Chamber and committees

The process of recruiting a Chair for the independent review is underway and an advert is currently live.

The following matters are within the scope of the review:

• the activities and descriptors that determine entitlement to Adult Disability Payment, including how these apply to disabled people with fluctuating conditions
• people’s experiences of applying for, receiving or challenging a decision about Adult Disability Payment or undergoing a review (including unsuccessful applicants)
• consultations process and Adult Disability Payment-specific guidance for practitioners and decision-making guidance to ensure a rights-based model of social security is being applied
• considering initial priorities capable of early action that do not require changes to the application, decision-making or service delivery, where those changes offer value, are deliverable and useful regardless of any longer-term changes.

The Section 34 letter to Local Authority Chief Executives under the Building (Scotland) Act 2003 (Section 34 - Reports and Information - Notification of Application for Building Warrant - Section 2 - Fire) to require that a verifier must notify the Scottish Government where future conversions of historic buildings are to be used as hotel accommodation has been sent to all Local Authority Chief Executives and copied to Building Standards Managers on 31 October 2023.

The Scottish Government’s Fair Work Action Plan sets out actions to promote fair and inclusive workplaces across Scotland. We are committed to using all levers at our disposal to extend Fair Work conditionality with clear standards and minimum requirements to cover all forms of Scottish Government support within the limits of devolved competence.

The Scottish Government expects the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) to continue promoting the Fair Work principles and to monitor adherence across the college sector, as outlined in the Ministerial letter of guidance issued to the SFC on 1 June 2023.

The Scottish Government is advised on food safety and standards matters by Food Standards Scotland (FSS). They have advised that a formal post implementation review of the Honey (Scotland) Regulations 2015 has been delayed due to the need to prioritise EU exit related food law work, and more recently matters relating to the Retained EU (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023.

A post-implementation review is due to be undertaken as part of consideration of proposed EU changes to labelling requirements for blended honey. FSS has contacted honey producers in Scotland to ask for initial views on these proposals, and are working closely with policy officials on a UK basis to consider next steps.

In the meantime, FSS continues to monitor the effectiveness and suitability of the Honey (Scotland) Regulations 2015 through communication with stakeholders, including Local Authorities, businesses and consumers.

Membership of the expert group, remit/terms of reference and minutes of expert group meetings group will be published on the Building and Fire Safety Ministerial Working Group website once they have been agreed. A detailed programme of work is currently under development to establish a timeframe for reporting and will be agreed at the first meeting of the group on 28 November 2023.

Work is ongoing to finalise the guidance to promote the use of automatic fire suppression systems for historic building conversions to hotels in the non-domestic technical handbook and is expected to be published in November 2023.

The Right to Breaks Regulations and Guidance Working Group’s role is advisory, to help with the development of the statutory guidance and regulations that will be required to deliver the right to breaks for carers proposed by the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill. This work cannot be finalised until after parliamentary scrutiny of the Bill has concluded and is likely to feed into wider consultation on the approaches proposed.

The Right to Breaks Regulations and Guidance Working Group is made up of representatives from:

• unpaid carers
• Shared Care Scotland
• Coalition of Carers in Scotland
• MECOPP
• Carers Trust Scotland (representing young carers)
• Carer Centre Managers Network
• Health and Social Care Partnerships – Borders, Edinburgh, Falkirk, North Ayrshire
• COSLA
• Social Work Scotland
• Scottish Government

As the names of group members is personal data of a third party, disclosing that would contravene the data protection principles in Article 5(1) of the General Data Protection Regulation and in section 34(1) of the Data Protection Act 2018.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring we have a comprehensive and high quality free school meal programme and we regularly work with other nations to ensure good practice is shared.

We have no plans at this stage to join the School Meals Coalition. For over a decade, Scotland has been actively involved with International School Meals Day which provides us with the opportunity to promote school meal uptake in Scotland and to showcase Scotland's model of school food provision and food education on the international stage.

To date 63 countries are engaged with International School Meals Day, each sharing their knowledge and experience of supporting children and young people to access balanced and nutritious school lunches to support their healthy growth and development.

We continue to work with COSLA and local authority partners to develop delivery plans. This includes consideration of funding, monitoring and reporting. At present local authorities are responsible for the management of their own digital assets and will have their own local processes in place to handle any repair or replacement.