Chamber and committees

Network Rail advise us that the work in Queen Street Tunnel is making good progress. The tunnel remains on schedule to re-open as planned on 8 August 2016.

The Scottish Government does not collect data on the sub-reasons for children becoming looked after, so it is not possible to provide specific data on the numbers of children being placed in kinship and foster care due to parental imprisonment.The annual totals of children becoming looked after in foster care and kinship care (some of whom may have entered the care system due to parental imprisonment) are presented here:

	2010-2011	2011-2012	2012-2013	2013-2014	2014-2015
Starting to be looked after in kinship care	842	967	960	884	890
Starting to be looked after in foster care	1,097	1,404	1,421	1,443	1,237
All children starting to be looked after	4,746	4,811	4,470	4,295	4,198

The most relevant figures to homelessness available are in the following table, which details the number of children in households applying as homeless, where the main applicant had previously been in prison:

	2008-2009	2009-2010	2010-2011	2011-2012	2012-2013	2013-2014	2014-2015	2015-2016
Male Children	69	75	88	94	64	46	30	32
Female Children	69	81	72	85	73	39	30	30
All Children	138	156	160	179	137	85	60	62

It should be noted that the applicant’s earlier imprisonment may only be one of a number of factors leading to a homelessness application.

The Homeowner Housing Panel (HoHP) is an independent tribunal established under the Property Factors (Scotland) Act 2011 (the Act) to deal with disputes between homeowners and property factors. It is for the HoHP to decide whether to issue a legally-binding property factor enforcement order (PFEO) and determine whether a property factor has complied with the PFEO.

The HoHP must notify Scottish Ministers under section 23(2) of the Act where a property factor has failed to comply with any PFEO. Scottish Ministers have the power to remove a property factor from the register where it has failed to demonstrate compliance with the property factor code of conduct and any property factor enforcement order made by the HoHP. Since 1 October 2012, when the Act came into force, they have removed two factors from the register because of their non-compliance.

<>The Homeowner Housing Panel (HoHP) is an independent tribunal established under the Property Factors (Scotland) Act 2011 to deal with disputes between homeowners and property factors. The Act came into force on 1 October 2012.

Information on the cost of the HoHP for each year are included in its annual report which is laid before the Scottish Parliament. The reports are published at https://hohp.scotland.gov.uk/who-we-are-hohp/annual-reports.

The Housing (Scotland) Act 1987, as amended, gives all those assessed as homeless the right to temporary accommodation.

Scottish Government policy is that temporary accommodation should be of a good standard and the stay there should be as short as possible. Households in temporary accommodation should be given appropriate support for the duration of their stay, and helped to move on to settled accommodation in accordance with their rights.

Since the closure of large scale hostels in Scotland some years ago, the Scottish Government has been clear that modern hostels, provided by local authorities, housing associations and third sector agencies, should be small scale, increasing the range of options available in providing short term temporary and supported accommodation.

Hostels can meet the immediate needs of some homeless households by providing additional support while options for settled accommodation are considered. A person centred approach is important and different models of hostel provision may be required to meet the needs of different households.

The Scottish Government is continuing to consider how eligibility to free school meals will be determined in the context of the UK Government’s programme for welfare reform. As an interim arrangement, the Education (School Lunches) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2013 prescribed the receipt of universal credit as an eligibility criterion for free school meals to ensure that no child will lose their entitlement during the early stages of the universal credit roll-out. The Scottish Government is currently working with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to consider the eligibility criteria for free school meals under universal credit in the future.

The Scottish Government has also committed to extending universal free school meals to all two, three and four year olds in funded early learning and childcare as part of the expansion to 1140 hours of early learning and childcare by the end of this parliament.

Information on local authority instrumental music tuition charges can be found at the attached links:

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Education/Schools/curriculum/InstrumentalMusic/ImplementationGroup

The Scottish Government supports a number of music initiatives for young musicians, across a range of organisations.

The Youth Music Initiative (YMI) programme is receiving £10 million of government support in 2016-17. Reporting indicates that this level of investment in 2014-15 enabled music opportunities for 225,000 children across Scotland and independent evaluation published last year indicated that the YMI fosters and develops children's and young people's musical skills and supports more than 300 projects each year across all 32 local authorities.

All of the five Scottish Government-funded National Performing Companies also have initiatives to encourage cultural activity and participation, with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Ballet and Scottish Opera orchestra musicians and creative learning teams providing a range of programmes to encourage young musicians.

We are also providing support to give children greater access to cultural opportunities – as evidenced by the announcement, in March 2016, of an additional £2.5 million of funding for Sistema Scotland and the recent launch of the Theatre in Schools Scotland Project supported through the National Theatre of Scotland.

On 5 January 2015, free school meals were extended to primary 1 to 3 children in Scotland to help ensure every child has the best possible start in life and gets every chance to succeed at school. The policy has had a huge take up with latest figures showing that over 134,500 primary 1 to 3 children (81.7%) across all 32 local authorities in Scotland are taking a nutritious free school meal, saving families around £380 a year for each eligible child. The Scottish Government is fully funding this policy and is providing £54 million revenue funding in 2016-17, building on the £70.5 million of revenue funding provided over 2014-16 and the £24.8 million of capital funding which was provided to support implementation.

The criteria to qualify for free school meals is provided for in section 53 of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980. A summary of the criteria can be accessed from the Scottish Government website at http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Education/Schools/HLivi/schoolmeals/FreeSchoolMeals.

A number of changes have been made to the criteria in recent years:

One of the criteria to qualify for free school meals is the receipt of child tax credit (and not working tax credit) where the award of child tax credit is based on an income not exceeding an amount specified by Regulations under the Tax Credits Act 2002. The Tax Credits Up-rating Regulations 2015 increased the first income threshold for the receipt of child tax credit from £16,010 to £16,105 on 6 April 2015. The increase in this threshold resulted in a change to the qualifying criteria for a free school meal.

Prior to that, on 5 January 2015, amendments to section 53 of the Education Act (Scotland) 1980 made via the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 commenced giving education authorities new powers to provide school meals free of charge to pupils who satisfy such conditions as the authority thinks fit. On the same day, universal free school meals were introduced to children in primary 1 to 3. This policy is being delivered in partnership with local government.

Young children registered for their early learning and childcare entitlement are also entitled to a free school meal, in the middle of the day, under the same criteria as those children from primary 4 onwards. This criteria, was extended on 1 August 2015 through the Education (School Lunches) (Scotland) Regulations 2015 in early learning and childcare only, to include children who are or have been at any point since their second birthday looked after by the local authority or subject to a kinship care or guardianship order, as well as those with a parent in receipt of incapacity or severe disablement allowance or state pension credit. This was to bring the free school meal criteria in line with the eligibility criteria for a funded 2 year old early learning and childcare place. The extended free school meal criteria applies to all two, three and four year olds who meet the criteria in funded early learning and childcare.