Chamber and committees

The project group is currently made up of representatives from Scottish Government, Scottish Water, Drinking Water Quality Regulator for Scotland, Consumer Scotland and Aberdeenshire Council, and have been selected based on their relevant experience in the water industry and with private water supplies. The Environmental Health Officers from Aberdeenshire Council bring a wealth of local knowledge about private water supplies as a result of their regulatory activities and efforts to deliver emergency supplies of bottled water to households whose private water supplies have run dry. They engage with and listen to local resilience groups through the wider council network and I would encourage local resilience groups that would like to be involved in the project to contact Aberdeenshire Council.

With regard to the Centre for the Moving Image entering into administration, it would not be appropriate for the Scottish Government to comment on ongoing legal proceedings, but the Scottish Government is engaging with Creative Scotland, as well as Aberdeen and Edinburgh City Councils, to provide support where possible.

The Scottish Government remains committed to ensuring Scotland’s festivals have a global competitive edge. Our Festivals continue to be one of Scotland’s world-leading cultural brands, and we want them to retain their world-class status and continue to offer widespread accessibility to culture for community and education settings. We have and will continue to support our festivals and performers to get back in the international spotlight, backing our major festivals in Glasgow and Edinburgh, to ensure they stay globally competitive.

The Scottish Government will continue to work with the Culture sector to identify barriers to immediate and long-term recovery, and we will continue to do everything within our powers and resources to help those most affected by current economic challenges.

Our Fuel Poverty Act is the most ambitious fuel poverty legislation in the UK, setting us challenging but achievable targets, that in 2040 no more than 5% of households are fuel poor, and no more than 1% are in extreme fuel poverty. As required by the 2019 Fuel Poverty Act, a new statutory Scottish Fuel Poverty Advisory Panel was established from January 2022. The panel is an advisory non-departmental public body (NDPB) which will oversee the implementation of the Fuel Poverty Strategy, providing an important means of external scrutiny of our progress towards meeting the statutory targets.

As the 2019 Act requires the Scottish Government to formally consult with the panel on the strategy, we are presently working with them to seek their views in relation to appropriate next steps. The panel are also working collaboratively with the Poverty and Inequality Commission to inform advice for Scottish Ministers.

We are committed to tackling fuel poverty – not least by delivering on our Fuel Poverty and Heat in Buildings Strategies, which will help make homes warmer, greener and cheaper to run. We will invest at least £1.8 billion over the course of this parliament to insulate and install modern climate-friendly heating in homes and other buildings. This year alone (2022-23) we have allocated £336 million to heat, energy efficiency and fuel poverty measures including £119m targeted at fuel poor households. Our Warmer Homes Scotland fuel poverty scheme has its highest ever annual budget of £55 million, with recently revised eligibility criteria making a further 110,000 households eligible for support across Scotland. In addition, the Programme for Government commits us to using our Emergency Budget Review to double the value of our Fuel Insecurity Fund to £20 million, to ensure support continues to be available to people affected by rising energy costs who may be unable to afford their fuel bills this winter. Also subject to the emergency budget review, we will be investing an additional £5 million in Discretionary Housing Payments and allowing local authorities flexibility to use them to help with energy costs as well as rent payments.

The Scottish Government has no current plans to review and update its Good Practice Principles for Community Benefits from Onshore Renewable Energy Developments (2019).

We are currently reviewing our Good Practice Principles for Community Benefits from Offshore Renewable Energy Developments (2015) and we intend to consult on the updated draft guidance next year. As part of the consultation process, we will also gather evidence to help inform the need for any further updates to the Scottish Government’s Good Practice Principles for Community Benefits from, and Shared Ownership of, Onshore Renewable Energy Developments.

At COP26, the Scottish Government pledged £2m to address loss and damage and in doing so became the first government in the Global North to explicitly pledge such finance. £1.7m of the £2m is now allocated and supporting projects in Bangladesh, the pacific and Malawi; as well as funding research to contribute to the global evidence base for practical action.

In addition to loss and damage funding, Scottish Government provided £250,000 from our Climate Justice Fund (which we trebled at COP26 to £36m) to the humanitarian efforts in Pakistan and we are also currently tendering for our flagship “Climate Just Communities” programme, which will commit £24m to our partner countries of Malawi, Rwanda and Zambia building resilience through engagement with marginalised communities using a participatory design and implementation approach.

The Scottish Government is committed to finding ways to make sustainable travel modes more attractive, and supporting people to take fewer journeys by car. We recognise that accessible and reliable public transport services, as well as active travel options, can alleviate stresses on household incomes, as well as support our climate ambitions.

We are providing over £2.1 billion investment in bus services and infrastructure over the rest of this parliament. This financial year, we are forecasting spend of up to £300m to enable over 2 million people to travel by bus for free with the Young Persons Free Bus scheme which, in addition to other concessionary schemes, means that we are providing up to 50% of the population with access to free bus travel across Scotland. Rail fares will also be frozen until at least March 2023 and there are a number of schemes on offer for discounted rail travel such as Kids for a Quid and railcards giving around 1/3 off many fares.

The route map to achieving a 20% reduction in car km by 2030, published in January, sets out how we will support people to reduce their car use. For those who have access to a car, but are struggling with the costs of fuel, the route map interventions aim to support them to reduce the number of trips or the distances they need to drive by car, thereby saving them money, as well as supporting their health and wellbeing.

In the 2022 Programme for Government the Scottish Government set out immediate steps this government will take to help families and businesses to get through the cost of living crisis, outlining our ambition to create a better future beyond the immediate crisis. This includes a transport initiative to test a new mobility and scrappage scheme to help low income households to replace a polluting vehicle with the means to travel sustainably. It will be targeted to car-owning low income households and provide up to £1,000 per household of mobility credits for more sustainable options including the purchase of assets such as bikes or e-bikes and sustainable travel vouchers for bus, car clubs, and taxis.

The majority of Integrated Joint Board reserves are earmarked for specific purposes, in particular the ongoing response to COVID-19 and cannot be used to fund new spending commitments.

Further Covid funding has not been available from the UK Government for Covid related pressures in 2022-23.

Further work will be carried out to assess the amounts to be re-couped from IJBs in line with Covid requirements

More than £1.6 billion has been provided for social care and integration in 2022-23in addition to support for Covid, and we are committed to increasing spend in social care by at least 25% by the end of this Parliament, an increase of over £840 million.

Scottish Government analysts are considering options for increasing our understanding of the nature and level of unmet need in adult social care, and will continue to engage with external partners to develop appropriate approaches and deliver new insights over the coming months.

The Scottish Government sees the only place for vaping is as a possible aid to help existing smokers from using tobacco, they are not a lifestyle accessory for children or adult non-smokers. We recently published our consultation analysis on proposed restrictions on vaping products and are aiming to bring forward new regulations in the New Year. Any action we seek to take will build on the regulations already in place to restrict the marketing, promotion and sale of vaping products to under 18s.

There are more than 1,200 social care providers across Scotland, with local authorities responsible for providing or commissioning services. Local authorities and Health and Social Care Partnerships will wish to ensure that, in providing a range of services, their workforce planning arrangements take full account of the need to have safe and sustainable numbers of staff.

To maximise capacity to meet demand, and maintain integrated health and social care services throughout autumn and winter, our winter plan highlights the additional funding of £528 million allocated directly to Health and Social Care Partnerships for 2022 23. This funding was aimed at the following social care measures:

• £124 million to enhance care at home

• £144 million to support the December 2021 uplift to £10.02, as well as a   further -

• £200 million to increase the minimum hourly rate of pay in adult social care

• £20 million to support interim care arrangements

• £40 million to enhance multi-disciplinary teams

• Waiving fees for mandatory PVG checks for new entrants to social care

• Extension of the Social Care Staff Support Fund to 31 March 2023, to ensure   that social care workers absent with Covid-19 receive their full pay

Alongside this, SG have established a social care winter planning working group, to consider a number of potential/feasible options to ease the current pressures in the Adult Social Care Sector in advance of the winter period 2022-23. Local government are among those represented on this group.

To help alleviate the current pressures in social care, we are working with partners to scope out and design localised support with recruitment for the winter period. This will include marketing assets which can be adapted to meet local needs, and providing more in-depth support with recruitment where capacity to recruit is a barrier. This work is being taken forward in collaboration with key stakeholders representing the sector.