Chamber and committees

The functional standards in the Building (Scotland) Regulations 2004 for fire safety do not differentiate between high and low rise flats, the requirements are the same. These have, limiting fire spread, means of escape of occupants and assistance to the fire service as the purpose behind them.

The Technical Handbooks which support these standards give different measures to meeting the standard, because there is a greater degree of risk for a high rise domestic building which is defined as being “a domestic building with any storey at a height of more than 18 metres above the ground”.

I will arrange for officials to provide a brief summary of the main differences contained within the Domestic Technical Handbook, copied to the Convener of the Local Government and Communities Committee of the Scottish Parliament.

Information on whether someone has slept rough within the past three months is collected by local authorities when a homeless application is made.

The Scottish Government has been working with third sector organisations such as Glasgow Homelessness Network and partners to gather more robust data on those who are rough sleeping. This is so that we can ensure we are improving our responses to those who may have more complex needs but are not approaching or engaging with statutory services.

Plans to establish the Berlin Hub are currently in development and details will be made available in due course.

The Scottish Government has had a presence in Brussels since 1999 and the work on developing the Innovation and Investment Hub, building on the current operation, is continuing and will be operational in the Autumn of 2017.

Official regional labour market statistics produced by ONS are only available for rolling three month periods, rather than individual months.

Data from the ONS’ Labour Force Survey for the quarter ending March 2017 shows that the economic inactivity rate in Scotland during this period was 22.5 per cent. The economic inactivity rate for the UK over the same period was 21.5 per cent.

Trade envoys are yet to be appointed. There have not been any previous Scottish Government trade envoys.

The number of VAT and/or PAYE registered enterprises, for 2007 to 2016, in Scotland are provided in the table below. Note that these figures refer to all registered enterprises operating in Scotland regardless of where the enterprise is based.

Number of registered enterprises in Scotland, 2007-2016:

Source: Businesses in Scotland 2016, Scottish Government.

Note:

1. These figures exclude enterprises classified as both central or local government.

The number of inward investment projects in each identified growth sector over the past five years, as recorded by Scottish Development International, is set out in the following table:

Data from the ONS’ Labour Force Survey for the most recent quarter (February to April 2017) was published on 14 June 2017. This shows that the economic inactivity rate in Scotland during this period was 22.7 per cent. The economic inactivity rate for the UK over the same period was 21.5 per cent.

The most recent data available on reason for inactivity from the ONS’ Labour Force Survey, covering January to March 2017, indicates that less than a third (30.0 per cent) of those aged 16-64 who were economically inactive were sick or disabled, whilst over a quarter (27.4 per cent) were students. This differs from the UK where the highest group for economically inactive were students (27.5%) with just less than a quarter of economically inactive people in the UK being sick or disabled (24.1%).

Over the year to January to March 2017, in Scotland, the largest increases in inactivity were seen in the proportion of people citing that they were a student (increased by 2.3 percentage points, up 22,000) and citing they were retired (increased by 2.1 percentage points, up 18,000). Those citing they were inactive due to being sick or disabled increased by 0.1 percentage points, up 5,000.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-09364 on 27 June 2017. 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.

Network Rail is responsible for managing the delivery of its business, including the deployment of its staff, their terms and conditions and how it contracts for services, and this MITIE contract was procured by Network Rail HQ in Milton Keynes as part of a larger contract. As a UK Government body in receipt of public funding in Scotland, we have a clear expectation that Network Rail will comply with all appropriate statutory policies, guidance and legislation in line with public sector best practice.

I am meeting the RMT to discuss this issue.