Chamber and committees

Alcohol Focus Scotland’s objectives as set out in their grant letter for 2022-23 were:

• Advocate for the continuation and optimisation of minimum unit pricing in Scotland
• Build community capacity to engage in the licensing process
• Improve the accessibility and effectiveness of the licensing process
• Encourage strategic action to reduce the availability of alcohol
• Build support for controls on alcohol marketing as recommended by the Expert Network.
• Engage with communities of interest to explore and publicise experiences of alcohol marketing
• Expand the evidence base and our policy advocacy work to protect children and young people from the impact of alcohol
• Increase awareness of the impact of alcohol on children and young people
• Build capacity of practitioners to identify and work with children and young people
• Improve knowledge of alcohol and understanding of risks
• Build capacity of practitioners to identify and work with children and young people
• Support the routinisation of Alcohol Death Reviews, and the sharing of knowledge from them, across Scotland
• Support interventions to reduce alcohol-related deaths

The Scottish Government allocated an additional £500k in capital funding to Museums Galleries Scotland in both 2021-22 and 2022-23.This was in recognition of the important contribution museums make to our communities, and was directed towards crucial repair and maintenance work, to reduce museum running costs and increase resilience.

Government officials will continue to engage with and discuss the sector’s capital needs with Museums Galleries Scotland. The creation of an ongoing open access capital fund will be considered as part of future capital budget processes.

The capital outlook is extremely challenging as the UK Government did not inflation-proof their Capital Budget which has resulted in a projected 6.7% real terms fall in our capital funding over the medium term between 2023-24 and 2027-28.

While the Scottish Government has not sought confirmation from energy companies relating explicitly to Energy UK’s vulnerability commitment, I have written to all major suppliers raising concerns regarding consumer protection and fuel poverty levels. With energy prices remaining significantly higher than two years ago, we have called upon all suppliers to take meaningful action to better support those consumers who need help the most. Continued engagement with suppliers has highlighted the measures they are taking to improve customer service standards and support for consumers who are struggling to pay their bills. I also recently chaired three working groups, all of which Energy UK was a member. While these groups were short-lived, members continue to progress collaborative actions to support consumers across Scotland including working with Energy UK, Ofgem and energy companies.

The First Minister announced in March that the Fuel Insecurity Fund (FIF) would be tripled to £30 million this year. As part of that, £8.5 million from the emergency crisis Fund has been allocated to the Fuel Bank Foundation to deliver support to thousands of vulnerable households, including those with prepayment meters and at risk of imminent disconnection, through its Fuel Bank Network and Heat Fund projects in Scotland.

Their Fuel Bank Network supports eligible pre-payment households with emergency fuel vouchers - over 99% are made the same-day. Households are also assessed for energy saving advice and further signposting to other support based on their needs. The Foundation works with a number of referral partners to provide support to households who must be verified as:

• being pre-payment energy customers;
• already in financial crisis – at risk of self-disconnection or have already self-disconnected;
• be unable to fund the basic essentials for everyday living;
• and have some additional level of need identified by an expert independent third party referral.

Direct payments to fuel suppliers can be made through the Foundation’s Heat Fund strand for eligible households who often have to ‘pay in advance’ for unregulated fuels including oil, coal, LPG, and biomass. Alongside this the Foundation offers additional support measures like, for example, the provision of heated throws for clients in crisis.

The Scottish Government is committed to improving terms and conditions for the adult social care workforce, both through our current work and the development of a National Care Service.

The Scottish Government is working through the relevant issues on terms and conditions, including SSSC fees, in partnership with stakeholders. This joint consideration will include looking at priorities and affordability on various options and whilst we cannot provide a timetable on concluding the work we will endeavour to update the sector as soon as is practically possible.

Our previous three dementia strategies consistently maintained a focus on improving the quality of care for people living with dementia and their families through work on diagnosis, including: post-diagnostic support; care co-ordination during the middle stage of dementia; end of life and palliative care; workforce development and capability; data and information; and research into better understanding of the condition. Commitments within each of these strategies and our Covid-19 Action Plan were subject to independent evaluations.

The findings of these evaluations informed Everyone’s Story: A New Dementia Strategy for Scotland , including ‘The Difference We Need to Make’, which clearly sets out our ambitions by which we will hold ourselves accountable to delivering on through the lifetime of this new strategy.

We also heard a huge range of experiences and perspectives on people’s experiences of care and support via our National Conversation. This has also given us a large evidence base on the impact of previous strategies on people’s lives and experience.

As stated in Everyone’s Story: A New Dementia Strategy for Scotland , dementia affects an estimated 90,000 people in Scotland, an estimated 3,000 of whom are under 65. However, every person with dementia is unique. Dementia affects people in lots of different ways, depending on the type of dementia they have as well as personal factors such as their social situation.

These figures are based on predictive modelling which we are in the process of updating to ensure we have an accurate picture on the numbers of people living with dementia in Scotland.

Our new strategy committed us to ensure we have robust data on our dementia communities, and this has come through as an important area to progress in our initial delivery work. We are committed to working with partners to identify ways to address this in our initial 2-year Delivery Plan for our Strategy.

I can confirm that this is new investment, not funding already committed in previous budgets. It will stimulate and support private investment in the infrastructure and manufacturing facilities which will be critical to the growth of a world-leading offshore wind sector in Scotland.

Annex C of the Infrastructure Investment Plan (IIP), published February 2021, used a taxonomy approach to assess planned infrastructure spend into low, neutral and high carbon categories, drawing on the annual carbon assessment of the capital budget. The 2022-23 annual IIP progress report, published June 2023, considers Major Capital Projects within the IIP in the context of the climate change targets.

My previous answer to question S6W-21956 on 25 October 2023 sets out details of Scottish Ministers’ commitment to comply fully with the requirements of section 94A of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009.

All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/written-questions-and-answers

All applications are subject to site-specific assessments, recognising the different circumstances of individual development proposals, sites and wider locations. National Planning Framework 4 (NPF4) states that, when considering development proposals for renewable energy generation, potential impacts on communities, nature and other receptors will be important considerations in the decision-making process. NPF4 Policy 11 requires project design and mitigation to demonstrate how impacts on communities and individual dwellings, including residential amenity, visual impact, noise and shadow flicker will be addressed.