Chamber and committees

The 2021-22 Programme for Government included a commitment to invest £4 million until March 2024 to support public services to consistently uphold children's rights. The financial memorandum that accompanied the original UNCRC Bill set out how that would be spent and included commitments to invest in: accessible guidance and training; awareness-raising to support children and young people to be human rights defenders; a sustainable approach to the strategic participation of children and young people in decision-making; a social marketing campaign to raise the profile and support for children’s rights across Scottish society; and support for public services and senior leaders to progressively realise the rights of children.

While the social media campaign could not be progressed due to the delay to the UNCRC Bill, all of the other support is either in place or in development.

Our investment in supporting the implementation of a children’s human rights approach has been £4,117,974 in 2021-22, £5,022,545 in 2022-23 and is currently forecast to be £5,121,064 in 2023-24. This includes the cost of:

• work to progress the UNCRC (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill and develop supporting guidance;
• grant funding of organisations that are supporting public authorities to take a children’s human rights approach (Scottish Youth Parliament, Children’s Parliament, Together, Young Scot and the Improvement Service)
• grant funding of organisation that help children and young people to seek redress for rights issues (Clan Childlaw and Scottish Child Law Centre);
• grant funding of organisations delivering on children’s rights through the Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention Fund
• national funding of Unicef’s Rights Respecting School Award;
• the development of a child-friendly complaints process in partnership with the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman;
• the UNCRC innovation fund that is funding 8 local authorities and their partners to embed children’s rights; and
• the development of a national children’s rights skills and knowledge framework.

Grampian Regional Equality Council receives funding from the Scottish Government’s Equality & Human Rights Fund (EHRF). High-level EHRF outcomes are set out in Grant Offer Letters, and are as follows:

• People with protected characteristics have increased influence in decisions that affect them;

• the Scottish Government has better access to data and depth of information about the experiences of people with protected characteristics;

• the experience of people with protected characteristics is increasingly used to inform the policy and practice of public bodies; and

• public services increasingly embed equality and human rights in their strategic planning and their day-to-day functions.

Inspiring Scotland are the fund managers for the EHRF, acting on behalf of the Scottish Government. Inspiring Scotland engage with organisations directly to agree on workplans and set specific objectives and outcomes.

We routinely speak to the Scottish footballing authorities on wide a range of topics, including the behaviour of fans. It should be noted that the majority of supporters across the country go to football to support their team in a safe and responsible manner and that incidents, such as booing during commemorative events, are the actions of a minority. Nevertheless we condemn such actions.

As this match falls under the auspices of the Scottish Professional Football League, it is for them to investigate any incidents and take any appropriate actions against the clubs. Any individuals identified as engaging in criminal behaviour during these investigations will be reported to the police. We have not spoken to either Celtic FC, the Scottish FA or the SPFL about this specific incident.

Clubs are taking action when they can and we welcome the decision by Celtic to ban sections of their fans who, despite numerous requests by the club, continued to demonstrate anti-social behaviour. We would support other clubs in taking similar actions where appropriate.

Electricity and heat capacity data broken down by local authority area are publicly available on the Scottish Energy Statistics Hub. Data tables can be found at the bottom of the following pages. Local authority data can be accessed by clicking the ‘Local authority’ tab above each data table.

Electricity: https://scotland.shinyapps.io/Energy/?Section=RenLowCarbon&Subsection=RenElec&Chart=RenElecCapacity

Heat: https://scotland.shinyapps.io/Energy/?Section=RenLowCarbon&Subsection=RenHeat&Chart=RenHeatTech

This data has been redacted according to data protection legislation. As the redacted figures are below five, there is increased risk of identification of data subjects, and as such these figures must be treated as personal data.

The data protection legislation; UKGDPR and DPA 2018 are derivatives of the Human Rights Act. Their purpose is to uphold the rights of individuals in relation to their data and privacy.

The Member might be aware that the British Transport Police (BTP) reports to the UK Department for Transport(DfT) and British Transport Police Authority (BTPA). The information on the level of its staff is not held centrally by the Scottish Government. The Member may wish to refer to the information on the BTP’s website or contact BTP direct.

The 2021-22 Programme for Government, alongside the Bute House Agreement, set out our plans to develop and implement breakfast policy for the whole parliamentary term. Subsequent Programme for Government publications have reiterated that food provision is an important part of the mission to tackle child poverty. Work to map existing breakfast provision is expected to be completed by Spring 2024 which will inform policy on school breakfasts, and a plan for breakfast provision, designed around the needs of children and families.

The British Transport Police works closely with multi-agency partners to help prevent and reduce any incidents arising on the transport network and making the transport network a safer place for passengers and staff.

A positive example of BTP’s partnership working with partners such as ScotRail includes its collaboration with ScotRail’s Travel Safe Team which sees a reduction of the number of incidents on the Scottish rail network.

The external costs associated with the production and publication of the Building a New Scotland paper, ‘Social security in an independent Scotland’, are set out in the following table:

The Scottish Government remains fully committed to supporting Mark Ruskell MSP in progressing his Members’ Bill to reconsideration stage as soon as possible. The Verity House Agreement includes an explicit commitment for Ministers to do this.

Now that the amended United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill has been passed by Parliament, we are preparing suggested amendments to the Members’ Bill to assist.