Chamber and committees

Transport Scotland is in regular contact with Hargreaves, the developer for the Blindwells Development. The last meeting took place on 3 September 2024.

ScotRail Trains Ltd routinely monitors patronage on its services to identify trends, opportunities and to best match its resources with the passenger demand. Following the Ministerial decision to end the 12 month trial removing peak fares, the Scottish Government intends to repeat the analysis undertaken to assess the pilot, as detailed in the published report, after an appropriate period has elapsed.

The Scottish Government publishes detailed flag flying guidance annually on the Scottish Government website Guidance - Flag flying on government buildings: 2024 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) and a link to the guidance is also available on the Scottish Government’s intranet pages, available to Directorates and other government departments. In addition, this flag flying guidance is issued to local authorities and government agencies.

The guidance sets out the relevant flag to be flown in recognition of national anniversaries and Royal events. It also provides advice on the half/masting of flags following national/international tragedies and events.

This guidance applies to Scottish Government buildings only and is provided to non-Scottish Government organisations for information purposes. It remains the prerogative of each organisation to set their own flag flying programme.

Separate communication was issued by email to Scottish Government external flag flying contacts in June 2024 in relation to the 80th anniversary of D-Day and for the Coronation of Their Majesties in May 2023.

The Minister for Housing visited the Wester Hailes pilot on 4 July 2023 and met with local councillors, members of the City of Edinburgh Mixed Tenure Improvement Service (MTIS) Team and local tenants living in flats affected by the MTIS. Scottish Government officials meet City of Edinburgh Council regularly to discuss progress with the MTIS and any issues arising, most recently in July 2024 with another meeting expected in September.

Living Rent Edinburgh gave a deputation at the City of Edinburgh Council’s Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work Committee on 27 August 2024, after which they shared their concerns with council officials. The council have extended an invitation to Edinburgh Living Rent to hold regular meetings with them to discuss and agree options to improve local engagement.

MTIS is the responsibility of the City of Edinburgh Council and decisions related to service delivery are best discussed with the council.

The Scottish Government recognises that social work has the greatest impact where practitioners are embedded in communities. This enables them to recognise and understand the challenges people in communities face on a day to day basis, including the existence of child poverty.

Social work has evolved to respond to both the existing and emerging needs of people and their communities, including demographic and societal changes. The Scottish Government understands that, as part of a range of approaches in which social work supports people, the community social work model holds an important place, especially in relation to responding to child poverty and other complex issues which people experience.

The Scottish Government is aware of the Community Social Work pilot undertaken by Fife Council and recognises the approach is known to support positive outcomes. Ms Ewing will be aware of the challenging fiscal climate we are operating in at this time, which means that we are currently unable to provide additional resources to local authorities to pilot such an approach.

Scottish Government officials meet with Social Work Scotland and Chief Social Work Officers regularly to discuss a range of social work issues. Specifically, Chief Social Work Officer Network meetings are held every fortnight, coordinated by the Scottish Government and Social Work Scotland.

Whilst community social work has not been a specific agenda item on the meetings this year, many of the discussions keep abreast of issues underpinning community social work.

The Scottish Government recognises that the community social work approach may provide assistance for people experiencing a range of circumstances. We know that children, young people and families benefit when they can access the support they need when and where they need it. Communities across Scotland are currently supported through national initiatives including Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC), the Promise, and UNCRC legislation. Multi-agency community support hubs - which include social work - exemplify the ways in which national and local partners are working with their communities to provide effective whole family support in a place-based way that works for people.

We will continue to invest to provide a template for future change and improvement, however there are currently no plans to pilot the community social work approach across Scotland. We also acknowledge the role of local authorities in understanding and responding to the needs of people in local communities through the provision of services which promote people’s wellbeing.

The enforcement of traffic offences is an operational matter for Police Scotland, with oversight provided by the Scottish Police Authority, who act independently of Scottish ministers.

Latest assured figure (from 31 July 2024) showed that around 14,000 premises were still expected to be connected through the R100 Central contract.

Latest coverage figures, including premises connected that were beyond the scope of the initial R100 contracts, are available on our website at Data insights | Digital Scotland Superfast Broadband.