Chamber and committees

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-20607 on 30 April 2014. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

Awareness raising work and its impact on increasing diversity on public boards is being considered as part of the programme of activity being developed by the Public Boards and Corporate Diversity Programme board. Options for this will be considered in conjunction with specific stakeholder advisory panels as these are developed by the programme board.

The Scottish Government is fully committed to a programme of activity to enhance the diversity of Scotland’s public boards and the Scottish Government staff body. To drive forward this agenda, the Public Boards and Corporate Diversity Programme Board was established on 9 December 2013. It is intended that the programme board will consider diversity in its widest sense but there will be a particular focus on women in the early part of the programme. Although not within its formal remit, the board will take a close interest in the outcome of the forthcoming consultation on the issue of women’s representation on boards, including the role of quotas.

The remit of the Programme Board is being addressed through three specific strands of work. These cover actions aimed at increasing the diversity of Public Boards and of Scottish Government staff and at influencing change in board representation in the wider public and private sectors. The three strands are:

Leadership and Partnerships: The programme board aims to bring together interventions from across the Scottish Government to increase the representation of women and other under-represented groups on regulated public boards and within the Scottish Government. It will also seek to influence board compositions in organisations outside government through working in partnership.

Practical Change: This is focusing on ministerially appointed, regulated public boards. These are the boards that Scottish Ministers have direct control over and reliable statistics with which to measure success. By implementing specific practical changes to systems and processes, we intend to make ministerial public appointments more diverse, aiming to be broadly reflective of the Scottish population by 2017.

Scottish Government Employees: The work being progressed under this strand is designed to enable the Scottish Government to become an exemplar employer and to ensure that as an organisation we are broadly reflective of the Scottish population by 2025.

A programme of activity is currently being developed by the Scottish Government, in conjunction with the programme board and stakeholders. Action plans and targets are still in the developmental phase. Connecting with users experiences and raising awareness amongst influencers will be key to the success of the programme. To help develop and support this, the programme board is considering setting up specific stakeholder advisory panels. The membership and remit of those panels will be decided by the programme board in the coming months.

The membership of the board is as follows:

Alyson Stafford, Director-General Finance – Chair

Barbara Allison, Director-General Governance and Communities

Sarah Davidson, Director for Human Resources and Organisational Development

Catherine Dyer, Chief Executive Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service

Kenneth Hogg, Director for Local Government and Communities

Graeme Dickson, Director-General Enterprise, Environment and Digital

Sandy Begbie, Non-executive Director

Annie Gunner Logan, Non-executive Director

The agenda and minutes of the programme board will be published online shortly.

Diversity data has not been captured for the members of the Public Boards and Corporate Diversity Programme Board, therefore it is not known if any board members are disabled. However the board intends to ensure that the views of disabled people and staff are considered and taken account of through appropriate stakeholder engagement.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-20607 on 30 April 2014. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-20607 on 30 April 2014. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

The Scottish Government is fully committed to raising awareness and promoting understanding of public appointments with all groups in Scottish society through conferences, meeting and other events.

A comprehensive list of awareness events was not held centrally prior to 2013. However for the period 1 January to 31 December 2013, nine events were organised by the Scottish Governments Public Appointments Centre of Expertise (PACE). In addition we attended a further 20 events to raise awareness in the same period.

From 1 January 2014 to date we have organised two events and attended three organised by other organisations The events attended varied greatly and included, awareness sessions for public body chairs and internal staff dealing with public appointments, outreach covering all of those groups under represented on Scotland’s boards and participation and representation at conferences.

A list of the events organised by PACE in 2013 and 2014 are listed below:

2013:

Scottish Housing Regulator; to encourage applications from homeless people and those who had experience of engaging with public and private rented accommodation sector.

Seven awareness sessions for public body chairs and senior civil servants (Edinburgh) who sit on selection panels to promote improvements to the public appointment process and raise awareness of diversity on Scotland’s boards.

The Women on Board summit which was held to understand and identify the barriers to women in public life, attended by over 100 chairs of public boards, women of potential and critical friends.

2014:

An open day to encourage applicants to apply for the Dumfries and Galloway Health board chair appointment.

An awareness session for public body chairs and senior civil service who sit on selection panels (Glasgow) to promote improvements to the public appointment process and raise awareness of diversity on Scotland’s boards.

The Public Appointments Centre of Expertise are currently considering options on raising awareness of diversity issues by delivering training to selection panel members on unconscious bias. This is part of the on-going continuous improvement work currently underway as part of the programme of activity being developed by the Scottish Government, in conjunction with the Public Boards and Corporate Diversity Programme Board and stakeholders.

The Self-directed Support (Direct Payments) (Scotland) Regulations 2014 detail circumstances where a family member may provide support. There are two exceptions to this family members rule:

a) Where the local authority determines that either the family member or the direct payment user is under undue pressure to agree to a family member providing support and;

b) Where the family member is a guardian, continuing attorney or welfare attorney with power to make decisions as regards the support to be provided through a direct payment

The second restriction was proposed during the consultation on the draft regulations.

There are no immediate plans to amend this set of regulations, however the Scottish Government, in partnership with organisations, is carrying out on-going monitoring and evaluation during the first year of implementation of the Self-directed Support legislation.

As part of this monitoring I have asked my officials to discuss this particular issue with PAMIS and Alzheimer Scotland.

The affordable warmth scheme was temporarily put on hold in March 2014. This is because energy companies are facing uncertainty over the way in which surplus actions under the Home Heating Cost Reduction Obligation will be treated whilst the UK Government is consulting on proposed changes to the Energy Company Obligation. The Scottish Government is working to clarify the position with each energy company, but expects to re-open the scheme in May 2014.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-20560 on 29 April 2014. People who have already been referred to energy companies for an installation under the affordable warmth scheme are not affected. People whose referral was in preparation when the scheme was paused have been contacted by Home Energy Scotland.

People calling Home Energy Scotland since the scheme has been paused, and who may be eligible for assistance, can leave their details with Home Energy Scotland. Home Energy Scotland will keep in touch with them and will let them know of any developments on the affordable warmth scheme or of any other assistance from which they may benefit.

All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.