Chamber and committees

We are currently in the process of evaluating minimum unit pricing (MUP) as a whole over its first five years of operation. Public Health Scotland will be producing a final report on MUP in 2023, which includes assessing the impact of MUP on health, crime, public safety and public nuisance in Scotland, and the impact on the alcohol industry. This will inform our evaluation report which will be laid in Parliament and published in 2023. In addition we will engage with a range of interested parties as set out in Alcohol (Minimum Pricing) (Scotland) Act 2012.

Social Security Scotland routinely releases information on Scottish Child Payment including full applications received, application outcomes and payments.

The next quarterly release of Official Statistics, covering the period to the end of December 2022, is due to be published on 28 February 2023 and will include the total number of payments made to clients each month, and the number of children actively in receipt of Scottish Child Payment as of the end of December 2022.

As part of data improvement, development is currently underway to include additional child age breakdowns in the future editions of the Scottish Child Payment statistics publication.

The COPFS Victims Right to Review Annual Report 2021-22 was published on the COPFS website on 24 January 2023.

The report is available on the COPFS website at the link below.

https://www.copfs.gov.uk/publications/victims-right-to-review-annual-report-2021-to-2022/

The consultation, Scotland's social security system: Enhanced Administration and Compensation Recovery, sought views on proposals to effect ongoing improvement of the Scottish social security system across a range of topics. Taken together, the proposals reflect the Scottish social security principles, unanimously endorsed by the Parliament, on seeking opportunities for continuous improvement in ways which put the needs of clients first, and delivering efficient systems and value for money.

The Scottish Government intends to publish the analysis of responses to the consultation before the Parliament’s Spring Recess.

Public Health Scotland will publish their final report on Minimum Unit Pricing in summer 2023.

£1.4m has been provided since July 2019 to meet emergency repair work at fishing harbours in Scotland.

Scottish Water does not maintain this information by parliamentary region and is only able to provide information for the closest equivalent operational area (South Region Water Operational Area). The following figures include both leaks reported by customers as well as those identified separately by Scottish Water as part of their active leakage management. This data is only readily available from 2016-17 financial year.

The reforms of the Small Business Bonus Scheme (SBBS) relief announced in the Scottish Budget ensure that it remains the most generous in the UK, and will continue to take 100,000 properties out of rates altogether.

We are expanding the upper eligibility threshold for the Small Business Bonus Scheme to £20,000 and making the relief more progressive by introducing a taper. To ensure that properties that lose some or all of their eligibility for SBBS or Rural rates relief do so in a phased manner we are also offering a Small Business Transitional Relief which will protect an estimated 19,000 properties in 2023-24.

Forecasted costs of SBBS over the next five years, including changes to SBBS thresholds and rates, can be found in the Scottish Fiscal Commission Scotland’s Economic and Fiscal Forecasts – December 2022 .

The Scottish Government has backed Scotland’s economic recovery with more than £4.7 billion in direct business support since March 2020. The Scottish Government considered a range of options in advance of the Scottish Budget
‎ 2023-24, including options for sectoral reliefs such as for the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors.

Recognising the difficult economic climate, we announced a strong non-domestic rates package in the Scottish Budget 2023-24, including a freeze in the poundage – the number one ask of business organisations - delivering the lowest poundage in the UK for the fifth year in a row and a package of reliefs worth £744m. This includes the UK's most generous small business rates relief and also Rural Rates Relief which provides up to 100% relief for properties in rural areas.

We expect around half the properties in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors to be eligible for 100% Small Business Bonus Scheme relief next year. Properties in these sectors may also be eligible for the transitional relief schemes set out in the Budget.

The information could not be provided for the answer to question S6W-12962 as the Scottish Government does not hold this level of service detail for Rape Crisis Centres. Rape Crisis Centres are independent charitable organisations which hold their own information on their waiting lists. It is for individual local centres, or Rape Crisis Scotland as the umbrella organisation, to provide this information.

We have provided this information in past answers because we specifically asked for the information from Rape Crisis Scotland. The Scottish Government do not consistently hold or collect this level of information and recommends that it should be requested from Rape Crisis Scotland in future.

Officials are currently working with Rape Crisis Scotland and Inspiring Scotland on the issue of waiting lists and service pressures. So we have received some current waiting list information from December 2022, which is set out in the following table.