Chamber and committees

The Times YouGov poll is just one of a succession of polls showing that the majority of Scots support our progressive tax reforms to enable us to invest in our vital public services. Most recently, a June Panelbase poll for The Sunday Times found that 52% of Scots would be willing to pay more tax to better fund the NHS, with less than a third (29%) opposed to tax rises. Our policies are also influencing debate in other parts of the UK and have set a precedent for reforming taxes to fund the NHS. Clearly, the Scottish Government is leading the way on tax reform, as in so many other areas.

Fieldwork was conducted between 12 and 16 January 2018 by YouGov commissioned by The Times. The results were published on 18 January 2018. The poll findings confirmed that a clear majority of the sample of 1002 adults interviewed supported the Scottish Government’s progressive income tax reforms. The findings are a vindication of the Scottish Government’s fairer and more progressive approach to income tax.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of sole traders and SMEs to our economy and is committed to creating a supportive business environment conducive to sustained economic growth. While we continue to support local authorities in their management and delivery of Business Gateway, Scotland also boasts an extremely well developed network of specialised support for businesses to grow and succeed. For example Interface, which connects businesses to the tremendous knowledge resources of our universities. Or Investing Women, which helps female entrepreneurs gain the skills and confidence to access the investment they need to grow.

Meanwhile, we will provide the most competitive reliefs package in the UK, worth a record £720 million, up from £660 million in 2017-18. And we will protect the Small Business Bonus Scheme, lifting 100,000 properties out of rates altogether.

The Gini coefficient is widely used for measuring income inequality. Income inequality in Scotland as measured by the Gini coefficient has been fluctuating around a fairly stable level over the last 20 years.

The Gini coefficient is calculated using the whole income distribution. Changes in the Gini coefficient will therefore be driven by changes in income distribution, rather than changes in median income.

The Gini coefficient is based on data from the Family Resources Survey, a survey of around 2,700 households throughout Scotland, and the source of official income inequality statistics. The sample size is relatively small and does not allow for regional analysis. It is difficult, therefore, to deduce how changes in a particular region impact on the overall Gini coefficient for Scotland as a whole.

The median income of one wealthy region within Scotland is only one of many factors that influence income inequality, and it is more important which parts of the income distribution change. We can therefore not say what effect (if any) household incomes in the North East may have had on the Gini coefficient in Scotland.

The actual of number of patients journeys within the 18 week referral to treatment standard increased from 4,226 in December 2017 to 4,722 in March 2018 a 12% increase. This shows that although the percentage seen with 18 weeks fell in March 2018 compared to December 2017 more patients were actually seen and treated within the 18 week standard during the month of March 2018.

Regional planning has been designed to complement local planning and individual Board expenditure plans and allocations – as included in the 2018-19 budget – will feed in to each of the regional plans.

The 2018-19 Budget includes an additional £175 million to support investment in reform, as part of the Scottish Government’s twin approach of investment and reform in Health and Social Care services.

NHS Grampian used the £4.9 million additional funding to address exceptionally long waiters across a number of specialties, particularly in relation to first outpatient consultation. Latest published figures for 31 March 2018 shows that 63.4% of patients waiting for an outpatient consultation were waiting less than 12 weeks - this compares with 56.4% in September 2017. Outpatient performance across an number of specialties in NHS Grampian has shown substantial improvement in delivery from 30 September 2017 to 31 March 18 for example cardiology improving to 82% from 62%, ENT improved to 93% from 60% and Gastroenterology improved to 93% from 60% in March 2018 when compared with September 2017.

We recognise that all Boards including Grampian still need to make significant improvement to eradicate long waiters and that is why the Scottish Government announced on 29 May that it was making £50 million available in 2018-19 to reduce waiting time for patients requiring to be seen and/or treated in hospital. NHS Boards have initially received a share of £25 million with Grampian receiving around £2.5million. The further £25 million will be made available later in the year to help support Boards build upon improvements in services including the work of the Access Collaborative.

The Scottish Government actively manages the budget position over the course of the financial year. As part of the Budget Revision process the Government has committed to provide a mid-year report on revenue and spending up to the end of December to the Finance and Constitution Committee.

Across the UK real wages declined during the global recession as inflation outstripped increases in salaries. Latest official earnings data for April 2017 showed annual growth in average weekly full time earnings was stronger in Scotland than the UK as a whole (2.4% vs 2.2%).

We will continue to make the case that employment law should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament so that we can develop policy that will drive higher wage growth. However, we are using existing powers to deliver real wage growth. We are promoting the Living Wage, which will raise incomes, as a mechanism to increase productivity and add value to businesses across Scotland. We now have over 1,200 accredited Living Wage employers - proportionately more than 5 times as many as in the rest of the UK - which is testament to this Government’s commitment to making Scotland a Living Wage Nation. We are providing £340,000 in 2018-19 to support the Poverty Alliance to deliver the Scottish Living Wage Accreditation Initiative and we are working with them and their leadership group to target low pay sectors. We have also taken a positive approach to setting public sector pay and our Pay Policy for 2018–19 has lifted the 1% public sector pay cap so that we invest in those who are delivering our public services.

Between 2007 and 2017, Scotland’s productivity has increased by 5.4% in total, or 0.6% per year on average. This compares to a UK increase of 1.7% in total, or 0.2% per year on average.

The Scottish Government is taking action to support the Scottish economy’s productivity, in line with the priorities set out in our Economic Strategy – to tackle inequality and increase competitiveness. This is very much aligned with our vision for education in Scotland – to ensure that we achieve excellence and equity for all of our children and young people in a highly performing education system.

The Scottish Government is investing enormously in the provision of funded early learning and childcare (ELC) for all 3 and 4 year olds and for the most disadvantaged 2 year olds and has recently announced a multi-year funding deal with local authorities that will ensure the successful delivery of the transformational expansion of ELC to 1140 hours a year from 2020. We are investing £750m through the Attainment Scotland Challenge over the course of this parliament to tackle the attainment gap. Furthermore, we are making Higher education more accessible and investing over £1.8 billion to support the Further and Higher Education sectors through the Scottish Funding Council’s 18-19 budget, guaranteeing that Higher Education will remain free of tuition fees for all eligible Scottish or EU domiciled undergraduate students.

Taken together, these measures are creating an excellent, work relevant education offer for Scotland’s young people, giving them the skills for the current and anticipated jobs market – which can help drive increased productivity. These policies can also help deliver inclusive growth by helping to close the attainment gap, contributing to our preventative actions to reduce Child Poverty and ensuring that every child, no matter their background or circumstances, has an equal chance of going on to higher education.