Chamber and committees

Scottish Ministers have a general power to intervene in the determination of any planning application, but exercise that power very sparingly, only where it appears there may be some matter of genuine national interest at stake. A total of 29 applications have been called in since the start of 2013, an average of just over 5 applications per year.

Planning authorities are required to notify Scottish Ministers if they are minded to grant planning permission in respect of certain categories of development or as may otherwise be directed to do so. This allows Ministers an opportunity to consider whether particular applications should be called in for their determination. Planning Circular 3/2009 Notification of Planning Applications http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/03/27112705/ explains the Government’s role in this process, including categories of applications which must be notified.

I refer the member to my answer to the question S5W-17493 on ‎19 July 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 .

Derek Mackay : I refer the member to my answer to the question S5W-17493 on‎ 19 July 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 .

As laid out in its Business Plan, Scottish Enterprise works in partnership with other bodies to promote the full extent of Scotland's assets. The disposal of Scottish Enterprise assets is an operational matter for Scottish Enterprise.

Social Security Scotland's policy on Special Customer Records will be operational by the time the first payments of the Carer’s Allowance Supplement are made.

This is not a working group that the Scottish Government has chaired in the past.

In response to Petition PE1499, Children’s Hospices Across Scotland (CHAS) worked with relevant stakeholders, including the Scottish Government, to address concerns around the introduction of an upper age limit at their hospices for babies, children and young people with life limiting conditions. As a result, a dedicated Transition team was set up in 2014 for a three year period to support these young people approaching the end of their stay at CHAS.

The Transition team continues to operate through the core CHAS service and works with the young people currently using the service to help maximise their future opportunities for independence, and identify age-appropriate options available to them

The Health and Sport Committee considered Petition PE1499 further on ‎2 February 2017 and welcomed the work that CHAS and the Scottish Government had undertaken to look at how respite services for young adults can be improved and increased. The Petition was closed as it was agreed that action is under way to address the matters raised.

On 18 June we announced the introduction of a new assessment and approval pathway for 'ultra-orphan medicines'. These changes to the ‎ultra-orphan process will come into effect from 1 October 2018.

Ministerial engagements, overseas visits and travel are proactively published on the Scottish Government website. The information requested will be published in line with the Ministerial code.

The Scottish Government does not routinely collate this level of information from procurement exercises and therefore this information is not held centrally and could only be obtained at disproportionate cost.

The Scottish Government has put in place a number of arrangements to address Fair Work practices throughout the public procurement process.

Statutory Guidance published in October 2015 requires public bodies to consider, before they undertake a procurement process whether it is relevant and proportionate to include a question on Fair Work practices, which would be evaluated along with other relevant criteria.

The public procurement Regulations permit a public body to reject a contractor’s tender, which would have otherwise won the competition, where the body has established that the tender does not comply with applicable obligations in the fields of environmental, social and labour or collective agreements. Furthermore, the Scottish Government’s standard terms and conditions of contract contain a clause permitting the contract to be terminated if, in delivering the contractor, the contractor breaches environmental, social or employment laws. We have also published a Scottish Procurement Policy Note 9/2016 which contains model contract conditions.

The Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 requires public bodies in Scotland with a significant procurement spend to report on their procurement activity, which must include a review of whether those procurements complied with their policy set out in their procurement strategy on how to promote the Living Wage and progress the Fair Work agenda. The first of these annual Reports are expected to be published over the coming months.