Chamber and committees

The Equality Act 2010, places duties on NHS boards to reduce inequalities in access to health care and improve health outcomes for people. On 1 October 2012, new provisions in the Equality Act 2010 came into force, introducing a ban on unjustifiable age discrimination.

The equality team within NHS Health Scotland, are working to strengthen equality of access for all in NHS Scotland through their health inequalities impact assessment (HIIA). Impact assessment is an important tool for NHS boards to check their policies and services do not inadvertently exclude or discriminate groups within the population and it is an opportunity to promote equality of opportunity and good relations.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-13013 on 5 March 2013. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

The table gives the contribution from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) towards discretionary housing payments (DHP) in each local authority area in Scotland.

Local authorities are allowed to supplement the amount they spend on DHPs from their own resources up to a maximum of 1.5 times the figure given in the table. Therefore the overall amount of DHPs spent in any local authority area in a given year is capped at a maximum of 2.5 times the figure given below.

However, we do not hold information centrally on the amount of DHPs awarded by each local authority in Scotland. We therefore do not know how many local authorities spent up to their maximum allowed amount.

In addition, a further breakdown of the amount allocated to each tenure is not held centrally.

Further information on the allocation of DHPs is available from the Department for Work and Pensions website at:

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/local-authority-staff/housing-benefit/user-communications/hbctb-circulars/subsidy-circulars-2013/

Summary of Discretionary Housing Payment amounts by Scottish local authority (DWP contribution)

Local Authority Area	2010-11	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14
Aberdeen	73,674	76,110	94,240	226,785
Aberdeenshire	24,260	24,963	45,276	160,695
Angus	25,414	32,429	56,313	130,802
Argyll and Bute	34,569	40,773	58,246	152,601
Clackmannanshire	5,336	9,981	23,661	162,088
Dumfries and Galloway	39,425	45,327	63,250	232,271
Dundee	31,246	69,850	114,767	311,904
East Ayrshire	14,208	20,629	49,849	142,006
East Dunbartonshire	33,592	29,948	42,723	102,051
East Lothian	24,783	28,932	47,911	125,982
East Renfrewshire	14,562	14,965	25,501	82,776
Edinburgh	332,431	337,526	570,286	1,347,299
Eilean Siar, Comhairle nan	7,200	9,360	10,582	49,911
Falkirk	7,878	11,150	37,972	136,698
Fife	77,858	95,697	165,386	435,614
Glasgow	894,434	1,053,201	1,393,221	2,979,970
Highland	44,158	54,635	80,994	216,106
Inverclyde	34,299	40,548	55,072	212,068
Midlothian	24,007	28,151	42,324	150,453
Moray	7,633	9,042	18,543	68,980
North Ayrshire	39,771	49,677	95,074	273,421
North Lanarkshire	60,463	103,420	163,264	374,676
Orkney	651	761	3,042	26,754
Perth and Kinross	12,878	19,665	43,018	149,177
Renfrewshire	42,350	52,314	74,462	251,714
Scottish Borders	17,599	20,927	38,787	170,470
Shetland	524	687	721	22,223
South Ayrshire	74,411	121,673	153,344	233,422
South Lanarkshire	121,428	140,212	217,462	413,967
Stirling	27,306	31,081	48,493	111,886
West Dunbartonshire	29,132	48,693	67,016	325,468
West Lothian	44,326	54,512	79,785	239,205
Scotland	2,221,806	2,676,839	3,980,585	10,019,443
Great Britain	20,000,000	30,000,000	60,000,000	155,000,000
Scotland share	11.1%	8.9%	6.6%	6.5%

The Scottish Government’s HL2 Return gives snapshot information on the number of households in temporary accommodation at the end of each quarter.

Table 2 in the following file gives the number of households with children in bed and breakfast at the end of each quarter.

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/RefTables/TempAccomJulySept2012

The following table gives the number of homeless applications where at least one member of the household had slept rough on the night immediately before they made their homelessness application.

	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12
Aberdeen City	184	220	84
Aberdeenshire	114	103	85
Angus	18	37	28
Argyll and Bute	60	35	32
Clackmannanshire	23	29	20
Dumfries and Galloway	68	50	56
Dundee City	195	133	85
East Ayrshire	24	19	32
East Dunbartonshire	10	13	9
East Lothian	103	61	23
East Renfrewshire	14	15	19
Edinburgh	467	512	446
Eilean Siar	6	5	8
Falkirk	119	65	13
Fife	173	373	75
Glasgow City	490	369	535
Highland	187	114	87
Inverclyde	19	23	22
Midlothian	15	3	7
Moray	37	38	48
North Ayrshire	43	25	12
North Lanarkshire	11	13	9
Orkney	5	4	2
Perth and Kinross	61	63	36
Renfrewshire	62	51	51
Scottish Borders	42	15	15
Shetland	6	7	8
South Ayrshire	42	31	32
South Lanarkshire	0	0	0
Stirling	78	47	18
West Dunbartonshire	69	43	57
West Lothian	0	0	0
Scotland	2,745	2,516	1,954

 

Source: Scottish Government HL1 dataset as 27 Feb 2013.

The Scottish Government supports a national infrastructure and related support for financial inclusion and financial awareness, including training for debt advisors and a Financial Learning Online Scotland website for financial capability practitioners. On 21 January 2013, the Deputy First Minister announced a £5.4 million funding package for advice services designed to help them manage the growing number of requests for help as a result of UK Government’s welfare reforms.

Work in communities across Scotland on financial inclusion and financial capability is taken forward by local authorities, who are well placed to assess local need for services and put in place appropriate provision.

The Scottish Government has funded the Chartered Institute of Housing to provide guidance to social landlords on the UK Government’s reforms to housing benefit. This includes guidance on the collection of arrears specifically and asks landlords to identify whether there are other ways of collecting unpaid rent which do not risk the tenancy. The guidance is published at:

http://www.cih.co.uk/resources/PDF/Scotland%20Policy%20Pdfs/Bedroom%20Tax/CIH_Bedroomtax_e.pdf.

We are supporting landlords to consider, and where necessary, adapt their practice in response to the UK Government’s housing benefit reforms. The guidance will be updated as required to reflect changes in this respect.

The Department for Work and Pensions publishes information on the number of housing benefit claimants on their website. This information is available at:

http://83.244.183.193/hb_la/#view=hblaview11&selectedWafers=0&selectedColumns=0

During November 2012, there were 481,830 housing benefit claimants in Scotland.

We do not hold information centrally on the number of housing benefit claimants who are also in receipt of disability living allowance. From responses to the Family Resources Survey 2010-11, we estimate that around 46% of housing benefit claimants are also in receipt of disability living allowance. This would suggest that around 222,000 claimants are in receipt of housing benefit and disability living allowance.

<>The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that eviction is the last resort. In August 2012, it introduced regulations under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2010 which require landlords to have exhausted all attempts to resolve the arrears with the tenant before taking action to evict. In June 2012 we published guidance for social landlords on these pre-action requirements. The guidance is published at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2012/06/2337. We will update the guidance to take account of the introduction of Universal Credit in due course.

We have also recently funded the Chartered Institute of Housing to provide guidance to social landlords on the UK Government’s reforms to housing benefit. This guidance highlights the challenges landlords are likely to face and asks landlords to identify whether there are other ways of collecting unpaid rent which do not risk the tenancy. The guidance is published at:

http://www.cih.co.uk/resources/PDF/Scotland%20Policy%20Pdfs/Bedroom%20Tax/CIH_Bedroomtax_e.pdf

Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis is a rare lung condition, the cause of which is unknown. It can be difficult to diagnose as the main symptoms are similar to other lung conditions. Diagnosis will usually be made by a respiratory specialist and may involve a number of tests including chest x-ray, CT scan and in some cases lung biopsy.

Respiratory Managed Clinical Networks have been established in all NHS health boards across Scotland, supported by pump priming funding from the Scottish Government. Our National Advisory Group (NAG) for Respiratory Managed Clinical Networks is working to develop a co-ordinated approach to improving respiratory services across Scotland and provides the opportunity for Local Managed Clinical Networks, patient representatives and stakeholders to discuss issues, identify solutions and share best practice.