Chamber and committees

Following the high level assessment of unmet need raised in the Independent Review of Adult Social Care, the Scottish Government considered unmet need in its consultation for the National Care Service.

Unmet need in adult social care is continually monitored as Scottish Government analysts are considering options for increasing our understanding of the nature and level of unmet need in adult social care. We will continue to engage with external partners and those with lived experience of unmet need in social care services as we develop the National Care Service.

As Transport for Edinburgh owns and operates the tram system, any decisions on concessionary travel on Edinburgh trams are for the City of Edinburgh Council to make. We are, however, undertaking a Fair Fares Review that will look at the range of discounts and concessionary schemes which are available on all modes.

The Bill does not propose that 75,000 local authority employees would transfer. As the policy memorandum to the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill makes clear that under the National Care Service, services will continue to be planned, designed and delivered locally because the care boards will plan and commission services for their local area. For social care services currently provided in-house by local authorities, that may continue under a commissioning arrangement with the care board, or the care board may take over direct delivery, with staff transferring to the care board. These will be decisions to be taken locally as the care boards are established. Once the structure and governance of care boards and their localities have been decided, decisions about the employment of staff will be made.

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.

The Bill does not propose that 75,000 local authority employees would transfer. As the policy memorandum to the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill makes clear the under the National Care Service, services will continue to be planned, designed and delivered locally because the care boards will plan and commission services for their local area. For social care services currently provided in-house by local authorities, that may continue under a commissioning arrangement with the care board, or the care board may take over direct delivery, with staff transferring to the care board. These will be decisions to be taken locally as the care boards are established. Once the structure and governance of care boards and their localities have been decided, decisions about the employment of staff will be made.

Thorough consideration will be given to all options regarding pensions and stakeholders will be consulted before any decisions are taken.

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.

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.

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 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 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.