Chamber and committees

The current value of the IBM contract is publically available on the Public Contracts Scotland website.

The original £8.3 million value of the contract was to support the development and implementation of four Scottish Government benefits and the revised contract delivers much more than we originally asked for.

A four year breakdown of the cost of the contract is not available. It currently runs until October 2019, with an option to extend. The bulk of the projected costs therefore fall in 2018-19 and 2019-20.

The Scottish Government has many available funds for coastal local authorities, raising awareness for these funds are done in many different ways, including social media and in local newspapers.

The Scottish Government is delivering a funding package of £11.2 billion for local authorities in 2019-20, a real terms increase of £310 million or 2.9 per cent for essential public services in Scotland. Details of the available funding from the Scottish Government is published in The Local Government Finance Circular that contains the individual allocations for each local authority.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/local-government-finance-circular-2-2019-settlement-for-2019-2020/ .

Following devolution of the management and revenue of the Scottish Crown Estate we agreed an interim arrangement with COSLA for distributing a share of total net revenue from marine assets in the 0-12 nautical mile zone (this arrangement is distinct from the operation of the Coastal Communities Fund). The precise timetable for reviewing this interim arrangement is still under discussion with COSLA but we expect it to be completed within the next two years.

The review of the Coastal Communities Fund in Scotland is at an advanced stage and I expect to announce the way forward on funding for coastal communities this summer.

There is no unallocated funding for Round 4 of the Coastal Communities Fund. All Coastal Communities Fund funding has been allocated to individual projects and all projects are due to complete this year.

The Scottish Government provides the Scottish Welfare Fund Statutory Guidance to all local authorities, and it is available at https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-welfare-fund-statutory-guidance-9781788519687/

A number of Agency Agreements will be put in place in preparation for transfer of executive competence on 1 April 2020. The Agency Agreements are key mechanisms to support the safe and secure transition of delivery responsibilities from the DWP to our own Social Security Scotland Agency. They are a cost-effective way of ensuring that Scottish residents continue to receive the right payments at the right time whilst we undertake the work required to develop our new systems.

To successfully achieve this, the Scottish Government is working closely with DWP to agree joint plans and priorities to deliver the necessary milestones.

No incentives are offered to staff in the Social Security Programme Management and Delivery division. Permanent staff in the Social Security Programme Management and Delivery division are employed on the Standard Scottish Government terms and conditions of employment.

Social Security Scotland’s Executive Advisory Body provides strategic advice and constructive challenge to the Chief Executive and the Senior Leadership Team. It specifically supports those activities for which the Agency Chief Executive is Accountable Officer. The Agency works closely alongside our Policy and Programme colleagues, in the Social Security Directorate, to deliver the devolution of social security in Scotland.

The Programme will continue to review and adapt it’s Agile approach as the scale and complexity of work changes. These continued reviews will look at the existing methodology we are using and also other frameworks that have been used elsewhere within government on Programmes of a similar size to develop the best approach for any increase in the Programme’s scale.

The number of households in each local authority that are experiencing fuel poverty is published annually in the Scottish House Condition Survey local authority tables.

Local Authority figures are based on a 3-year pooled sample to allow sufficient sample sizes to produce results on each local authority. The figures in Table 1 shows the numbers of fuel poor households and the fuel poverty rate based on the most recent 10 of the 3-year pooled samples, for Midlothian, East Lothian and Scottish Borders.

These estimates are based on the current definition of fuel poverty as set out in the 2002 Scottish Fuel Poverty Statement. There are proposed changes to this definition in the Fuel Poverty (Target, Definition and Strategy) (Scotland) Bill , which is currently progressing through Parliament.

Table : Fuel poverty rates and number of fuel poor households in Midlothian, East Lothian and Scottish Borders over 10 periods of 3-year pooled sample datasets.