Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is in the process of agreeing a timeline for the development of the Palliative Care Strategy with the Strategy Steering Group for Palliative Care, and will publish this once agreed.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-21155 on‎ 22 September 2023. 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

Table 1 presents the amounts retained through the Business Rates Incentivisation Scheme (BRIS) by each council in each financial year since 2015-2016. The years relate to years in which amounts were actually retained by the councils and include ongoing retentions (as a result of continued growth within the cycle) as well as new retention amounts awarded.

BRIS was suspended from 2020-2021 due to the pandemic. Due to the exceptional value of non-domestic rates reliefs introduced in 2020-2021, no council increased their non-domestic rates income in that year. Amounts retained in 2020-2021 and later relate to additional income generated, but not retained, before 2020-2021.

Figures are rounded to the nearest £1,000, and may not sum due to rounding.

Table 1: Amounts retained through the Business Rates Incentivisation Scheme, by council and year of retention

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-13971 on‎ 31 January 2023, which sets out the circumstances in which Scottish Ministers are notified of a local authorities’ proposal to introduce a scheme. While no such notifications, required at the stage of a formally published scheme proposal, have been received, I am aware of exploration by City of Edinburgh Council and Glasgow City Council who continue to consider how best to use the powers.

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

The number of properties liable for the Higher Property Rate (HPR) in 2023-2024 before any reliefs are applied is presented in the following below, broken down in Table 1 by property class, and in Table 2 by local authority. In 2023-2024, HPR is applied to all properties with a rateable value above £100,000. Property class is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, and does not necessarily accurately reflect the use of a property. The Scottish Government does not hold property-level data on industry sectors.

These tables are based on the valuation roll as at 1 July 2023.

Figures in these tables are rounded to the nearest 10, with values greater than zero but lower than five displayed as ‘[low]’.

Table 1: Number of properties liable for HPR in 2023-2024 by property class

Table 1 presents the expected gross income from the Higher Property Rate (HPR), after the application of the revaluation Transitional Relief (TR), in 2023-2024. In 2023-2024, HPR is applied to all properties with a rateable value above £100,000. The values presented in Table 1 relate to the supplement of 2.6p above the Basic Property Rate only. This is broken down by property class, as the Scottish Government does not hold property-level data on industry sectors. Property class is a classification used by Scottish Assessors to describe the type of property, and does not necessarily accurately reflect the use of a property.

This table is based on the valuation roll as at 1 July 2023. Figures are rounded to the nearest £1,000.

Table 1: Estimated gross income from HPR after revaluation transitional relief in 2023-2024 by property class

As part of the work to develop a new Palliative and End of Life Care Strategy, the Strategy Steering Group for Palliative Care will consider the financial implications of delivery.

Social Security Scotland do not make decisions on whether an application is fraudulent. Where fraud is suspected, appropriate investigations would be undertaken and when complete, a report would be made to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal for their consideration. If after due process a conviction is achieved, fraud is then confirmed by the Scottish Judicial System.

Prevention of fraud is a priority, with measures and controls embedded in Social Security Scotland’s processes and systems to minimise the opportunities for fraud.

With regards to combined levels of both fraud and error these are included in the Social Security Scotland Annual Report and Accounts.

Social Security Scotland carefully considers the information on counter fraud activity that can be placed into the public domain to ensure that any information released does not undermine the ability of Social Security Scotland to prevent and detect crime.

Prosecutors do not always choose to mark a case for no action, they may require to do so if there is not sufficient admissible evidence available in law to justify prosecutorial action or where the statutory time limits have been exceeded.

The following table sets out the total number of criminal cases in which no action was taken by the prosecutor at a) Ayr and b) Kilmarnock in each of the last 5 years.

The following table sets out the number of accused receiving a direct measure as a first substantive marking compared to the total number of accused receiving a first substantive marking (all types including: court, direct measure, no action, no decision) in cases including an assault charge (within the Scottish Government Classification of “Common Assault”):