Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government already provides funding of £113,000 per year (2017-2020) to the Scottish Traveller Education Programme (STEP) to support the delivery of education to children and young people from travelling cultures. In 2018-19 we awarded STEP additional funding of £275,000 to support and share best practice in delivering education to Gypsy/Traveller families for all ages and stages – from early years to adult learning – and to embed and systematise effective approaches across Scotland.

The Scottish Government is providing an additional £775,000 to strengthen the provision of education to Gypsy/Traveller families over the period 2018-2022. £275,000 of this was awarded to STEP in 2018-19 to support, share and systematise best practice in delivering education to children and young people from travelling cultures. This will pave the way for a further £0.5m from the Child Poverty Delivery Fund which will deliver flexible family education to Gypsy/Traveller families. This is in addition to the £113,000 per year (2017-2020) which we already provide to STEP.

When we published ‘Every Child, Every Chance: Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2018-2022’ we made a commitment to invest £0.5m in flexible family learning with Gypsy/Traveller families over the lifetime of the Plan (2018-2020). This will build on additional funding of £275,000 (2018-20) to STEP to strengthen the delivery of education to children and young people in the Gypsy/Traveller community. This work is underway and – alongside engagement with Gypsy/Traveller communities – will inform how the Child Poverty Delivery Fund money will be spent over the next three years .

PATH Scotland has received funding of £35k for each of the years 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 through the Promoting Equality and Cohesion Fund. This funding supports the Developing Management and Leadership Skills (DMLS) in Public Life, Education and Employment Programme, which has been developed as a positive action measure to address the absence of minority ethnic men and women in leadership roles at all levels of public life, education and employment.

The Scottish Government has provided funding for a new Gypsy/Traveller National Development Officer at STEP to help improve educational experiences and outcomes for Gypsy/Travellers. Working closely with the Traveller Education Network, the post holder will support local authorities to test out, learn from and share innovative models of education provision. The National Development Officer took up post on 27 May 2019.

The Scottish Government welcomes the valuable work that Red Cross and COOP are undertaking in tackling these issues. We note the recommendations within the report and will consider these further as we take forward the implementation of ‘A Connected Scotland’ our strategy to tackle social isolation and loneliness and build social connections.

In December 2017 we published the Race Equality Action Plan outlining more than 120 actions we will take over the course of this Parliament to secure better outcomes for ethnic minorities in Scotland. The plan seeks to address some of the factors that may lead to social isolation and loneliness for minority ethnic communities, including poverty, housing, and community cohesion.

The Scottish House Condition Survey Key Findings Report 2017 estimated that 50% of homes in Scotland have some disrepair to critical elements of the house, equivalent to around 1.2 million homes. The presence of disrepair to critical elements does not mean that a home is not actually wind and watertight, and includes fairly minor and non-urgent disrepairs. The Report estimates that around 58,000 homes suffer some water penetration due to a defect in the building fabric, and that around 7,000 homes are below the Tolerable Standard due to a fabric defect or a defective or missing damp proof course.

Local authorities are required to have a strategy for ensuring that homes which do not meet the Tolerable Standard are closed, demolished or brought up to standard in a reasonable period, and they have broad discretionary powers to assist home owners with work needed to meet the standard. Landlords of both private and social rented housing are required to carry out any work needed to ensure that homes they let are wind and watertight.

We are making excellent progress towards our target of delivering 50,000, affordable homes, 35,000 of which will be for social rent, backed by a record investment of £3.3 billion.

The most recently published Quarterly Housing Statistics show that since April 2016 to end March 2019, we have delivered 25,405 affordable homes, 16,419 of which are for social rent – keeping us well on track to deliver our ambitious target over the course of this Parliament.

This government can be very proud of its record on affordable housing having now delivered more than 86,000 affordable homes since 2007.

Early intervention is defined as the commencement of any necessary treatment as soon as possible after diagnosis. The Scottish Government’s Quality Indicator profile includes a measure of the percentage of first presentation psychosis patients that start SIGN or NICE guideline evidence based treatment within 14 calendar days of referral to specialist mental health services.

The improvement work, as articulated in our Vision, will ensure that people presenting for the first time with psychosis anywhere in Scotland will have timely access to effective care and treatment, with early intervention and a focus on recovery.

People with recurring and long term mental illness require good primary and secondary mental health care and treatment. This is the responsibility of local providers including NHS Boards and HSCPs, and the Scottish Government expects that anyone with recurring psychosis will continue to receive the right treatment at the right time.

Our Vision paper lays the groundwork for a nationwide improvement in EI Psychosis services, and all patients experiencing psychosis (including those with recurring psychosis) will further benefit from this improvement work as it moves forward.