Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government jointly launched the Local Governance Review with COSLA to consider how powers are shared across national and local government, and with communities. Engagement extended beyond local government to consider all public services. Summary reports of the initial findings can be found at https://www.gov.scot/democracymatters . We didn't specifically ask about the number of councils, council boundaries, or who should govern each council. Instead, we asked a short set of broad questions about the future of local democracy in Scotland. From over 350 responses from individuals, communities and public institutions, the number, size, or shape of councils, or who should govern them, didn’t appear in the analysis. A key theme which did emerge was the need to consider the right level of place for the delivery of different services – local, regional or national. On 16 May 2019, the Scottish Government and COSLA announced the initial findings and set out next steps. A further round of widespread engagement will take place later in 2019 in order to help create a new system of community-led decision-making that can become integrated into Scottish society.

The Scottish Government jointly launched the Local Governance Review with COSLA to consider how powers are shared across national and local government, and with communities. The Review reflects our shared commitment to Scotland’s different places and diverse communities having a direct say over decisions which affect them.

The Scottish Government is committed to stimulating investment and creating vibrant and inclusive regional economies. City and Regional Growth Deals represent significant investments in our regional economies, with local authorities leading the development of proposals that reflect their region’s economic strengths, and comprise of a programme of interventions to support transformative change.

Deals represent a partnership of investment between the Scottish Government, the UK Government and local government partners. The Scottish Government has committed over £1.7 billion over the next 10 to 20 years to Deals and associated regional investments. We have made clear that we want to ensure that all of Scotland is covered by a growth deal, and have challenged the UK government to match this.

We are also working with partners to facilitate the development of new Regional Economic Partnerships. These are collaborations between local authorities, the private sector, education and skills providers, our economic agencies and the third sector. By bringing together regional interests, aligning resources, sharing knowledge, and developing joined-up plans, these partnerships, supported by the Scottish Government and our agencies, seek to drive inclusive economic growth at a regional scale.

The Local Governance Review reflects a shared commitment from the Scottish Government and COSLA to Scotland’s different places and diverse communities having a direct say over decisions which affect them. Ministers want to strengthen local decision-making and democratic governance in ways that improve outcomes for people, grow Scotland’s economy for everyone’s benefit, support communities to focus on their priorities, and help new ideas to flourish. The Review will help deliver the National Performance Framework outcomes, “We tackle poverty by sharing opportunities, wealth and power more equally”, and “We live in communities that are inclusive, empowered, resilient and safe”.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-24115 on 18 July 2019. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

Provision of good quality data and measurement of Chronic Pain services and outcomes for those who use the services is recognised as being essential to understand, forecast and plan future staffing, service provision and improve outcomes for patients.

A Healthcare Needs Assessment of Adult Chronic Pain Services in Scotland, undertaken by the Scottish Public Health Network, was published in September 2018. In addition, Dundee University recently undertook a Data and Measurement Project for Chronic Pain Services to inform national service improvement and to help develop and test a Core Minimum Dataset (CMD) and Quality Performance Indicators (QPIs) for Chronic Pain.

Both these pieces of work, combined with NHS Chronic Pain data collated on an ongoing basis by Information Services Division (ISD) and the findings of a short life working group on the Chronic Pain workforce convened by the National Advisory Committee for Chronic Pain, will inform next steps and future service improvement, as part of the Scottish Pain Specialty Group’s Design Workshop Report Implementation Plan currently being drafted.

Additionally, the National Advisory Committee for Chronic Pain has been working with the Faculty of Pain Medicine and other stakeholders to understand the pressures around workforce capacity and training needs/opportunities for healthcare professionals working within specialist pain multi-disciplinary teams within hospital clinics and in the community. This has informed the context of the Chronic Pain workshops.

The National Advisory Committee for Chronic Pain endorsed the Report in its entirety at their meeting on 26th June 2019. At the same meeting, it was agreed to establish a Chronic Pain Patient Reference Group to help ensure that a wide representation of the lived experience of chronic pain is taken in to consideration and informs service improvements. It is envisaged that this group, along with other patient involvement, will provide a patient perspective to help coproduce information about chronic pain self-management guided by the Scottish Government Health Literacy Action Plan 2015 – 2025 and other stakeholders, including NHS Inform, to help ensure that it is appropriate and widely accessible.

Developing strong links between primary and secondary care, as well as acute and chronic pain services, in order to create a clear model of care, is one of the seven areas identified in the Chronic Pain Specialty Group's Design Workshop Report, as most likely to make a difference to people presenting with Chronic Pain. As such, it will also receive particular focus as part of the next steps and implementation plan associated with the report, currently being drafted. Part of this will be to identify how people living with chronic pain can inform themselves, take ownership of and be supported to self-manage their condition, including involvement in decisions about their medication, guided by the Chronic Pain Prescribing Strategy (2018) along with raising awareness of what self-management is and what options are available to them.

Making information about Chronic Pain self-management widely accessible as well as widely used is another of the seven areas identified in the Chronic Pain Specialty Group's Design Workshop Report, as most likely to make a difference to people presenting with Chronic Pain. As such, it will receive particular focus as part of the next steps and implementation plan associated with the report, currently being drafted, along with helping to make people aware of what self-management is and what options are available to them. This plan will be devised in consultation with stakeholders.

Our Stroke Improvement Plan (2014) sets out a comprehensive programme for further reducing the number of deaths from stroke and improving stroke treatment and care across the whole patient pathway including rehabilitation.

The Scottish Stroke Care Audit (SSCA) monitors the quality of care provided by the hospitals in all Health Boards by collating data collected by the stroke Managed Clinical Networks (MCNs).

To improve services effectively the Scottish Stroke Improvement Programme recognises the needs to set clear aims which have been established through the Scottish Stroke Care Standards (2016) and the priority actions from the Stroke Improvement Plan. The Stroke Improvement Programme Lead and Scottish SSCA National Clinical Coordinator work closely with NHS Boards to ensure key priorities from the Stroke Improvement Plan are implemented and monitored.

12 out of 18 (67%) social landlords report that they have met the minimum site standards for Gypsy/Traveller sites. The following table provides a breakdown by local authority/Registered Social Landlord. The Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) continues to monitor, assess and report on landlords’ achievement of and ongoing compliance with the minimum site standards. SHR is engaging with landlords to ensure that progress is being made on sites that do not currently meet the standards.

The Scottish Government supports a number of third sector organisations through the £750 million Attainment Scotland Fund. Local Authorities and schools are empowered to decide how they use this funding to support young people living in poverty with many Local Authorities and schools choosing to invest some of this funding in services offered by the Third Sector, including Barnardo’s Scotland.

We recognise the varied and valuable contributions third sector organisations such as Barnardo’s Scotland make to tackling the poverty related attainment gap. Through a National Third Sector Engagement working group, the Scottish Government works collaboratively with Education Scotland and the third sector to develop opportunities for their further engagement in the Scottish Attainment Challenge. Schools guidance has been developed which provides advice on engaging with the third sector to help improve outcomes for young people. This is available from: https://education.gov.scot/improvement/Documents/
sac79-sac-and-third-sector-partnerships.pdf .

Recent Scottish Government evaluation of the Scottish Attainment Challenge highlighted that collaboration continues to feature strongly and that collaborations with the third sector continue to be valued by Challenge Authorities. Local Authorities also reported their encouragement and support for schools to collaborate with third sector and other partners in planning and implementing Pupil Equity Funding. The Challenge will continue to enable young people to benefit from the important interventions the third sector can offer. The evaluation report is available here:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/
evaluation-attainment-scotland-fund-interim-report-year-3/ .

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that eviction for rent arrears is a last resort and we have robust measures in place to help tenants in arrears sustain their tenancy wherever possible. The number of evictions in Scotland accounted for only 0.4% of social sector tenancies in 2017-18.

The Scottish Government notes the publication of the Shelter Scotland report, Evictions by social landlord in Scotland 2016-2018 with interest. We will be discussing the recommendations in the report with Shelter and consider what action, if any, needs to be taken.