Chamber and committees

We held a written consultation from May – June 2023 on proposed changes to night sights, ammunition weights and close seasons for male deer. The full Deer Management Round Table was invited to respond to this consultation. Responses will be published on the Scottish Government webpage imminently.

Under the GP Contract, GP practices are required to provide online services to patients such as appointment booking and repeat prescription ordering. We recognise, however, there have been limitations to the systems currently in use, which is why, through continued investment in the national ‘GP IT’ re-provisioning programme, Health Boards will have the ability to offer new and advanced, modernised systems for General Practice in Scotland.

The rollout of the new National GP IT system is now underway and provides a number of improvements for GPs and practices in relation to booking appointments, prescribing, connectivity to systems, shared community care and more robust centralised hosting. As the new GP IT system is rolled out, we expect more GP practices to offer a booking service for their patients, in line with the GP contract. More information is available in our refreshed delivery plan of the Digital Strategy: Care in the Digital Age: Delivery Plan 2023-24 (www.gov.scot) .

Since 2015 a total of 22,817 initial applications to Warmer Homes Scotland (WHS) did not progress to work being carried out under the scheme. The scheme is targeted at alleviating fuel poverty for the most vulnerable households and so the most common reason for an unsuccessful application to Warmer Homes Scotland is that the household does not meet the eligibility criteria for age or lower income.

Applications to the first phase of Warmer Homes Scotland closed on 31 March 2023 and at this time all households were required to meet all 6 of the high-level qualifying criteria:

• Be a homeowner or tenant of a private sector landlord
• Live in the home as a main residence
• Lived at the property for more than twelve months (unless in receipt of DS1500 or BASRiS certificate)
• Live in a property with a SAP of 72 or lower which is under 230m 2 in floor size
• Live in a home that meets the tolerable living standard set out in the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006
• Not received support for energy efficiency measures though WHS funding in the last 5 years

As well as meeting the six high level criteria, customers must be 16 or over and be in receipt of certain benefits. The exception to this is if you are 75 or over with no working heating system, then there is no benefits receipt requirement.

The table below outline the most common areas of eligibility that are not met by households. This information is from the launch of WHS in September 2015 to the close of applications on 31 March 2023.

Funding provided to each Alcohol and Drug Partnership (ADP) for 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22 is available at: Alcohol and Drug Partnerships: funding allocations - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

The Scottish Government’s direct, recurring funding to support ADP projects is transferred to NHS Boards via their baseline allocations for onward delegation to Integration Authorities (IAs) to be invested, in their entirety, through ADPs. Where there is more than one IA, the level of funding is agreed jointly by the IAs within the Health Board area. Scottish Government provides details of what the ADP allocation of this funding would be using the NRAC formula as an indication of funding at the ADP level. However, precise allocations are a matter for Integration Authorities as the information requested is not held centrally.

Programme funding to ADPs is also transferred via NHS Boards, however, Scottish Government provide the level of funding for each IA that the Board delegates.

Funding transferred in 2022-23 is shown in Table 1. In 2022-23, a total of £106.8m was available to Alcohol and Drugs Partnerships – up on the previous year.

Due to a significant increase in reserves carried forward from previous years, ADPs utilised unspent reserves in 2022-23. ADP funding requirements were fully met in 2022-23, through the use of both unspent reserves and in year funding allocation.

Table 1: Funding transferred to Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs) for financial year 2022-23

Ultimately, the costs of the strategy will be determined by the actions which are included when the strategy is finalised. These will require to be assessed and agreed within the context of the 2024-25 Published Budget process.

To support development of the strategy we have spent more than £70k on research and engagement since the announcement was made; and have provided grant funding to the Association for Real Change (ARC) Scotland.

Under Section 29 of the Scottish National Investment Bank Scottish Ministers must establish and maintain an advisory group. Now that the Bank is fully established, and has a growing portfolio of investments work is underway to create the advisory group.

As part of the work currently underway Scottish Government officials are finalising decisions on the membership of the group and how often this group will meet.

Repossession involves the retaking of property when a borrower is in breach or default of a mortgage or loan secured on the property.
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The first table shows the number of repossessions registered by the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Services since April 2018, split by residential and non-residential and unoccupied property.

The Deferral Working Group was established to guide and assist evaluation of the pilot approach and assist preparation and planning for full implementation of the associated legislation in August 2023.

Interviews were undertaken with 30 parents as part of the pilot evaluation and the findings from the evaluation were shared with the working group.

Results from a parent survey about deferrals conducted by Glasgow City Council was shared with the working group.

Give Them Time, a group who campaigned for the additional year of funded ELC for children who defer, attended the working group in July 2021 to share the views of parents they work with and these views were also fed in through officials at further meetings.

The Scottish Government remains resolute in its commitment to Keep the Promise and the implementation plan published last year sets out our actions and commitments to help care experienced children, young people and their families. The Whole Family Wellbeing Funding (WFWF) is a key element of these commitments.

We recently published the WFWF Year 1 evaluation interim report, which we are using to inform decisions on the best use of the outstanding WFWF. Our plans for the remaining allocation will be provided in due course.

The Scottish Government committed an additional £250 million in the term of this parliament to deliver the national mission on drugs. We also committed in January 2023 to delivering a cross government plan that addresses the systemic stigma that keeps people from seeking support as well as a number of initiatives designed to make it easier for people who use drugs to access all the services they might need to improve their lives.