Chamber and committees

It is clear that the changes in working practices and budgets will offer opportunities to right-size the portfolio and improve efficient delivery of services to the public. There are no details of any savings available yet as the multi-year programme has not started. The first phase of the programme will begin this year and will look to gather and validate existing estate information and to plan for a place-based approach across the public sector. Subsequent phases will identify opportunities to work towards an optimal, greener and interoperable public sector estate.

Our Equally Safe Strategy for preventing and eradicating violence against women and girls emphasises the importance of challenging the underpinning attitudes which enable such violence to take place. Education settings have an important role in challenging these attitudes through teaching children and young adults about healthy relationships, consent and gender stereotypes which drive gender-based violence.

Our Equally Safe at School (ESAS) project, developed by Rape Crisis Scotland and Zero Tolerance, applies a whole school approach to inequality and gender-based violence in schools. Since August 2021, Rape Crisis Scotland have reported over 60 schools have registered to ESAS. This year, Rape Crisis Scotland’s ESAS coordinator has been continuing to focus on the promotion of ESAS and working both nationally and with local authorities to build ESAS implementation strategies.

The Scottish Government also funds and supports other education-based programmes aimed at preventing gender-based violence. Our Mentors in the Violence peer education programme delivered in schools throughout Scotland seeks to enable young people to recognise and speak up against gender-based violence, bullying, abusive and violent behaviour, as well as the negative societal attitudes and assumptions which underpin this behaviour.

We have also established the Gender Equality Taskforce in Education and Learning, to identify ways in which systematic gender inequality in education and learning can be eradicated. In addition, the Gender-Based Violence in Schools Working Group is developing a national framework to ensure consistent messaging on gender-based harassment for everyone working with young people.

Furthermore, we are funding Rape Crisis Scotland to help deliver programmes which aim to tackle sexual harassment and violence in our schools including their national sexual violence programme which is aimed at local secondary schools across Scotland.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of children and young people home educating.

The current home education guidance recommends that local authorities should ordinarily make contact on an annual basis with families known to be home educating in their area and the current Scottish Government consultation on this guidance seeks views on how a local authority may reasonably inform themselves in order to fulfil their responsibilities under the Education (Scotland) Act 1980.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-01935 on 24 June 2022. 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 current Scottish Stroke Care Standards are available at the following link:

https://www.strokeaudit.scot.nhs.uk/Quality/Scottish_Stroke_Care_Standards.html

The provision of stroke care, including rehabilitation, is also assessed against the Scottish Stroke Improvement Plan priorities:

( https://www.gov.scot/publications/stroke-improvement-plan/ ).

The Scottish Government does not require local authorities to record the grounds on which a tenant is evicted when they present as homeless.

Section 11 of the Homelessness etc. (Scotland) Act 2003 requires a landlord to notify the local authority when proceedings for possession are raised but there is no requirement for the local authority to record the grounds when it receives notice.

The Scottish Government’s code of guidance on homelessness recommends that on receiving notification, the local authority should take the most proactive approach possible to prevent homelessness occurring.

Local authorities can collect information on grounds for eviction when a household presents as homeless, especially if they can undertake activity which can prevent homelessness. Local authorities can also amend the section 11 notice to collect this information for their own purposes, in particular for the prevention of homelessness.

The Scottish Stroke Improvement Plan ( https://www.gov.scot/publications/stroke-improvement-plan/ ) outlines the requirements on NHS Boards to ensure they have a trained and competent workforce capable of delivering person-centred, safe and effective stroke care. The required level of education and training for members of staff is dependent upon on whether their contact with people affected by stroke is occasional, regular or in the context of specialist services.

The Scottish Government recognises the importance of day services to both those who use them and to their families and carers. We have been working closely with local areas to ensure that services are delivered safely. Revised guidance for buildings-based day services was published on 26 May 2022. The guidance says that such services should return to pre-pandemic capacity wherever possible, while operating safely in line with COVID-19 guidance.

The Scottish Government is working with a variety of key learning disability stakeholder groups and organisations who highlight concerns and issues. These are being addressed through relevant policy teams across the Scottish Government to ensure a joined-up approach. We are also working with strategic partners such as Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS). HIS have been commissioned to gather and provide insights into different approaches to the redesign of learning disability day services, recognising the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic has created for service users, their families and service providers.

The Scottish Government launched a public consultation on the draft physical intervention in schools guidance on 21 June. The draft human rights-based guidance makes clear that restraint and seclusion should only ever be used as a last resort and when in the best interests of the child or young person.

The draft guidance is a result of our 2019 agreement with the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland and the Equality and Human Rights Commission in 2019 that non-statutory guidance be developed as a first step to improve practice in this area.

The draft guidance has been developed carefully, over time, with extensive input from over thirty working group members and partners, including the Children’s Commissioner, young people, parents, staff, local government and third sector organisations.

The consultation period has been extended to 25 October to allow all those with an interest in this sensitive area, including children and young people, to feedback their views. We will work closely with partners, following final publication, to ensure the guidance is followed.

Details of the membership and notes of the meetings of the physical intervention working group are available on the Scottish Government’s website: Physical Intervention Working Group - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Local authorities are independent corporate bodies with their own powers and responsibilities and are entirely separate from the Scottish Government. Ultimately, it is for locally elected representatives to make local decisions on how best to deliver services to their local communities. It is also the responsibility of individual local authorities to manage their own budgets and to allocate the total financial resources available to them, including on Community Facilities, on the basis of local needs and priorities, having first fulfilled their statutory obligations and the jointly agreed set of national and local priorities.

The Scottish Government has increased local government funding by over £1 billion in 2022-23, a real terms increase of 6.3 per cent, despite a 5.2 per cent real terms reduction in the overall Scottish Budget.

In 2022-23, City of Edinburgh Council will receive £915.4 million to fund local services, which equates to an extra £86.7 million to support vital day-to-day services or an additional 10.5 per cent compared to 2021-22.