Chamber and committees

Concerns regarding accommodation costs during the August Festivals pre-date short-term licensing mandatory standards, whereby the success of festivals and tourism within Scotland in recent years has seen increased visitors during peak holiday periods, which has resulted in higher demand for accommodation in the central Edinburgh area.

Short-term lets continue to be a growing sector and as such Scotland is not alone globally in deciding to regulate the sector. Licensing is now in place to ensure short-term lets are safe and the people providing them are suitable. Guests can have confidence that licensed hosts and accommodation have reached a recognised standard of assurance complying with mandatory conditions such as fire, gas, water and electrical safety. Many hosts are already complying with these through existing law or best practice, and we do not consider them onerous.

This additional assurance is expected to enhance Edinburgh’s reputation as an attractive, high quality, all-year round destination and help towards delivering the six-council City Region Regional Prosperity Framework Delivery Plan & 2023-24 Prospectus. 39% of the 2.2 million tickets for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2022 were sold to Edinburgh locals, which was an increase of 4% on 2019, pre-COVID figures.

We continue to work with Festivals Edinburgh, the City of Edinburgh Council and industry groups (such as the Events Industry Advisory Group) to continue to support them to build on this success, and to address associated challenges. This is in addition to our continued support to the sector, including fourteen major festivals in Edinburgh and Glasgow receiving a share of this year’s £1.8 million Expo Fund.

This information is not held centrally and is a matter for the Care Inspectorate (CI).

The CI does not hold data in relation to care homes that have closed, however information on cancelled services is publicly available on the CI website: https://www.careinspectorate.com/index.php/publications-statistics/93-public/datastore

These are services who have had their registration cancelled and this does not necessarily mean closure. Some services will have cancelled their registration but a new legal entity may have continued the provision of the service.

The Scottish Government remains committed to using our limited powers in this area to make Universal Credit more accessible and fairer for people in Scotland.

Universal Credit is reserved to the UK Government and delivery of split payments is therefore dependent on the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) agreeing to deliver the policy on behalf of the Scottish Government. We continue to work with DWP to explore the feasibility of adapting the Universal Credit system to introduce split payments to make welfare benefits more accessible to families in Scotland.

The Scottish Government condemns all acts of antisocial behaviour, including vandalism, and we believe that our focus should be on preventing these crimes from occurring in the first place.

There are currently a number of provisions contained in the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995 and Antisocial Behaviour etc. (Scotland) Act 2004 that specifically deal with the offence of vandalism and these include on the spot fixed penalties that the police can issue to those suspected of low-level statutory vandalism offences. Local agencies, such as Police Scotland and local authorities, are best placed to deal with these offences and it also open to them to undertake early intervention and diversionary work to prevent antisocial behaviour in their areas . We currently have no plans to replicate the UK Government’s proposals, but will monitor the development of this approach.

The Scottish Government expects all NHS Boards in Scotland to take note of the Scottish Health Technologies Group recommendations, published on 23 March 2023, and take steps to ensure that any woman who requires access to placental growth factor (PlGF) based tests as part of her maternity care can do so. We will continue to work with the Scottish Perinatal Network and will write to NHS Boards again in June to assess how implementation of PlGF testing is progressing.

The information you have requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government as the management of debt is an issue for education authorities and their finance departments.

The Scottish Government is aware, however, that Glasgow City Council announced at the end of March that it would write off outstanding school meal debts at all schools under its management at a cost of around £300,000 to the council; City of Edinburgh Council cancelled £64,000 of outstanding school meal debts in August 2022 and, earlier this month, councillors at Midlothian Council announced they had cancelled all outstanding school meal debts in the area totalling around £32,000.

Local authorities also have the power to make discretionary offers of free school meals to families, where they are experiencing financial hardship due to exceptional circumstances, if they do not meet the regular eligibility criteria.

COSLA, working with partners from across Local Government, have developed a set of good practice principles for the management of school meal debt, which were published on 20 February 2023. The intended audience for these principles is local authority staff across a range of departments (including education, catering, finance and debt collection) as well as Head Teachers, class teachers and other school staff. The principles can be accessed through the following link: COSLA Publish Good Practice Principles for Managing School Meal Debt - 20th February 2023 | COSLA .

The Scottish Government welcomes the work of organisations like Coeliac UK who are already undertaking communications work to increase awareness and knowledge of coeliac disease. We supported their messaging on Coeliac awareness week by sharing their twitter campaign raising awareness of lesser-known symptoms of the disease.

NHSinform.scot provides clear and accessible information on Coeliac Disease including, symptoms, causes, diagnosis, and treatment.

The Scottish Government currently has no plans to alter the Road Traffic Act 1988 to make it an offence not to stop and report an accident involving a cat.

Under Section 170 of the Act, a driver is required to stop and report an accident involving specified animals, including horses, cattle, asses, mules, sheep, pigs, goats or dogs, due to the their status as working animals rather than domestic pets. The Highway code however does advise drivers to report any accidents involving animals to the Police and that if possible they should make enquiries to ascertain the owner of domestic animals and advise them of the accident accordingly.

The Scottish Government's Code of Practice for the Welfare of Cats recommends that all cat owners should consider microchipping their pets as the best way of being reunited with their rightful owners should they be separated.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-17748 on 18 May 2023. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/questions-and-answers .

n line with the digital strategy for Scotland - A changing nation: how Scotland will thrive in a digital world , the Scottish Government is committed to the responsible use of data to transform the way that public authorities work together to reach some of the most vulnerable people in society and to improve services, increase efficiency and support delivery of the National Outcomes, set out in the National Performance Framework.

The Scottish Government is supporting data sharing across public services through implementation of Part 5 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 (the Act). The provisions enable data to be shared by specified public authorities for tightly defined purposes, to help them to deliver their responsibilities more effectively, while ensuring safeguards and protections are in place to prevent unlawful disclosure. As with any legislative framework, the Scottish Government is monitoring and reviewing implementation of the Act in Scotland.

The Scottish Government welcomes the findings of the Information Commissioner’s Office in The ICO’sreview into data sharing under the Digital Economy Act 2017 , published in March 2023. The report highlights that the Act provides a supporting framework for data sharing including robust safeguards that ensure organisations share data responsibly and in alignment with data protection principles, while also safeguarding people’s rights.

The UK Government is reviewing and consulting on the effectiveness of the debt and fraud data sharing powers in the Act. The Scottish Ministers have responded to the consultation in support of retaining the data sharing powers.