Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government and COSLA have signed an Overarching Delivery Agreement, demonstrating a shared commitment to join up local delivery and co-location of services. Social Security Scotland have been meeting regularly with council representatives to identify suitable opportunities for co-location ahead of local delivery services becoming fully operational.

To date, offices in two local authority areas have been acquired, these being the interim Headquarters for Social Security Scotland in Dundee and an interim administrative office in Glasgow.

Social Security Scotland does not become established as an Executive Agency of the Scottish Government until 1 September 2018. Until this date the staff who will ultimately work for the Agency are aligned to Social Security Agency Implementation Division within Social Security Directorate in Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government (SG) collate and retain all information relating to staffing and employee records for Social Security Agency Implementation Division, and will continue to do so for Social Security Scotland. SG record when an individual joins the organisation from another government department, but not which department it is. It is therefore not possible to report on the number of staff who have previously worked for the Department for Work and Pensions.

The available information is provided in the following tables, which have been produced from the Scottish Government’s criminal proceedings database .

Persons proceeded against in Scottish courts for selected crimes¹, 2012-13 to
‎ 2016-17

Official Statistics are produced on the number of crimes and offences recorded by the police that involved the use of a firearm. This doesn’t include cases where the offence solely related to the ownership of the weapon (i.e. the weapon hasn’t been used to commit other crimes or offences). Statistics for the latest five years published are presented in Table 1 for both Scotland and the Scottish Borders local authority area.

In terms of 2016-17, statisticians announced earlier in the year that additional time is required for the completion of all quality assurance checks with Police Scotland on this information. We will keep users informed of progress with this work, and will announce a publication date for both the reporting years of 2016-17 and 2017-18 in the near future.

In addition to the official statistics on the number of crimes and offences recorded by the police that involved the use of a firearm, the Recorded Crime National Statistics include offences that relate to the possession of a firearm. This could include for example the possession of a prohibited weapon. Table 2 shows this information for the latest five years published, again for both Scotland and the Scottish Borders local authority area. The Recorded Crime National Statistics for 2017-18 will be published on 25 September.

The Scottish Ministers have acquired accommodation to meet the interim property requirements for the Dundee headquarters and the Glasgow administrative office for Social Security Scotland. These arrangements involve the Agency being co-located in local authority buildings which completely comply with Equalities Act legislation governing accessibility.

This will allow the establishment of the agency and the delivery of the first wave of devolved benefits from local authority premises which fully meet the requirements of the Equalities Act.

As an Executive Agency of the Scottish Government, Social Security Scotland will implement the existing processes established by Scottish Ministers on Freedom of Information requests. The agency website, once established, will contain details on how to submit a Freedom of Information request. We will also adopt the Model Publication Scheme, recommended by the Scottish Information Commissioner, to ensure information is appropriately provided to members of the public in a spirit of openness and transparency.

HIFU is a less invasive treatment and results in shorter recovery times for patients, compared with surgery or radiotherapy. Clinical trials are under way to assess the side-effects of this treatment. At present HIFU is only available as part of clinical trials, and NICE guidance states that it should not be offered except under trial conditions.

The clinical lead for the Prostate Cryotherapy service has advised that at the time of establishing the cryotherapy service consideration was made as to whether to offer HIFU, however the evidence base at that time better supported the provision of cryotherapy services in Scotland.

The Scottish Public Pensions Agency (SPPA) does not employ a full time Cybersecurity Analyst.

SPPA employed a Cyber Security Specialist to undertake a review of all SPPA IT functions and this work concluded in July 2017.

SPPA has assigned a responsible officer and part of their role is to oversee the day to day cyber functions and tasks within the SPPA IT Team.

Scottish Prison Service (SPS) do not employ a Cybersecurity Analyst.

SPS has employed an IT Infrastructure Manager and this role is responsible for overseeing day to day cyber security issues for operational systems, setting direction and requirement for IT staff and developing cyber policies for the organisation. This role is a permanent SPS position with no resource movement over the period being considered, and reports to the Information Governance Forum (IGF), Head of ISS and the SPS Senior Information Risk Owner as required or requested.

Social Security Scotland is embedding security and cyber protection into the fabric of its architecture and design to gain the confidence of citizens and their trust in the Agency to deliver the devolved benefits with payments made on time, every time.

The Agency is adopting a secure by design ethos with an emphasis on building security into solutions from the start. Currently, the Agency utilises the Scottish Government’s SCOTS Connect shared IT service which includes monitoring and assessing cyber-attacks on a continuous basis by the SGs in-house team.

The Scottish Government’s in-house Cyber Security and Defence Team currently consists of 17 members of staff with recruitment for two more under way. Seven of these members of staff are classed as ‘IT Security Analysts’.

‘IT Security Analysts’ only make up a small part of the SG’s overall Cyber Security function.

In parallel to this, Social Security Scotland is developing its own dedicated in-house cyber security team and, recruitment of that team began in 2017 and will continue in a phased approach as the new benefits are introduced.

Links have been made with organisations representing both national and local domestic abuse services to help in the development of the new social security system in Scotland. This includes representation on the Best Start Reference Group and holding meetings to understand the specific needs and impacts people face.

These links will be built on through the work of the newly recruited Local Delivery Leads who will have a key role in building strong relationships with existing advice services and support groups within their local area. This will include organisations that support people who are vulnerable, such as those who have experienced domestic abuse. Establishing these links will help ensure that clients have seamless access to our services and the support they need when and where they need it.

We are committed to ensuring there is fairness, and consistency in the decision making by local authorities, and we do this by publishing on an annual basis, statutory Scottish Welfare Fund guidance which local authorities have a legal duty to have regard to. The guidance sets out the Scottish Government’s expectations about how the SWF should be delivered by local authorities

We continue to work with local authorities through our quarterly Scottish Welfare Fund Practitioner Forum to address issues of inconsistency, identify areas for improvement, promote good practice and ensure the Scottish Welfare Fund statutory guidance is adhered to.