Chamber and committees

We awarded a contract through a competitive tender for independent VAT advice from Anderson Anderson & Brown LLP. AAB have been commissioned to provide advice and support to Scottish Government employees on VAT implications, to produce an options paper exploring the VAT implications of different NCS scenarios, and to produce a final report on the considerations of VAT and eventual outcome. This work is ongoing.

After competitive tender, a contract was awarded to Anderson Anderson & Brown LLP to obtain expert independent advice on the implications of VAT on the NCS and associated Care Boards. This work is ongoing. We will engage with the wider sector and HMT prior to any decision being taken which would have a VAT impact.

The loss of a baby, at any stage of pregnancy, is a significant and traumatic event that affects many parents and their families throughout Scotland. In our 2021 Manifesto we committed to emulate New Zealand where families who sadly experience miscarriage or stillbirth are entitled to three days of paid leave. We will implement this commitment by delivering it within the public sector.

We are also calling on the UK Government, who have the reserved powers to make the necessary changes to employment law, to make this provision available for everyone.

As an employer, the Scottish Government bereavement leave policy already provides two weeks leave, at full pay, to those staff who experience the loss of a baby through miscarriage in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy. The NHS and other public bodies are separate employers and determine their own terms and conditions of employment.

Evidence and data play an important part in efficient policy delivery. Our commitment to continue to improve on our data and evaluation efforts is highlighted as part of the revised evaluation strategy to tackle child poverty. The Scottish Government publish child poverty estimates by detailed ethnic group and since March 2022, time series for ethnicity breakdowns have also been published, including for child poverty estimates by detailed ethnic group. The Scottish Government is happy to support CRER – and any stakeholders – with finding our published data and producing ad-hoc analysis.

Whilst recognising the important role of detailed statistical data, our tackling child poverty delivery plan is clear that an intersectional approach is needed to support priority families. Beyond statistical analysis, our action to tackle child poverty is based on a strong evidence base identifying the main drivers of poverty, as the CRER report acknowledges. To design policies that specifically help minority ethnic families, further evidence has been published to widen our understanding. This includes a detailed focus report on minority ethnic families, a summary update on drivers of poverty for all priority family types which fed into the development of ‘Best Start, Bright Futures’ and detailed understanding of what works to tackle child poverty.

I refer the member to the Parliamentary Statement I made on Tues 8 November 2022, which set out the Scottish Government's pathway for the future of agricultural support including the conditionality of that support. This is in line with our Vision for Scottish Agriculture, published in March 2022, in which we committed to integrate enhanced conditionality of at least half of all funding for farming and crofting by 2025. We are seeking views on that conditionality in the public consultation “Delivering our Vision for Scottish Agriculture”, which closes on 21 Nov 2022.

Agriculture support is already conditional, the current Basic Payment Scheme requires Farmers, Crofters, etc to meet Cross Compliance and Greening measures, to qualify for that payment. I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-11606 on 10 November 2022 in relation to future conditionality of agricultural support. 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 provision of NHS Pharmaceutical Care services is the responsibility of territorial Health Boards. Any concerns by members of the public on pharmacy closures and accessing services should be raised with the Health Board.

The arrangements under which applications may be made to open new pharmacies are long-standing and the current process is detailed in the NHS (Pharmaceutical Services) (Scotland) Regulations 2009. When an application to open a pharmacy is made, NHS Boards are required to establish a Pharmacy Practices Committee to act on their behalf in considering applications for entry to the Pharmaceutical List. In considering the application the Board will consider the pharmaceutical services already provided in the area, the pharmaceutical services to be provided and any representations received by the Board and also any other information available which is relevant to the consideration of the application. During this process, members of the public can be consulted on the need for additional community pharmacy capacity in their local area.

An application shall be granted by the Board only if it is satisfied that the provision of pharmaceutical services at the premises named in the application is necessary or desirable in order to secure adequate provision of pharmaceutical services in the neighbourhood in which the premises are located. The Scottish Government is not involved in deciding applications for pharmacies to be added to the Pharmaceutical List.

The Housing Need and Demand Assessment (HNDA) Tool contains a default count of households who are both overcrowded and concealed. The Scottish Government's Centre for Housing Market Analysis (CHMA) also publishes separate counts of overcrowded and concealed households which local authorities may choose to use. Alternatively, local authorities may choose to use local information about overcrowded and concealed households using sources such as waiting lists or local survey work, where they can evidence that this is robust.

Specific details are published as bespoke separate documents, as follows:

• Single count of overcrowded households and single count of concealed households (see Table 3)

Estimating concealed family rates with overcrowding using Scottish survey data (2016-2018) (www.gov.scot)

• Count of households who are both overcrowded and concealed (see Excel worksheet called ‘HoTOC’)

Housing Need and Demand Assessment (HNDA): tool 2020 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

Following the public consultation and Parliamentary scrutiny of Draft National Planning Framework (NPF) 4, we have been carefully considering the wealth of evidence received and intend to lay a final NPF4 in the Parliament later this Autumn.

Draft NPF4 was accompanied by a Housing Land Requirement Explanatory Report , which provides an explanation on the proposed Minimum All-Tenure Housing Land Requirement and Assessment Reports for each authority area.

When planning for housing, household trends are a more relevant indicator of current and future housing need and demand than population.

Household projections are nationally available datasets from the National Records of Scotland (NRS). Household projections are a key input to Housing Need and Demand Assessment (HNDA) as they are an indicator of future households yet to form. Household data is distinct from population data as they can be one person or a group of people living together. They therefore reflect both changes in population trends and changes in the number of people living in each household.