Chamber and committees

Significant work has already taken place to develop a National Workforce Strategy for Health and Social care, in partnership with CoSLA.

Pursuant to extensive consultation with stakeholders from across the health and social care landscape, the Strategy will outline our shared vision for the workforce, which supports a tripartite ambition of recovery, growth and transformation. It will also set out the actions we are taking in partnership with the workforce, to achieve that vision.

Unfortunately, the rapid emergence of the Omicron variant including the potential challenges this presents for maintenance of our Health and Social care services as we move through Winter, means that this is rightly our immediate focus. We will do all we can to ensure staff are protected and are rapidly increasing the rollout of our vaccinations programme to protect the public.

In light of these developments, the Strategy will now be published in early 2022 to allow us to focus our efforts on the essential business of responding to Covid-19, It is essential we do all we can to promote staff wellbeing, and we will reflect on this next phase of the pandemic as we move forward with publication of the Strategy as soon as is practicable.

The Scottish Government has established a number of groups to advise Ministers on the development of education policy. These include the International Council of Education Advisers, the Scottish Education Council, the Curriculum and Assessment Board, the Teacher Panel, and the Scottish Board for Teacher Education. In addition, there were two important reviews of aspects of Scotland's education system published recently, the Audit Scotland report Improving outcomes for young people through school education, and the findings of the OECD: Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence: Into the Future | en | OECD. Following on from the OECD review, Professor Ken Muir was appointed in August 2021 to act as an independent adviser to the Scottish Government, and to report recommendations on education reform early in 2022. At the beginning of his appointment, Professor Muir appointed an expert panel and an advisory group to support this work. Details of these groups including the remit and membership can be found here: Education Reform . It has also been announced that Professor Hayward will lead a reference group to advise on the reform of qualifications, and this work will begin next year.

It has also been announced that Professor Hayward will lead a reference group to advise on the reform of qualifications, and this work will begin next year.

The number of households in each local authority that are experiencing fuel poverty is published annually in the Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS) local authority tables.

The latest published set of tables for 2017-2019 is available at:

Scottish House Condition Survey: Local Authority Analysis 2017-2019 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Local Authority figures are based on a 3-year pooled sample to allow sufficient sample sizes to produce results on each local authority. The figures in the table show number of fuel poor households, and the fuel poverty rate, based on the last 10 years for South Lanarkshire, North Lanarkshire, and Falkirk.

When existing Disability Living Allowance for Children (DLA Child) clients have their awards transferred to Child Disability Payment (CDP) they will receive the same payment rate for CDP as they received for DLA Child at the point of transfer. They will continue to receive this amount until their CDP needs to be reviewed. The value of each component of CDP is the same as DLA Child so that we do not create a two-tier system with varying rules whilst Scottish disability benefit clients are transferred to Social Security Scotland.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission is responsible for forecasting spending on DLA Child and CDP. The Commission has not reported a breakdown of the proportion of the CDP clients in receipt of greater, the same, or lesser amount of financial assistance under CDP compared with what they receive from the Department for Work and Pensions.

In forecasting CDP, the Scottish Fiscal Commission assumed that when award reviews occur the proportion of clients that would have had their award increased, maintained, and decreased under DLA Child will be the same as under CDP. While they recognise that the less frequent award reviews for CDP may increase the proportion of awards staying at their existing level for longer, the Commission’s judgement is that the effect on the overall outcome of award reviews on award levels may be cancelled out by an increase in the average initial award length and light-touch award reviews.

Scottish Government makes DNS changes to domains on a daily basis. Given the number of change requests that have been processed each day since renewals in 2016 and the way in which domains are managed it is not possible for us to provide an accurate breakdown of the “active” or “inactive” domains for any date or year other than the latest data we have for the current portfolio as it stands today. We can however provide a breakdown of annual costs for the renewal, management and enterprise DNS provision for the Scottish Government domains portfolio each year since 2016.

Date     Total domains   Total Ex Vat

2021-06-30   1039     £13,267.50

2020-06-30   1021   £12,530.00

2019-06-30   837   £10,455.00

2018-06-30   705   £8,493.00

2017-06-30   640   £7,612.00

2016-06-30 630   £7,186.00

We have defined “active” as a domain that has DNS configuration applied to it. Any domain that is currently parked with our Registrar Com Laude or has no DNS configuration has been defined as “inactive”.

We have heard directly from retail businesses advising that the impact of these changes are already being felt, and that the new rules put Scottish and UK-wide businesses at a disadvantage when compared to other European destinations who continue to operate VAT refund schemes.

Following the announcement of the changes to tax-free shopping on 11 September 2020, the then Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Fair Work and Culture, Fiona Hyslop, and I wrote a joint letter to the UK Chancellor opposing the proposed changes; especially at such a challenging time for businesses. No action was forthcoming from the UK Government, so on 20 December 2021 I sent a follow-up letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer to reiterate the Scottish Government’s concerns on the matter, and request any data and analysis on the impact of these changes.

The Scottish 4G Infill Programme is investing £28.75M to build up to 55 mobile masts designed to bring 4G connectivity to rural and island communities around Scotland. Updates are published on a regular basis at Scottish 4G infill programme: progress update - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

In the areas specified, the current breakdown for new activated masts is:

(a) Argyll and Bute (2) – Bunessan, Glenbarr

(b) Western Isles (2) – Lemreway, Ranish

(c) Highland (8) – Applecross, Blairmore, Glenborrodale,, Killilan, Littlemill, Polbain, Strathconon, Tarskavaig

(d) Orkney (2) – Burray, Deerness

(e) Shetland (1) – Reawick

(f) Moray (1) – Chapeltown

From 30 November 2021 the eligibility criteria for the Self Isolation Support Grant was changed to enable close contacts of someone who has tested positive or has been asked to isolate as part of the exercise within the public health response to the Omicron variant if they have to isolate for the required 10-day period to be eligible.

Scottish Government currently owns 1081 registered domains. 629 of them are currently “active” and 452 are currently “inactive”.

This total includes domain name variants which are commonly registered to protect a domain from malicious use, as well as domains for expired websites which are retained in order to redirect users to suitable alternatives.

We have defined “active” as a domain that has DNS configuration applied to it. Any domain that is currently parked with our Registrar Com Laude or has no DNS configuration has been defined as “inactive”.

A list of the NatureScot Better Places Fund recipients can be found on its website using the link below. It includes both recipients of the first round of the Better Places Fund in 2020-21, a NatureScot initiative, and a second round of funding in 2021-22.

Better Places Green Recovery Fund - Closed for applications | NatureScot

This second round of funding was provided by the Scottish Government specifically to support communities, local authorities and public bodies as they prepared for the 2021 season.

In total the £3.2m fund has supported 125 projects including 75 ranger posts, 54 visitor operatives and infrastructure such as advisory signage, recycling litter bins, temporary toilets, over-flow parking areas, car park upgrades and other developments.

Projects have covered a variety of locations across the majority of the country.