Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to developing self-directed support as a way of giving individuals and their families flexibility, choice and control over the support services they receive. The Social Care (Self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013 gives people a range of options for how their social care is delivered and places firm duties on local authorities to give people informed choice as to how they will receive their support.

The 10 year self-directed support strategy was launched in November 2010 jointly with COSLA. Implementation of the national strategy is backed by significant investment of £39.5 million up to 2015 and includes a programme of work which aims to provide local authorities with the resources they need to successfully implement self-directed support as well as helping to develop support and provider organisations so that they have sufficient knowledge, expertise and capacity to deliver genuine choice and control to people.

Local authorities have a duty under the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 to assess a person’s community care needs and determine whether or not they are eligible for social care support. If eligible, local authorities then have a duty to offer individuals the four self-directed support options. Individual local authorities are responsible for managing demand for services.

The Scottish Government is not invited to the Remembrance Day ceremony at the Cenotaph in London, which is arranged by the UK Government’s Department of Culture, Media & Sport in consultation with the Royal Household. Members of the UK Cabinet, opposition party leaders, former Prime Ministers, certain other ministers and the Mayor of London are invited to attend the ceremony. Representatives of the Armed Forces, Merchant Air and Navy and Fishing Fleets, members of faith communities and High Commissioners from Commonwealth countries also attend and lay wreaths. This is the usual arrangement, which has been in place for many years, including under previous administrations.

The Scottish Government was represented at a wide range of commemorative events across Scotland on Remembrance Sunday. The First Minister laid a wreath at the newly refurbished war memorial in Peebles on Friday. On Remembrance Sunday he participated in a parade, laid a wreath and attended Scotland’s national Remembrance Service at St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh.

The Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon attended a Remembrance service at Glasgow City Chambers on Sunday.

Culture and External Affairs Secretary Fiona Hyslop, who oversees the Scottish commemorations of the centenary of the First World War, laid wreaths at Remembrance services in Linlithgow and Bathgate.

Finance Secretary John Swinney attended a Remembrance service in Blairgowrie.

Health Secretary Alex Neil participated in a Remembrance service in Airdrie.

Education Secretary Mike Russell attended a Remembrance parade in Bute.

Shona Robison, Cabinet Secretary for Commonwealth Games, Sport, Equalities and Pensioners’ Rights laid wreaths at two Remembrance events in Dundee.

Angela Constance, Cabinet Secretary for Training, Youth and Women’s Employment took part in a Remembrance parade in Livingston.

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill attended the annual opening ceremony of Legion Scotland’s Garden of Remembrance at the Scott Monument in Princes Street Gardens on Monday 3 November 2014, and attended the Erskine Home Remembrance Service in Gilmerton on Remembrance Sunday. He also participated in an event to commemorate the centenary of the First World War at Portobello High School.

Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead attended a Remembrance service in Forres.

I attended Remembrance services in Dunblane and Bridge of Allan on Remembrance Sunday. On 10 November 2014 I was in Alloa to unveil a plaque at Lornshill Academy’s Remembrance Garden for the First World War. On 11 November 2014 I also unveiled a plaque to commemorate the First and Second World Wars at Glasgow Central Station.

Other Scottish Ministers attended Remembrance events in Irvine, Dundee, Inverness, Renfrew, Crieff, Hawick, Eyemouth, Falkirk, Denny and Bonnybridge.

The Permanent Secretary, Sir Peter Housden, led the Scottish Government’s annual Remembrance Sunday service on 9 November 2014 at St Andrew’s House in Edinburgh. A two minute silence was also observed at Scottish Government buildings on 11 November 2014 at 11 a.m.

The Scottish Government expect to adopt the same existing criteria that is currently in place for existing users of the UK Independent Living Fund on the establishment of the new Scottish Independent Living Fund by 1 July 2015. The project board will make a number of recommendations to ministers during development and I expect that the criteria will be included within these.

The Scottish Draft Budget 2015-16 is a budget for fairness and opportunity with a clear and decisive focus on tackling inequality and on making Scotland a more prosperous country. The scrutiny phase will enable all members of Parliament to feed in views on whether these are the right priorities for Scotland.

Tackling child poverty remains a key commitment for this government and this funding will help us to provide additional support for kinship carers, care leavers and looked after children. It will also allow us to increase support for the Early Years Collaborative and Raising Attainment for All.

Further details will be announced in due course.

I met with Councillor Chapman on 14 October 2014 to discuss the ongoing investigation by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission in Scotland into local authorities’ policies and payment of allowances to support looked after children in kinship and foster care. We now plan to reconvene the kinship care financial review group with a view to completing the review and publishing our findings as soon as possible.

The Scottish Government and local government worked in partnership to provide an extra £40 million in 2013-14 and 2014-15 to mitigate the 10% cut in funding from the UK Government for council tax benefit successor arrangements.

This commitment has enabled us to protect entitlement which existed under council tax benefit within the council tax reduction scheme - meaning that, from April 2013, vulnerable people have had the same net liability for council tax as if council tax benefit were still in place, providing that their circumstances have remained the same.

The Scottish Government’s Draft Budget 2015-16 includes a commitment to roll forward that contribution of £23 million in 2015-16, with an expectation that local government will again contribute £17 million towards filling the funding gap. This joint commitment will enable us to maintain support for the most vulnerable households in Scotland through the council tax reduction scheme.

The Draft Budget 2015-16 proposes that £33 million is allocated to the Scottish Welfare Fund. Following consideration by the joint COSLA/Scottish Government settlement and distribution group, the distribution methodology for 2015-16 will be the same as for 2014-15. The most recent Scottish Welfare Fund statistics contain a breakdown of funding which has been allocated to local authorities for 2014-15. This information is contained in table 25 of the publication which is available at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Social-Welfare/swf/SWF30Jun2014