Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is committed to improving and embedding inclusive communication within Government and across public bodies, this is a focus of one of our Equality Outcomes for the 2021-25 reporting period, as well as being a 2020 PfG commitment. The Scottish Government intends all local services to be accessible to all citizens in Scotland, regardless of circumstances of an individual service user.

We believe that as professionals, Social Workers are best placed to make a professional judgment based on their assessment of need exactly what, if any additional support is required. This assessment will include consideration of need for Spoken Language Interpreters, British Sign Language and any form of verbal/non-verbal communication requirements.

As set out on page 63 of the Business and Regulatory Impact Assessment (BRIA) for Scotland’s Deposit Return Scheme (DRS), we do not anticipate online retailers being adversely impacted by our DRS. The BRIA is available here:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/deposit-return-scheme-scotland-full-business-regulatory-impact-assessment-2/documents/ .

It is vital to the success and fairness of our DRS that online retailers charge the deposit and provide a service to allow it to be redeemed and the container returned.

The Scottish Government notes the recent calls for the International Criminal Court to recognise the destruction of nature, “ecocide”, as an international crime.

We are committed to maintaining high environmental standards and have put in place arrangements to establish Environmental Standards Scotland (ESS) as the new governance body which has the ability to keep under review the implementation of international obligations relating to environmental protection legislation and advise the Government accordingly.

The Scottish Government recognises the vital importance and multiple benefits of appropriate tree planting and development of green spaces and we are working hard with a range of stakeholders, including local authorities, to encourage and support these activities.

In terms of planning, measures in this area include The Planning (Scotland) Act 2019, which requires planning authorities to prepare and publish a ‘forestry and woodland strategy’ setting out the planning authority’s proposals in their area as to the development of forestry and woodlands, including the expansion of woodlands of a range of types to provide multiple benefits to the physical, cultural, economic, social and environmental characteristics of the area.

Scottish Planning Policy (SPP) also states that ‘Planning should protect, enhance and promote green infrastructure, including open space and green networks, as an integral component of successful placemaking.’ SPP sets out that local authorities’ local development plans should seek to enhance existing and promote the creation of new green infrastructure.

Enabling redevelopment of vacant and derelict land has been identified as a key consideration and more information about this will feature in a draft National Planning Framework (NPF4), which will be laid in parliament in autumn 2021.

There are a number of measures in place to support local authorities in the planting of trees and development of green spaces. This year we opened our new £50m low carbon Vacant and Derelict Land Investment Programme to applications from all Scottish local authorities and Clyde Gateway Urban Regeneration Company. It will help unblock the reuse of persistent vacant and derelict land, especially in disadvantaged areas, and bring forward opportunities for new green infrastructure, as part of place based approaches to regeneration and support to a just transition to net zero.

We are also investing in the quality of our greenspaces with the development of the Central Scotland Green Network, Europe’s largest greenspace project. Through this fund we have invested more than £7 million since 2010 in projects that are promoting active travel, woodland planting, community growing and restoring land.

The Scottish Government recently launched the Nature Restoration Fund (NRF), which included £5 million going to Local Authorities to support new or existing projects that will help address the twin crises of biodiversity loss and climate change. These may well include tree planting and development of green spaces.

In the Programme for Government 2020-21, we announced our intention to pilot Miyawaki forests, which are also known as ‘tiny’ or ‘wee’ forests. These are small densely planted, fast growing woodlands largely planted in urban areas. The Scottish Government, alongside NatureScot, are currently exploring options for delivery, which will involve Local Delivery Partners, such as local authorities.

Scottish Forestry also offer grants to tenants and occupiers of local authority land who have a tenancy or occupancy agreement for 20 years or more to plant trees where the local authority has no plans to do so on the same area. Scottish Forestry also provide grants for creating a management plan for woodlands in and around towns (WIAT), and supports communities active on local authority land through the Forestry Development Fund.

The second milestone of the Energy Efficiency Standard for Social Housing to 2032 (EESSH2) requires social landlords to ensure their stock meets, or can be treated as meeting, EPC Band B, or is as energy efficient as practically possible, by the end of December 2032 and within the limits of cost, technology and necessary consent.

The EESSH2 milestone does not change landlords’ responsibility to manage their investment policy to ensure that it is cost-effective, especially where substantial additional investment has a potential impact on rents. The Scottish Government guidance for landlords makes it clear that we do not expect landlords to invest in measures that are unaffordable or where the costs are disproportionate to the benefits to tenants. Landlords have broad discretion to decide if potential energy efficiency measures are too expensive or are not value for money in their stock. We will continue to work in partnership with the sector to find the most effective ways to tackle the shared challenge of the climate emergency together.

Scottish Government modelling suggests that it could cost a total of £3.4 billion to bring 62% of Scottish social housing up to EPC band B using existing technology. Historically, a large part of the expenditure needed to improve homes has come from landlords' own resources or borrowing as part of their continuing investment to improve their homes. The Scottish Government provides guidance to help landlords identify funding sources, including Energy Company Obligation, UK Government Schemes, and funding from the Scottish Government.

Through our Social Housing Net Zero Heat fund, the Scottish Government has already committed to make available £100 million over the next parliament to support existing social landlords across Scotland to install zero emission heating systems and energy efficiency measures across their housing stock. In addition, the Low Carbon Infrastructure Transition Programme and its successor programme will invest £400 million over the next five years in large-scale heat decarbonisation infrastructure. We will continue to work with the sector to assess the impact of funding to date and ensure that our funding effectively supports further acceleration of the decarbonisation of our social housing stock alongside the ongoing investment of social landlords in maintaining the efficiency and quality of their stock.

The success of our vaccination programme means we that from 19 July 2021 we started to change restrictions that apply to fully vaccinated travellers from Amber list. Initially this was applied to UK residents who have been vaccinated by the NHS, departure test before travel to the UK, and the day 2 PCR test once here, for detection and genomic sequencing.

From 2 August, fully-vaccinated passengers arriving from amber list countries in EU member states*, the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries, microstates of Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City, and the USA do not have to quarantine or take a day 8 test upon arrival in Scotland.

They have to carry with them a form of certification to provide details of their vaccine status. For US arrivals, this proof is a CDC card showing you are fully vaccinated, along with proof of residence in the US. All arrivals from Europe must show a record of vaccination through the European Digital COVID Certificate.

Amber arrivals who have been fully vaccinated must take a pre-departure test before arrival into Scotland, alongside a PCR test on or before day 2 after arrival.

Data from Public Health Scotland shows the number of (a) children and (b) adults presenting with self-harming issues within Scottish NHS acute hospitals in each year from 2007 to 2020, broken down by calendar year of admission (inpatient data only). Figures for 2021 cannot be provided at this time.

Notes :

• The recording of data does not allow for a breakdown between NHS boards.
• There are some quality issues with this data set due to the recording of self-harm in Acute inpatient settings.
• Figures on self-harm presentations in Accident & Emergency departments, psychiatric inpatient hospitals and outpatients settings cannot be published at this time, due to data quality issues.
• Many people with self-harm related injuries are not treated as Acute inpatients, or do not present to NHS hospitals. Therefore, the data provided will likely be an undercount of self-harm related injuries in the period 2007-2020

The Scottish Government is actively working with partners to develop Scotland’s approach to self-harm; a commitment in the Mental Health Transition & Recovery Plan. We recognise self harm behaviour is complex and often reflects underlying emotional distress. We commissioned Samaritans Scotland to undertake research in 2020 which resulted in the publication of ‘Hidden too long: uncovering self-harm in Scotland’ ( https://media.samaritans.org/documents/HiddenTooLong_uncoveringself-harminScotland.pdf ). Building on that research, our engagement with partners and people with lived experience will allow us to better understand the prevalence and nature of self-harm (and associated data requirements). Crucially, it will inform our approach to ensuring compassionate responses which effectively support individuals and families.

I am meeting with the industry on a weekly basis to address the supply chain issues, which are due to a number of factors including the COVID-19 pandemic and EU Exit.

Data from the fortnightly Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) provides us with an insight into the impact on the construction industry in Scotland, for example:

• In Wave 34 of the survey (covering the period 28 June 2021 to 11 July 2021), 59.6% of Construction businesses reported that the prices of materials, goods or services bought in the last two weeks had increased by more than normal price fluctuations. The proportion of Construction businesses reporting that prices had increased more than normal has been rising since April 2021 (32.7% in Wave 29).
• In Wave 33 of the survey (covering the period 14 June 2021 to 27 June 2021), 50.1% of applicable Construction businesses reported that they were able to get the materials, goods or services they needed from the EU in the past two weeks, but 36.6% reported that the business had to change suppliers or find alternative solutions, and a further 13.3% reported that they had not been able to get the materials, goods or services needed. The proportion of Construction businesses reporting that they had been able to access materials has been declining since April 2021 (83.0% in Wave 29), and Construction businesses reporting that they had not been able to access materials has increased since April 2021 (8.1% in Wave 29).

The latest data from the Scottish Government analysis of the BICS is available at: BICS weighted Scotland estimates: data to wave 34 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Social Security Scotland routinely publish information as part of the quarterly Official Statistics release ‘Best Start Grant and Best Start Foods’. This includes information on the number of applications authorised for payment and the value of payments issued in each local authority area.

Information on Best Start Grant and Best Start Foods was last published on the 27th July 2021 and provided information up to the 31st May 2021. This publication is available from:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/best-start-grant-and-best-start-foods-high-level-statistics-to-31-may-2021/

The Programme Business Case which was published in February 2020 provides a full breakdown of implementation costs each year since Social Security Scotland was established. The link to the Executive Summary of the PBC can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.scot/publications/social-security-programme-business-case-executive-summary/ .