Chamber and committees

The data required to make Winter Heating Payments was supplied by the Department for Work and Pensions on 31 January 2023. Following this, Scottish Government and Social Security Scotland carried out internal assurance processes on the around 400,000 records received. To ensure the safety and security of the payments, payments began in small batches.

As of 28 February 2023, 34,261 people had received the Winter Heating Payment and a further 365,303 eligible clients were to be paid. We expect to distribute £20 million in this round of Winter Heating Payments, more than double the £8.3 million provided on average by the Department for Work and Pensions in each of the last seven years of Cold Weather Payment.

A first release of Official Statistics on Winter Heating Payment will be published on 6 June 2023. These will be available at our statistics publication page at:

https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/about/statistics/social-security-scotland-statistics-publications.

It is crucial that the voices of children and young people are at the heart of developing our next steps on alcohol policy.

Our recent consultation on restricting alcohol advertising and promotion directly references the recommendations of the Children’s Parliament and contains a section, and questions, on potential restrictions on alcohol sponsorship of events.

The consultation closed on 9 March. An independent contractor will comprehensively analyse the responses and publish a report. We will then further consider possible restrictions.

On 9 December 2022 the Scottish Government jointly published our Anti-Racist Employment Strategy and refreshed Fair Work Action Plan. The Anti-Racist Employment Strategy offers clear and practical guidance for employers from all sectors to improve the recruitment and representation of racialised minority staff and build fair, diverse and inclusive workplaces. The Strategy was developed in collaboration with stakeholders from a wide-range of backgrounds. This included representatives of the private sector. The Strategy is underpinned by a series of actions working in continued partnership with these stakeholders to address issues affecting racialised minorities.

The Fair Work Action Plan explains how the Scottish Government will work collaboratively to support private and public sector employers to utilise the resources and support available to embed Fair Work in their organisations and build capability among employers, employability providers and partners. By the end of 2023 we will have worked with partners to further join up provision of advice and support for employers in all sectors by establishing a central Fair Work resource. We will also develop a communications strategy to highlight and promote to all employers the benefits of Fair Work and diverse workplaces including recruiting, employing and supporting workers from racialised minorities. By the end of 2023 we will have also further updated the Fair Work First criteria that must be taken into consideration by employers seeking public sector support to better reflect priority action required to address labour market inequalities faced by people from racialised minorities and other groups to help ensure more people can enter, remain and progress in work.

Summary Statistics for Schools in Scotland provides census data on numbers of registrations for funded early learning and childcare (ELC) at the local authority level as of September 2022. These figures are shown in the following table. The census does not currently record the number of hours being accessed by each child.

The Scottish Government provides funding to support our local Alcohol and Drug Partnerships who are responsible for the design and delivery of treatment and recovery pathways at the local level. They ensure a full range of recovery services are available such as aftercare, detox, residential rehabilitation and psychosocial treatments.

We acknowledge that alcohol recovery for most people is not a linear process, and for those whose goal is abstinence there is a risk of relapse at various points in their recovery journey, so alcohol services are supportive of people re-engaging after relapse. For others, they may want to consume alcohol but at a lower level. Alcohol services are open to and supportive of these individuals in achieving their goals. Services are also supportive of re-engagement if after meeting a goal an individual relapses into previous drinking patterns or if they want to work towards a new goal regarding their drinking.

The Scottish Government has consulted on restricting alcohol advertising and promotion to protect vulnerable groups, including those in recovery. Evidence suggests that alcohol marketing can be a barrier to successful recovery. Following analysis of responses we will consider possible restrictions.

I refer the member to the question S6W-15815 on 23 March 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 .

The Scottish Government does not hold or collect information about the format of meetings local authorities have with people who make homeless applications.

Scotland's first Data Strategy for Health & Social Care brings together a range of existing activity, along with its associated funding. The Strategy provides a framework for how improvements to data will be driven forward to the benefit of the people of Scotland.

A newly formed Data Board for Health and Social Care will oversee the delivery of the Strategy and any investment cases required to progress specific actions. The Board will also consider what further work is required for the next iterations of the Data Strategy.

Delivering the principles and priorities set out in the Strategy should be seen as a long term commitment of the Scottish Government and COSLA. Implementation of each iteration of the Strategy will be accompanied by a delivery plan.

We have proposed to bring forward amendments to the Deposit Return Scheme regulations so that only the largest grocery retailers will initially be obliged to provide an online takeback service and all other businesses will be exempt.- Further work will be undertaken to identify how older and disabled people will be protected during this phasing-in of online takeback to ensure the scheme is accessible to everyone.

The Scottish Government is aware of the issues facing Scottish local authorities in relation to secure transport, reflecting many of those matters highlighted by the Hope Instead of Handcuffs campaign.

There are no current plans for Ministers to meet with campaign representatives. However, Scottish Government officials met with representatives of the campaign on 13 March to discuss the ongoing multi-agency work to develop solutions to these issues, including the development of a service specification.