Chamber and committees

The Climate Justice Fund aims to support communities facing the impacts of climate change under a justice-based approach. The decision to allocate £2m of it to address loss and damage was based on the scale of the need, the lack of funding from others, and the influence the additional funding would have on other governments and organisations to commit funding to address loss and damage.

The £2 million for loss and damage aims to increase ambition and accelerate global action and to influence the global agenda on the issues of loss and damage and climate justice. It has funded the programs outline in the response to question
‎ S6W-13351 on 10 January 2023 .

An additional £5 million on loss and damage was subsequently allocated on the basis that the initial £2m was effectively supporting communities (based on feedback from global stakeholders and evidence from ongoing quarterly monitoring of the programmes) and that a specific allocation on non-economic loss and damage would both support vulnerable communities and bring focus to an area that was under-researched and under-funded. The need for more to be done to both understand and address non-economic losses and damages, in particular as experience by women, was one of the key insights from the Scottish Government hosted October 2022 loss and damage conference as well as from ongoing consultations with our partners.

The £7 million on loss and damage does not meet the scale of the global need. But it does allow the funding of pilot projects that support communities and the building of an evidence base of what works that will strengthen both Scottish Government’s and global partners’ future work. It has also played a role in unlocking funding commitments from other governments and organisations. While Scotland was the first country to commit funding to loss and damage, the global commitments to fund loss and damage have grown to over $300m.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

The next evaluation is planned for the end of the current funding cycle (to March 31 2026) and will include all funding that has been allocated from within the Climate Justice Fund. The evaluation will cover whether or not the funding has achieved it’s strategic objectives, and whether the Fund as a whole is continuing to demonstrate best practice in delivering climate justice against the three pillars of justice that were adopted following the previous evaluation.

The 2023-24 budget confirms our ongoing commitment to invest in social care and increasing the sustainability of the sector ahead of implementation of the National Care Service.

The 2023-24 Stage 1 budget presented, at level 4, a total investment of £1.2 billion in Social Care support and National Care Service (NCS) delivery. This total represents a social care spending increase of over £800 million compared to 2021-22, demonstrating that we are well ahead of our trajectory to increase spending by 25% (£840 million) over the life of the Parliament.

The £1.1 billion expenditure line supports a number of areas including an additional £100 million for adult social care pay up to £10.90 per hour, £344 million of existing funding to support pay, £124 million for care at home investment, £60 million for the Carers Act and funding to support inflationary uplifts for Free Personal Nursing Care Rates. We note the Report on the Financial Memorandum published on 1 December by the Finance and Public Administration Committee and are currently revising the NCS Financial Memorandum. This will provide more detail on expected spend in 2023-24 and beyond.

The eLearning module, “Equality and the Role of Board Members in Meeting the Public Sector Duty”, is available through NHS Education for Scotland. While this is not a mandatory module, it is recommended to all Board Members. This was promoted to NHS Board Chairs in July 2022 and all NHS Board members and staff can access the module.

The Scottish Government has no functions in relation to the use of Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) on board vessels operating in Scottish waters, this lies with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.

Architecture and Design Scotland provides non-chargeable advice and resources to all local authorities. Architecture and Design Scotland:

• provides advice on projects;
• connects people and organisations to create thriving places;
• shares insight to grow capacity across Scotland; and
• champions good design and collaboration.

Extensive support to local authorities has been provided via a wide range of programmes, events and initiatives since the organisation was established. A full breakdown of the instances local authorities have received planning advice from Architecture and Design Scotland, broken down by (a) local authority and (b) year to is not held centrally but examples are regularly reported in its Annual Reports.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-14517 on 7 February 2023. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

As part of the Scottish Diabetes Group, there are several sub-groups working on delivering commitments specific to Type 1 Diabetes. These include commitments to improving education and self-management and also inpatient care. Closed Loop Systems are also being considered for potential inclusion in the new Accelerated National Innovation Adoption (ANIA) pathway co-odinated by the Centre for Sustainable Delivery. Projects centred on access to technologies will have a particular focus on increasing access for those living in the most deprived areas of Scotland, using SIMD data.

Following the successful completion of a two-year Scotland-wide pilot in 2022, the new fast-track Prescribed Blue Badge model for people with motor neurone disease (MND) was launched on 9 May 2022 via the provision of updated guidance for local authorities.

MND specialist nurses in Scotland now have the power to prescribe a Blue Badge for people with an MND diagnosis should their MND specialist nurse deem them as meeting the eligibility criteria. This means that such applicants can bypass the Local Authority assessment process and experience significantly shorter waiting times.

The Scottish Government is providing local authorities with funding to make free school lunches available, during school term-time, to all children in primaries 1 to 5 and in special schools. This policy has given 280,723 children access to nutritionally balanced school lunches, as well as eligible pupils in primary 6 to secondary 6, saving families approximately £400 per child, per year.

On 15 December 2022, the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery announced the next phase of our free school meals expansion programme which will see them being made available for children in primaries 6 and 7 whose families are in receipt of the Scottish Child Payment.

Also announced was £21.75 million for local authorities to provide assistance with the cost of buying food during the 2023-24 school holidays to all families who are eligible for free school meals on the basis of low income.

The Scottish Government contributes funding to national activity to support Meal Makers and Eat Well Age Well (EWAW), which are projects provided by Food Train .

Meal Makers connects older people locally with volunteers who are happy to deliver and share extra portions of a home cooked meal. It is designed to enhance an older person’s existing food intake with fresh nutritious home cooked meals, provide them with regular social contact and help reduce their risk of malnutrition and associated health impacts. EWAW is a national, five-year project of Food Train to support the prevention of malnutrition and dehydration among older people in the community. It began in early 2018, and quickly became the country’s leading project addressing and improving the prevention, detection and treatment of malnutrition among older people.

We have provided £2.4m funding in 2022/23 to support people struggling over this winter. We know the costs crisis is impacting those on the lowest incomes the hardest, with food price inflation at 16.4% and food bank demand in Scotland up 34% compared to this time last year. This funding is providing vital support, including helping people access emergency cash in their local communities so they can buy the food they need. The funding has the potential to directly reach 7,500 people, and many more will benefit than this, as the Corra Foundation and Fareshare will between them distribute it further to an estimated 900 organisations.

This is in addition to the almost £3bn we have allocated in this financial year that will be helping households face the increased cost of living, including £1bn for services and financial support not available elsewhere in the UK. We are investing £41m in the Scottish Welfare Fund each year to provide a vital safety net for those facing an emergency or crisis.