Chamber and committees

There are significant limits on any action that the Scottish Government can take in this area. Regulation of consumer protection is reserved to the UK Government, with responsibility for consumer enforcement, which is a pillar of consumer protection, split between trading standards officers and Trading Standards Scotland.

Trading Standards Scotland is funded directly by the UK Government with funding for trading standards officers delivered through Barnett formula consequentials. It is for local authorities to assess their individual local circumstances to inform their decisions on how they best support their trading standards departments.

The Scottish Government is committed to implementing the recommendations set out in the Coming Home Implementation Report to reduce delayed discharges and out-of-area placements for people with learning disabilities and complex care needs.

The Scottish Government has accepted all 5 key recommendations in the Coming Home Implementation Report and is working with people with lived experience, COSLA, professionals from Local Authorities; Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs); the NHS; and other key stakeholders to implement these recommendations. This includes progressing the Dynamic Support Register, Peer Support Network and National Support Panel recommendations, focussing in the first instance on getting it right for people with learning disabilities using a collaborative and partnership approach.

We will work to address wider issues around the delayed discharge that people with enduring mental health conditions experience. Our work on the National Care Service, the Barron Forensic Services Review, and the Scottish Mental Health Law Review will further improve the care and support of people with enduring mental health conditions.

The Scottish Government is committed to implementing the recommendations set out in the Coming Home Implementation Report to reduce delayed discharges and out-of-area placements for people with learning disabilities and complex care needs.

Significant work has been undertaken to develop and test a Dynamic Support Register, which has been led by a working group and co-designed with people with lived experience, HSCPs and NHS professionals across Scotland. We will be launching the Register soon following successful testing.

The Scottish Government is committed to implementing the recommendations set out in the Coming Home Implementation Report to reduce delayed discharges and out-of-area placements for people with learning disabilities and complex care needs.

Following the publication of the Coming Home Implementation report, the Scottish Government has worked with key stakeholders to understand the role and remit of a Peer Support Network in order to design a model that provides value and allows for genuine collaboration across Scotland. Further details on the establishment of the Peer Support Network will be available soon.

The Scottish and UK governments received five strong bids for Green Freeport status from across Scotland. Each of the bids demonstrated strengths and ambition, however only two could be selected. The bids were jointly assessed by both Governments, and the winners selected following the rigorous process set out in the joint bidding prospectus. The selection of Firth of Forth and Opportunity Inverness and Cromarty Firth delivers Green Freeport Status to the strongest bids from the Central Belt and North of Scotland respectively. A document with more information about the assessment and selection process will be published in due course.

The care provided by Scotland’s independent secure providers is highly-regarded. We need to consider how the secure care system operates overall in the coming years, taking in to consideration the asks from the Independent Care Review’s Promise and the incorporation of UNCRC, before embarking on any redesign work.

In the short term, the Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Bill will give effect to the necessary legislative changes to displace all under 18s from custody. Contractual and other non-statutory interventions to guarantee secure capacity and to minimise providers’ reliance on placements from elsewhere in the UK are already in train.

Over the coming years, preparing to keep the Promise by 2030 will likely entail a transformational change to the current secure provision for children in Scotland. A secure estate configured to meet Scotland’s future demands means we will need to undertake significant redesign activity with providers and purchasers. Resource shifts, system and practice change will also be required.

Alongside that, a national service specification for secure transport is being developed by the joint Scottish Government and COSLA led Secure Care Group. This specification aims to bring consistency to the expectations and requirements, wherever secure transport requires to be commissioned.

The Scottish Government recognises the critical role of advice services, often delivered by our diverse third sector and providing lifeline services to the most vulnerable communities during the cost crisis. We are directly investing around £12.5 million this year in free income maximisation, welfare and debt advice services delivered by third sector partners.

We recognise the impact that rising operating costs are having across society, including on charities and voluntary organisations, and we are committed to doing everything within our powers to support the third sector.

However, our ability to fulfil our devolved responsibilities and the support we would wish to provide remains a significant challenge due to the limitations on our parliament and the UK Government’s economic mismanagement.

ScotRail has provided the below data for its closed customer complaints since 1 April 2022, by four-weekly rail period, with the prior year (2021-22) and final pre-pandemic year (2019-20) included for comparison:

There are 3 operational Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contracts which comprise facilities within the East Kilbride area. These are NHS Lanarkshire’s Hairmyres Hospital, the Police Scotland College (formerly Police Force Training Centre) and South Lanarkshire’s Secondary Schools Modernisation PFI Programme. The Schools PFI Programme included a total of 19 new or refurbished secondary school facilities, 4 of which were within the East Kilbride area. These were Calderglen High School, Duncanrig Secondary School, Sanderson High School and St Andrew's and St Bride's High School.

There is also one operational NPD/hub contract which formed part of the Non-Profit Distributing (NPD) programme that comprises facilities within the East Kilbride area. This is the NHS Lanarkshire Bundle which includes 3 new health centres, 1 of which is in East Kilbride area.

The Scottish Government annually update and publish the cost information in relation to the referred PFI and NPD/hub contracts but not for each of the individual facilities within the contracts as this is not held. Information relating to PFI and NPD/hub contracts as described, is available from the Scottish Government website by way of the following link www.gov.scot