Chamber and committees

Banking Hubs are a welcome industry initiative from UK Finance’s Cash Action Group. In October 2022 the Minister for Community Wealth and Public Finance visited the pilot Banking Hub in Cambuslang to see the positive impact it has had on the local area. The Scottish Government shares the industry’s aspiration that Banking Hubs can play an important role in servicing the banking needs of communities that have suffered recent branch closures.

The decision to open a new Banking Hub lies with the banking sector and is overseen by LINK, the UK’s cash machine network. The Scottish Government cannot mandate where and when a new Banking Hub is opened. Each time a bank branch closes LINK independently reviews the impact this will have on the local community’s cash access. Depending on the outcome of this review LINK can then recommend a Banking Hub is installed, amongst other additional services.

Scottish Government officials met with LINK in April 2023 to understand the process they follow when assessing a community’s cash access needs to ensure it is sufficient for LINK to properly determine the appropriate support measures required post branch closure in Scotland.

To improve a community’s access to cash and banking services any individual, including members of the public, elected officials, and community groups, can request a review of their areas access to cash from LINK - even if that community has not faced a recent branch closure. This can result in the installation of additional services in the area, including shared Banking Hubs .

There was no discussion at the Heads of Devolved Governments Council regarding the UK’s Military presence in Scotland.

However, we have previously highlighted to the Scottish Affairs Committee decisions made by the UK Government on defence, which is a reserved matter, can have far reaching implications for Scottish communities who we support.

In the Scottish Government’s written evidence to the Committee, we proposed that the UK Government commits to meaningful engagement with the Scottish Government through clear structures that facilitate discussion leading to productive outcomes.

The Scottish Government continues to engage with National Records of Scotland and adoption agencies to understand further the challenges in accessing adoption records.

We have also commissioned research to explore the unmet needs of those people affected by historic forced adoption, and what services we could put in place to support them. Access to records forms a key part of that research which is due for publication in late autumn.

The Scottish Government received £19.4 million of capital Barnett consequentials at the UK Government’s Spring Statement in March as a result of the pothole fund announcement.

This funding announcement came after Stage 3 of the Budget Bill had passed and it was therefore too late for these amounts to be included in the 2023-24 Scottish Budget. At this stage the funding remains unallocated and, as with any funding received after the Budget is set, will be considered in the rounds as part of the upcoming Autumn Budget Revision.

Since the STEM bursary scheme (now known as the Teaching Bursary Scheme) was introduced in 2018, the number of bursaries awarded in each year is as follows:

Universal free school meals are available to all children in Primaries 1 to 5, and to all pupils in special schools, saving families £400 per eligible child per year.

We are committed to the expansion of free school meals, with the next phase of this being to children in Primary 6 & 7 whose families are in receipt of the Scottish Child Payment.

The following table shows the number of pupils at each school in the G74 and G75 postcode areas who were registered for universal free school meals at the time of our September 2022 Pupil Census.

Transport Scotland has conducted extensive analysis of the carbon benefits of transport modal shift in Scotland. However, there has been no flow-specific analysis on the Edinburgh/Glasgow to Belfast corridor.

Significant public consultation and stakeholder engagement was undertaken as part of the second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2), published in December 2022. STPR2 will inform the Scottish Government’s transport investment programme in Scotland over the next 20 years (2022-2042) and will help to deliver the vision, priorities and outcomes for transport set out in the National Transport Strategy (NTS2). Within this there is a recommendation for a review of the upgrade or relocation of Stranraer rail station to be undertaken. Stakeholder engagement and public consultation were key elements of this review, including a three-month public consultation on the draft recommendations between January and April 2022. A summary report detailing the outcomes of this exercise was produced alongside an analysis report setting out how responses were used to inform the appraisal process. STPR2 Recommendation 40 includes measures to improve access to Stranraer and ports at Cairnryan; to encourage greater use of public transport and support wider town regeneration proposals, this recommendation also includes a review of the upgrade or relocation of Stranraer rail station.

The Scottish Government is committed to keeping The Promise, which sets out that young people with care experience must have access to independent advocacy and legal representation. The Promise recognises that advocacy requires different approaches and offerings that may be independent of each other. To this end, The Promise Scotland, supported by Scottish Government, are undertaking work to scope a national lifelong advocacy service for care experienced people and advocacy for families coming into contact with the care system. This work is due to report to Ministers by the end of 2023

At present, in Scotland, children and young people with care experience, as with all children and young people, can access publicly funded legal assistance on the broad range of issues adults can. Subject to having legal capacity and satisfying the statutory tests, children and young people can obtain advice from a solicitor about legal problems relating to the application of Scots law covered under the Advice and Assistance Scheme Matters covered by civil advice and assistance - Scottish Legal Aid Board (slab.org.uk) ]. This includes legal aid for children’s hearings, criminal proceedings, or to resolve civil disputes.

Furthermore, through the Children, Young People and Families Early Intervention & Adult Learning & Empowering Communities Third Sector Fund, the Scottish Government provide over £1.4M annually in core funding to 10 organisations that offer support on legal rights and access to independent legal representation for care experienced young people.

In addition to obtaining legal representation, all children and young people can access independent child advocacy services to support them in and around their Children’s Hearings. Whilst children’s advocacy workers are not legal representatives, part of their role is to help children understand and realise their rights. The Scottish Government provides funding to Clan Childlaw to operate a Legal Support Service for independent children’s advocacy workers in the children’s hearing system. The funding also supports training advocacy workers to increase their knowledge of how to use children’s rights to advocate for and support children and young people at children’s hearings. Where a rights breach is identified through the Legal Support Service, the advocacy worker is able to discuss the availability of legal advice and assistance for the child to help them access a solicitor.

Children’s rights realisation requires raising awareness with children as rights holders and what this means in practice, but also requires training and capacity building for those who are implementing decisions. The Scottish Government’s aim is to ensure duty bearers and public authorities achieve a knowledge and understanding of children’s rights and to enable children and their representatives to act upon them. This is central to the implementation of the UNCRC and to embed children’s human rights into the fabric of Scottish society.

Since the STEM bursary scheme (now known as the Teaching Bursary Scheme) was introduced in 2018, the costs the Scottish Government has provided is as follows: