 2021, everyone in Scotland who needs palliative care will have access to it.

Within the context of integration of health and social care, it is the responsibility of Integration Authorities to commission and plan services and support to meet the needs of their local population, including palliative and end of life care and respite care.

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.

As Social Security Scotland is not yet operational, no payments have been made.

I have asked Steve Dunlop, Chief Executive of Scottish Enterprise to respond. His response is as follows:

I have asked Steve Dunlop, Chief Executive of Scottish Enterprise to respond. His response is as follows:

I have asked Steve Dunlop, Chief Executive of Scottish Enterprise to respond. His response is as follows:

I have asked Steve Dunlop, Chief Executive of Scottish Enterprise to respond. His response is as follows:

1. High Growth Spin Out Programme Budget 2018-19 - £2,000,000

2. Enterprise Fellowships Budget 2018-19 - £705,000

Individual public bodies are responsible for their own procurement activity and effective contract management and monitoring should be undertaken to ensure that relevant Fair Work practices, including the Living Wage, continue to be applied throughout the duration of contracts.

The Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 requires public bodies with an annual regulated procurement spend of £5 million or more to produce a procurement strategy setting out, amongst other things, a statement of their general policy on the payment of a living wage to people involved in delivering public contracts. Public bodies must also publish a report outlining whether their procurement activities complied with the strategy and where they did not, how they intend to ensure compliance in the future.

Public bodies with an April to March financial which year were expected to produce and publish their first report at the end July 2018, and those whose financial year runs from August to July are expected to publish their report by the end of November 2018.

In their response to the 2013 Review of Scottish Public Sector Procurement in Construction, the Scottish Ministers decided, at that time, not to accept the recommendation that the Government should appoint a Chief Construction Adviser, though it was also made clear they retained the option to revisit that decision should circumstances change.

However, since that decision was taken, a number of significant and high profile issues have emerged within the construction sector. Therefore, I have asked officials to look again at this proposal and develop a series of options for me to consider. As part of this consideration I will wish to hear views from a wide range of interests and, in this regard, the Convener of the Cross Party Group on Construction has already raised the matter with me. I am due to meet her shortly.

With reference to the answer provided for S5W-17659, it is the responsibility of NHS boards to regularly review spending decisions to ensure they deliver fit for purpose services which respond to the needs of their local population. This includes decisions about the number of places available in forensic units.