Chamber and committees

The statutory responsibility for delivering and commissioning care home placements at a local level lies with local authorities and integrated health and social care partnerships. The agreement on the rates paid for care home placements is determined by the contractual relationships in place. Scottish Government provides funding through the local government settlement but is not a contractual party to these arrangements.

The Scottish Government has allocated £862 million to Health Boards to support with costs arising from the pandemic, this will include additional costs for the adult social care sector. The current arrangements for additional financial support for the sector are in place until 30 June 2022.

All three and four year olds and around a quarter of two year olds in Scotland have a statutory entitlement to up to 1140 hours of funded early learning and childcare a year. Our funded ELC offer is the most generous across the United Kingdom.

Unlike the UK Government’s funded ELC offer for England which prioritises children with two working parents, our aim in Scotland is to ensure that every child benefits from high quality early learning and childcare. Regardless of their parent or carer’s working status, all children have a right to play, to learn and to access experiences that meet their physical, social, emotional and cultural needs; and a right to associate with their peers.

Where national guidance, including in the form of Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN), does not exist, as in this case, NHS Boards develop guidance using up to date evidence, including NICE guidelines through their existing Board governance structures.

We would expect the information in the updated NICE guideline, NG207, to be used by NHS Boards to assist pregnant women when making decisions about induction of labour.

The Out of Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA) Strategy 2021 to 2026 , recognises the importance of defibrillation within the chain of survival. The strategy outlines a number of actions to ensure that Public Access Defibrillators (PADs) are mapped, maintained and accessible to the public.

If a PAD is stored in a secure, passcode-protected cabinet and is registered on the National Defibrillator Network (The Circuit), the security code to access the PAD cabinet will be held by the Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS). This security code will be verbally provided to any member of the public that requires access to the cabinet. The code is not texted or transmitted to the caller’s mobile device.

In the event that the mobile network is down, as a consequence of poor weather conditions, and a member of the public requires access to a locked PAD cabinet, they should endeavour to contact the Scottish Ambulance Service via an available landline or public telephone.

We would recommend that defibrillator guardians follow the advice of the Resuscitation Council of the UK (RCUK) and consider placing their defibrillators in an unlocked cabinet in order to make them as accessible as possible. Further information is available at: https://www.resus.org.uk/about-us/news-and-events/consensus-statement-aed-cabinets.

The Scottish Government has no plans at this time to review the eligibility criteria for Funeral Support Payment but we continue to monitor and evaluate all our benefits.

During the development of Funeral Support Payment we consulted and engaged with stakeholders, including people with direct personal experience of the benefits system. This work helped to inform the eligibility criteria for Funeral Support Payment. As a result, we substantially widened eligibility compared to the UK Government’s funeral payment. This has allowed us to support 40% more people, who would have received nothing from the UK Government.

Eligibility for Funeral Support Payment is based on receipt of a qualifying benefit, ensuring support is targeted at those on lowest incomes. State pension recipients who are in receipt of a qualifying benefit - for example pension credit - are therefore eligible to apply.

The Scottish Government continues to urge the UK Government to maximise take-up of Pension Credit. This is a vital support for many older people, but we know that only around 6 in 10 of those who are entitled to it actually claim it. On 12 November 2020 we joined Welsh and Northern Irish Ministers in sending a joint letter to Secretary of State for Work and Pensions urging a more strategic approach to maximising the take-up of reserved benefits. To date no response has been received.

Openreach’s Fibre Community Partnership is a commercial offering and, therefore, the Scottish Government has no remit to intervene in their operation of that scheme, given the reserved nature of telecoms in the UK.

Properties, including those in the R100 North lot (Lot 1), may be eligible for a voucher through the R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme – either an interim voucher (worth up to £400) or a main voucher (worth up to £5,000), depending on connection status. People can check their eligibility using our online checker at www.scotlandsuperfast.com .

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published guidance on what is reasonable for a policyholder to rely on to satisfy the burden of proof for claims against Business Interruption Insurance. This includes, but is not limited to, a range of publicly available data including the Public Health Scotland Daily Dashboard which provides information about the location of positive cases in Scotland.

We have been as open and transparent as possible, with professional analysts publishing available data seven days a week to inform the public on how the pandemic is progressing. The data made available will continue to evolve over time to ensure the most relevant information is included, and it is fit for purpose. This supports public scrutiny and transparency, providing timely and equal access to data for the public, media and other commentators.

Work is underway with Public Health Scotland and other partners to review the content and frequency of all Scottish Government current data reporting to identify what is required to support resilience and recovery in the future. This will involve prioritising the modelling, data and analysis that is essential to support the future monitoring and surveillance of Covid. We also need to establish the data and evidence required to monitor the wider harms of Covid in the future. A data and reporting strategy will be published in Spring to support implementation of the Strategic Framework following consultation on any planned changes.

There is no evidence at this time to suggest that insurance companies are not following the FCA’s guidance or that there are any specific issues regarding access to data to support insurance claims being made by businesses in Scotland. The Scottish Government stands ready to work constructively with the United Kingdom Government, the FCA and the insurance industry and will engage with them specifically on this matter as part of regular ministerial and official engagement activity.

We are aware that there is significant public interest in carrying out work to comply with the new standard for fire alarms in all Scottish homes. We are also aware that some retailers have short term supply issues, and may be affected by difficulties with imported components. Whilst we encourage homeowners to install these alarms at their earliest opportunity to protect lives and possessions, we have emphasised consistently that there will be no penalties for non-compliance and individual circumstances, including availability of suitable alarms, will be taken into account.

Policy relating to mobile telecommunications is currently reserved to the UK Government and is regulated by Ofcom.

However the Scottish Government recognises the vital importance of mobile connectivity for rural, remote and island communities and businesses. Through our Scottish 4G Infill Programme, we are investing £28.75M to deliver up to 55 4G masts in selected mobile ‘notspots’ around Scotland.

The Scottish Government continue work closely with the UK government and operators to ensure that resilience of the telecoms network in Scotland is a priority.

The Report of the Task Force on Gear Conflict, while recommending Marine Scotland undertake targeted surveillance in areas where there is historically known to be gear conflict, also recognised that there are no statutory requirements for gear conflict avoidance or resolution and no easy solution to the problem. Our assets are tasked according to risks of legislative infringements and therefore there has been no specific tasking with regards to gear conflict.

However, we introduced The Gear Marking (Scotland) Order 2020, which makes it a legal requirement for a fishing vessel deploying buoys for fishing operations for those buoys display their name and registration number. This builds on the Best Practice Guidance for Marking Static Fishing Gear we published in August 2018. At sea, our Marine Protection vessels have been actively engaged in assuring compliance with this Order and our Inshore Protection Programme has enabled more agile and responsive monitoring in inshore waters.

In addition, the outcomes of our 2017 Inshore Fisheries Pilots initiative have worked to address some of the causes of gear conflict and test approaches aimed at mitigating them. Our Mull pilot for example successfully introduced temporal and spatial separation of the creel and scallop dredge fleet, while the Outer Hebrides pilot is testing creel limitation as well as a low cost approach to tracking and monitoring of fishing vessels.

We are also continuing to encourage the industry to develop voluntary codes of conduct and providing support wherever necessary. Our national network of Regional Inshore Fisheries Groups are the correct medium for such proposals to be proposed and developed.

In 2020 Marine Scotland introduced a new mechanism for reporting gear loss that aims to take a holistic approach, facilitating fishers being reunited with displaced gear. A report of lost gear can be made via any of our 18 Fishery Offices. The aim of this is to help fishers arrive at an amicable outcome, but that will also ensure all necessary information is available, should Police Scotland require to be involved.