Chamber and committees

I can confirm that a working group, chaired by CELCIS, met on 20 May to start a time-limited process aimed at developing an improved pathway to prevent homelessness for people with experience of care. As a result of this meeting, the group is in the process of considering the specific actions required to improve the housing journey of young care experienced people in Scotland. Members will discuss this in further detail at meetings scheduled for 30 July and 28 August.

Official published statistics for the Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP) show that for the three year period to 31st March 2019, there were a total of 30,749 homes recorded as affordable housing starts. The official statistics can be found using the following link: https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/HSfS/NewBuild/AHSPtables ;

It should be noted that whilst the majority of homes delivered through the AHSP will be new build, the programme also includes rehabilitation projects, off-the-shelf purchases and homes for low-cost home ownership from existing housing stock.

The next set of official statistics in respect of the AHSP are due to be published in September.

Policy officials have started preliminary work to understand the experience of people who are homeless as a result of domestic abuse, alongside a wider piece of work on equalities across the Ending Homelessness Together Action Plan. A number of internal meetings have taken place with teams from across the Scottish Government to understand more about the context, raise awareness, and identify the right external stakeholders to take the work forward. In addition, we are currently considering an appropriate platform to develop a domestic abuse prevention pathway by summer 2020.

Of the cases reported in the outcome category “Not known”, a large proportion are cases where contact has been lost prior to duty discharge. Of the cases reported in S5W-22646, 51% of “not known” outcomes of those with no local connection in 2015-16 had lost contact prior to duty discharge, in 2016-17 this accounted for 64% and in 2017-18 73%.

The Scottish Government is happy to further discuss the “Not known” category with Local Authorities at the next Homelessness Statistics User Group meeting, which is provisionally scheduled for September, to obtain an indication of the feasibility of taking further steps to record and better classify these outcomes where contact has not been lost.

The Scottish Government does not collect further information regarding the “other (known)” outcome category.

We plan to consult with users via the Homelessness Statistics User Group, which has a provisional meeting date of September and will explore whether there are any outcomes which are commonly recorded under the “other (known)” category. If this is the case, such outcomes can be added as additional categories to this question. However, there will always be an “other (known)” category, as it is not feasible to include all possible outcomes within the local authority data collection and published statistics.

The Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 gives every carer a right to an adult carer support plan or young carer statement. This is a personalised plan, focusing on what matters to the individual carer. If the carer has eligible needs in their plan which meet the local eligibility criteria, they must be offered support to meet those needs. Carers also have the right to decide how they receive this support by choosing from the four self-directed support options.

The Scottish Government is fully funding implementation of the Carers Act by providing £17.4 million to local authorities in 2018-19 and an additional £10.5 million in 2019-20, which reflects the projected increase in demand. We expect to see local budgets increasing by this amount compared to the funding for 2018-19.

Under the Act, each local authority and health board must jointly prepare and publish a local carer strategy. This strategy must set out an assessment of the demand for support to relevant carers and the extent to which this demand is currently not being met. The statutory guidance to accompany the Act encourages local authorities to use this assessment to plan for meeting current and future needs, including unmet need.

Carers can access universal, preventative support in the community without having received an adult carer support plan or young carer statement.

In addition to funding for the Carers Act, the Scottish Government is providing £3 million in 2019-20 for the voluntary-sector Short Breaks Fund. The Fund provides four distinct programmes which offer different short breaks opportunities to a range of carers and their families.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-23920 on 9 July 2019. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx

In 2015 the Scottish Government undertook an advertising campaign at a cost of circa. £65,000 to highlight the misuse of disabled persons parking places and blue badges; no other spend has been recorded in the period 2014 to 2019. Analysis was undertaken to gauge the overall impact of the campaign which was found to have had a positive impact, including promotion of engagement across a range of social media.

We are committed to undertaking a wide ranging media campaign in relation to the proposed national ban on pavement and double parking being progressed as part of the Transport (Scotland) Bill. The campaign will tackle all forms of inconsiderate parking, including misuse of disabled persons parking places.

The Scottish Government is strongly opposed to the inappropriate use of zero hour contracts. Our Fair Work Action Plan commits us to work with partners to consider and respond to the recommendations set out in the Fair Work Convention’s Social Care Inquiry Report to ensure that fair work is embedded in the delivery of social care services including the procurement process. This includes the recommendation for key stakeholders to develop and agree appropriate minimum contract standards for the provision of publicly-funded social care services, consistent with the Fair Work Framework and the Scottish Government’s Fair Work First initiative.

Fair Work First asks employers to commit to:

• investment in skills and training
• no inappropriate use of zero hours contracts (for example using zero hours contracts when people are working regular hours; exclusive contracts that stop flexible workers working for other people)
• action to tackle the gender pay gap
• genuine workforce engagement such as trade union or employee association recognition, and
• payment of the real Living Wage

The Fair Work Convention’s report made a number of recommendations relating to fair work and the social care sector and the Scottish Government is working with COSLA and other stakeholders such as the STUC, care providers including the Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland and the Fair Work Convention to finalise the process which will support the implementation of these recommendations.

The Scottish Government has acted to secure improvement in social care and that is why the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport and Councillor Currie, COSLA spokesperson for Health and Social Care, launched a national programme to support local reform of social care on 12 June. The programme contains a commissioning and procurement workstream.

The information requested is publically available in ‘Cancer Incidence in Scotland 2017’, published by Information Services Division in April 2019. This is available via the following link:

http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Cancer/Publications/2019-04-30/cancer_staging.xlsx