Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government’s Marketing team met with health and social care partnerships Communications leads in November 2022 to discuss the upcoming Adult Social Care National Recruitment Campaign, which launches on 25 January 2023.

As part of this, a stakeholder toolkit and campaign materials are being developed and will be shared with the HSCPs to be used at a local level and support their own local recruitment activity.

Alongside the marketing for the campaign, Scottish Government have worked with HSCPs and provider representative organisations to deliver webinars for social care employers, offering advice and support for when delivering their local recruitment campaigns.

Since 2019, the Scottish Government have led an Adult Social Care Campaign Advisory Group. This group ensures that representatives from across the sector, including HSCP representatives, have the opportunity to collaboratively work together, share good practice and provide support across different localities.

I have asked Teresa Medhurst, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. Her response is as follows:

SPS welcomes the Chief Inspector’s report and her recognition of many areas of good practice at HMP Castle Huntly.

Like many areas of public life, SPS continues to recover from the global pandemic. Despite this, SPS has been working towards making further improvements to the progression of those people in our care. This has resulted in an increase of 25 percent in the population of HMP Castle Huntly since April 2022.

We have also commenced a review of population management and progression, which will identify any barriers to safe progression for those in our care to the Open Estate and reduce the risk of reoffending to the public.

In conjunction with the Fair Work in Social Care group the Scottish Government has funded several uplifts to the minimum hourly rate for Adult Social Care staff, including the mid-year December 2021 uplift to £10.02. In April 2022, the Scottish Government delivered an additional uplift taking the Adult Social Care hourly rate to £10.50. This represents an increase of 10.5% for these workers with pay rising from at least £9.50 per hour in April 2021 to at least £10.50 per hour in April 2022.

From April 2023, adult social care workers delivering direct care in commissioned services will see their pay increase to a minimum of £10.90 per hour; in line with the Real Living Wage rate for the 2023-24 Financial Year.

Working collaboratively with the Fair Work in Social Care group will ensure we are committed to improving fair work practices across the social care sector.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13225 on‎ 13 January 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

We are working with sector stakeholders to embed the principles of Effective Voice in social care, to enable staff to engage in meaningful, constructive dialogue within their employers to help promote fair working conditions, develop best practice, and deliver high quality care.

The Fair Work in Social Care Group, including key Social Care stakeholders, Trade Unions, representative sector organisations, and care providers, developed an Effective Voice Framework informed by the lived experience of staff. The Framework will support employers and employees to assess the standard of Effective Voice in their workplace and take steps to enhance it, if necessary.

A project to trial this Framework in social care settings will begin in early 2023.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission is the independent fiscal institution for Scotland, with a statutory duty to provide the independent and official forecasts of the Scottish economy, devolved taxes and devolved social security spending.

Forecasts for the Land and Buildings Transaction Tax Additional Dwelling Supplement for the period to 2027-28 are set out in Scotland’s Economic and Fiscal Forecasts, published on 15 December 2022. A breakdown of the forecasts related to local authorities, registered social landlords or any other type of organisation is not available.

The call for evidence and views on the LBTT Additional Dwelling Supplement sought views on the case for extending the relief available to local authorities where properties are purchased for affordable housing purposes. The Scottish Government will publish its response to the call for evidence and views early this year and launch a consultation on draft legislation.

The recent public consultation and discussions with stakeholders sought views on a range of issues, including the tax treatment of cross-border movements of aggregate, imports and exports, rates, reliefs and exemptions.

The Scottish Government is carefully considering the consultation responses, and what further evidence and input may be required on all issues relating to the Levy. This will include further stakeholder engagement, including with industry representative bodies and producers.

The Scottish Government will take the current arrangements for the UK Aggregates Levy, and the recent review of these, fully into account when making decisions on the proposed arrangements for a future devolved tax. We will also consider the research we commissioned to review, model and analyse illustrative options for a Scottish levy, including potential cross-border effects. The final report from the research, which was conducted by Eunomia, was published in August 2020.

As of 31 December 2021, all homes and business in Scotland had the ability to access a superfast broadband connection either through the R100 contracts, the demand-led R100 Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (SBVS) or commercial coverage. Our interim voucher meant that anyone whose property was in an R100 contract build plan beyond the end of 2021 had the ability to access a temporary superfast solution. We extended the availability of the interim voucher until 31 March 2022 to ensure that anyone who wanted to, could access a superfast connection through this scheme.

As of 1 December 2022, the R100 contracts had built connections to over 15,000 properties across Scotland with a further 3,800 connected as a result of contractual overspill. Over 2,700 connections had also been delivered through the R100 SBVS. This is, of course, in addition to those premises which are already connected commercially or via our legacy programme, DSSB.

No Ministerial meetings took place with the Mineral Products Association (Scotland) or representatives of the Scottish aggregates sector in 2022.

However, my Officials have had ongoing engagement with several aggregates sector associations and representatives during 2022. I look forward to building on this and engaging with the sector.

The public consultation on developing a Scottish tax to replace the UK Aggregates Levy opened on 26 September 2022 and closed on 5 December 2022. Over this 10 week period a total of 25 responses were received which are now being analysed, and a formal consultation analysis will be published in due course. Further stakeholder engagement, including with industry representative bodies and producers will also take place.

Industry representative organisations proposed that the consultation period be significantly extended and a working group established. Officials have met with representatives of these organisations in order to discuss their concerns, and I am carefully considering the position.