Chamber and committees

The Community Hospital group has met in its current format since June 2023. The membership comprises professional advisors, NHS and HSCP clinicians, managers and leaders, and Scottish Government officials. It last met on 24 January 2024. The attendees discussed ongoing improvement work in different health board areas, and time was allocated for collaboration and networking to facilitate sharing of experience and good practice across Scottish community hospital settings.

The Scottish Government does not have any powers to compensate those waiting for affordable housing for any delay that may occur in completion of any development.

Sections 52 and 53 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2014 provide Scottish Ministers with powers to request information and carry out inspections. Reports are not made to Scottish Ministers using these provisions therefore none have been received.

Paul McLennan: During the last 12 months (January – December 2023), 40 new applications were made to the Homeowners Support Fund (HOSF).

All applicants to HOSF receive advice from an accredited money adviser who offer holistic services that best meet applicant’s needs. Accredited money advisers are appropriately qualified to determine when homeowners meet the HOSF eligibility criteria. This ensures all options and potential solutions have been considered before an application is made. All 40 applications were accepted for further consideration by SG officials.

Applications are made to the overall HOSF programme, and all are assessed by SG officials to determine suitability for either Mortgage to Shared Equity (MTSE) or Mortgage to Rent (MTR). Every application is carefully considered.

Section 52 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2014 gives Scottish Ministers the power to ask for documents and information they reasonably need to carry out an inspection on a letting agency company. To date this power has not been used.

Section 53 provides Scottish Ministers powers to carry out an inspection of premises which appear to being used for the purpose of carrying out letting agency work. This power was used on four occasions during 2019. The visits were used to confirm compliance with legislative requirements and no further action was required.

The Scottish Government works closely with the Centre for Sustainable Delivery (CfSD) to support delivery of improvement programmes, including the Urgent and Unscheduled Care collaborative, to ensure sustainable ways of delivering services, improving access for patients, and reducing unnecessary demand for services. While we monitor progress through discussion with CFSD and NHS Boards, we will provide updates on progress against specific pathways in our NHS Recovery Plan annual update.

Following open competition, the Picker Institute has been awarded the contract to evaluate the Redesign of Urgent Care pathway. The cost of the project was £90,000 and final report will be published on the Scottish Government website in the summer.

The Scottish Government values the diverse social housing sector in Scotland. We support the community ownership of social housing asset wealth where the landlord meets the required legal, regulatory and financial framework and where it is in the interests of its tenants.

Building regulations already require that, in residential buildings, a proportion of rooms intended to be used as bedrooms must be accessible to a wheelchair user. Guidance offered within the Building Standards Technical Handbooks promotes an inclusive approach to design, generally aligning with the good practice recommendations detailed in British Standard 8300. As such, the ratio of accessible accommodation sought in such buildings is one bedroom in 20, or part thereof, which directly aligns with the one room or five percent (whichever is greater) of the total number of bedrooms recommended within the British Standard.

However, building regulations do not apply to mobile homes or other structures which are capable of being moved from one place or another. Smaller types of accommodation, such as holiday pods, may not be subject to the above provisions. The Standard described above therefore cannot be directly applied to these structures.

Nevertheless, building owners and service providers should be aware of the duties imposed under the reserved legislation of the Equality Act 2010, including a duty to make reasonable adjustments to ensure disabled people can use a service as close as it can be reasonably possible to a standard usually offered to a non-disabled person. Other policy areas such as development or licensing may also have potential to address this issue.

While this issue goes much wider than the regulatory scope of building standards, I would welcome an opportunity to discuss the matter further to explore potential solutions.

The change in budget allocation to the Just Transition Fund is due to a reduction in capital and financial transactions funding allocations from the UK Government which the Fund relies on.

The UK Autumn Statement was the worst-case scenario for Scotland. The Chancellor had £27bn of fiscal headroom for the Autumn Statement, but rather than provide the funding needed in services and infrastructure, he cut taxes. These decisions have meant that the Scottish Government’s block grant has fallen in real terms by 1.2% since 2022-23 across resource and capital combined. Capital is due to contract by almost 10% in real terms over five years.

These decisions are not just an issue for the Scottish Budget. The UK Government’s ‘mini-budget’ in Autumn 2022 turbocharged the cost of living crisis, inflicting misery on individuals, communities and businesses. People have seen their living standards fall as a direct consequence of UK Government mismanagement of the economy over the past 13 years.

The Scottish Government remains committed to the 10-year Just Transition Fund programme and existing projects will continue to be funded in 2024-25. We will undertake an evaluation of phase one in this financial year aiming to commence the next phase in the following financial year.

The Scottish Government will, throughout February 2024, undertake consultation events with members of the Student Mental Health and Wellbeing Working Group on a draft Student Mental Health Action Plan.

Following this, and the completion of attendant Impact Assessments, the Scottish Government will publish the Student Mental Health Action Plan.