Chamber and committees

In 2020, 6.4% of non-electrical heat demand was met by renewable technologies. This represents an increase of 4.5 percentage points (up from 1.9%) since 2010 and an increase of 0.2 percentage points from 2019.

The most recent statistics on renewable heat in Scotland are published in the 'Renewable Heat in Scotland – 2020 report’ ( Renewable-heat-in-Scotland-2020-report-version-2 ; produced for the Scottish Government by Energy Saving Trust).

As set out in the ‘Heat in Buildings Strategy: 2022 update’ ( Heat in Buildings Strategy: 2022 update - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) , we will publish an update to our heat statistics in May 2023 as part of the Climate Change Plan monitoring report. This will not only align with our climate change reporting, but will also provide more time to gather and review the necessary statistics.

As gathering and publishing employment data is the responsibility of HMRC, there is currently no data available to the Scottish Government on the number of Ukrainians living in Scotland under the Super Sponsor Scheme who have been supported into employment. HMRC publish counts of employments held by non-UK nationals in Scotland as part of their experimental statistics publication ‘payrolled employments in the UK by region, industry and nationality’. HMRC are planning to publish an update to these statistics in 2023.

The Scottish Government is taking action to ensure that displaced people seeking work in Scotland are provided with a full range of information, as early as possible, to help inform their employment decisions and settle well in Scotland. Scottish businesses are eager to employ Ukrainians who have arrived, recognising the skills they bring with them. We are working with councils, third and private sectors, Skills Development Scotland and the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure arrivals can seek out and secure employment, including through job fairs.

We are delivering person-centred, tailored services to those further from the labour market through a combination of locally designed services (No One Left Behind) and our national employment service Fair Start Scotland. We provide support that is flexible, person-centred, and aligned with other key services including health, justice, housing and advice services. Support is tailored to the individual’s specific circumstances, people with convictions are eligible for support through both No One Left Behind and Fair Start Scotland.

We are currently working with the Scottish Prison Service, Disclosure Scotland and DWP to further enhance our employability offer for people with convictions and have undertaken specific work to help promote the service offer to individuals with convictions pre and post-liberation, ensuring support is available immediately on release.

The Scottish Government is working closely with developers in the assessment of buildings in the Single Building Assessment pilot to identify and remediate unsafe cladding. The Scottish Government is not providing direct financial support to housing developers. We will work with developers to implement the Scottish Safer Buildings Accord which will set out the expectation that developers will make financial contributions to remediate their buildings.

The Scottish Government is committed to safely reducing delayed discharge and is actively working with partners. People who no longer require hospital treatment benefit from being at home or in a community setting. Decisions about care and treatment should always be clinically based, in the best interests of the patient and taken in consultation with the patient, their families or representatives.

Information is available from July 2016. Due to a change in data definitions and reporting requirements data prior to this point are not directly comparable.

Figures from July 2016 to September 2022 (inclusive) are shown in Table 1. (Source Public Health Scotland)

Table 1: Number of patients aged 18 & over, categorised as Adults with Incapacity (AWI) under the AWI (Scotland) Act 2000, who were delayed in their discharge from hospital by Financial Year.

The Scottish Government regularly reviews its plans for public awareness campaigns. We do not intend to run a public awareness campaign for deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, venous thromboembolism and thrombosis at this time.

The Scottish Government does not hold data on remediation activity outwith the Cladding Remediation Programme. The Single Building Assessment pilot is currently assessing 27 buildings and this will be increased in number in 2023.

We meet with developers every week, particularly in relation to the pilot Single Building Assessment programme and the development of The Accord.

The Scottish Mental Health Law Review (commissioned by Scottish Government) published its final report at the end of September 2022 and set out substantial recommendations for reform. This included the current power of attorney process in Scotland. The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that Scotland’s incapacity laws remain fully fit for purpose and will carefully consider these proposals as part of any wider reform of the mental health and incapacity legislative framework.

The Scottish Government has established a statutory public inquiry under the Inquiries Act (2005) to examine the handling of the coronavirus pandemic in Scotland. The inquiry will provide scrutiny and establish the facts of the strategic response to the pandemic in Scotland. It will identify lessons and recommendations to help Scotland be as prepared as possible for future pandemics.

The majority of funding available to local authorities is provided by means of a block grant from the Scottish Government and it is for locally elected representatives to manage the allocation of their resources and the level of services that are delivered to their local communities, including Community Action Teams.