Chamber and committees

The new multi-agency group on commercial sexual exploitation held its first meeting on 27 March 2024. The membership of the Group includes representatives from the third and public sector. Details about the group can be accessed here: https://www.gov.scot/groups/commercial-sexual-exploitation/ . It is anticipated that part of the remit of the group will be to help inform the implementation and delivery of our strategic approach to challenging and deterring men’s demand for prostitution.

The Scottish Government and the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) are committed to modernising and improving the prison estate, to ensure it is fit for purpose for those who live and work in prisons, and supports the rehabilitation of people living there.

The decisions made by the UK Government to reduce capital funding in real terms year on year, alongside construction supply chain issues, labour shortages and recent high inflation mean that we are having to prioritise capital investment on areas of highest need. Replacing HMP Inverness and HMP Barlinnie remain the current prison infrastructure priorities.

In addition, SPS are undertaking a series of improvements to HMP Greenock until at least 2030, including roofing upgrades and replacements and refurbishment of the kitchen.

The following five grant schemes listed will have Fair Work conditionality added to the existing grant conditions

• Agri – Environment Climate Scheme (AECS),

• Crofting Agricultural Grants Scheme (CAGS),

• Food Processing, Marketing and Co-operation (FPMC),

• Forestry Grant Scheme (FGS), and

• Sustainable Agriculture Capital Grant Scheme (SACGS).

For CAGS and FGS Fair Work Conditionality will apply from 1 April 2024, for the three other schemes Fair Work Conditionality will be applied from the opening of the next application window for each scheme.

Fair Work conditionality applies to all employees irrespective of contractual length who are working on activity that relies on one of the grants listed above.

The Scottish Government and CoSLA’s Suicide Prevention Action Plan contains a commitment to work with The Promise Scotland to engage with care experienced people to better understand what action is needed to embed suicide prevention activity in our support to children and young people in care and care leavers, whom we know are at elevated risk of suicide.

During 2023-24, this has included work to build in suicide prevention across policies which tackle the social determinants of suicide, as part of our whole of government and society approach, and maximising opportunities to support care experienced people who are suicidal through their contact with services, such as homelessness and Social Security Scotland. Our innovative partnership-led delivery model is driving the implementation of our action plan and helping to extend our reach and impact in preventing suicide among care experienced groups by bringing together partners to share resources, learning and expertise. Central to this model is our Youth Advisory Group which includes care experienced young people affected by suicide. The Group is helping to shape our suicide prevention work to ensure it can best support and meet their needs.

We are now intensively developing our 2024-25 delivery plan, working collectively with The Promise Scotland as part of the development process, and considering how together we can achieve closer alignment across our outcomes measurement. The Scottish Government and COSLA will sign-off this delivery plan in coming months.

The Scottish Government takes an evidence-based approach to tackling child poverty by ensuring that plans are underpinned by evidence and that we carefully monitor progress. The evaluation strategy summarises the approach which is split across three key areas:

(1) Careful monitoring of the four child poverty targets(relative poverty, absolute poverty, low income and material deprivation, and persistent poverty).

(2) Examination of the three drivers of poverty via the child poverty measurement framework (income from employment, cost of living, and income from social security and benefits in-kind) and

(3) monitoring impact of key interventions on child poverty.

The hyperlinks to all key documents mentioned above are included in the background note.

Drug deaths remain a public health emergency and services have seen a significant increase in funding as a result of the National Mission. This increase of funding into drug policy represents a 67% increase from 2014-15 to 2023-24 according to Audit Scotland figures published in 2022. The published draft budget for 2024-25 has maintained our budget for alcohol and drugs at the same level as 2023-24.

Full budget allocations for 2024-25 are still to be confirmed.

It is not possible to disaggregate the full budget by these themes as Alcohol and Drug Partnerships receive around three quarters of the total drugs and alcohol budget to distribute at the local level. At a national level, many of the projects and organisations also support all three areas. The published draft budget for 2024-25 has maintained our budget for alcohol and drugs at the same level as 2023-24.

The National Mission funding has brought about major reform and improvement in services for people with drug and alcohol problems including:

• Continuing to widen the access to life-saving Naloxone with an estimated 7 in 10 people at risk having a kit; Police Scotland completing roll out amongst frontline staff.
• Continuing to drive implementation of the MAT Standards across the country. All delivery partners have returned implementation plans and report on progress on either a monthly or quarterly basis.
• A whole systems approach to prevention.

The Scottish Government laid legislation seeking the agreement of the Scottish Parliament to continue Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP), and set the price per unit at 65 pence on 19 February 2024. Members of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee voted to approve those orders on 26 March 2024 and I am pleased that there is cross party support for this policy.

The Scottish Government undertook an awareness raising campaign in 2018 before the original implementation of MUP, and we will take learning from that approach.

We are currently considering different options regarding public information campaigns and direct communications with businesses around the proposed changes to the minimum unit price of alcohol. These will be finalised after the sunset clause vote by the Scottish Parliament, which must take place before 30 April 2024.

Individuals who are not healthcare professionals and provide such procedures are not currently regulated and therefore this information is not held by the Scottish Government.

Individuals who are not healthcare professionals and provide such procedures are not currently regulated and therefore this information is not held by the Scottish Government.