Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is taking a range of action to improve digital inclusion across Scotland, including in the Glasgow region.

We know that cost is one of the greatest barriers to getting online, closely followed by a lack of skills. Since May 2020 the Scottish Government has invested £48 million through the Connecting Scotland programme to provide a device, connectivity, and training and support to those on low incomes, allowing them to realise the full benefits of being online. Connecting Scotland is delivered in collaboration with key partners, including local authorities, COSLA, SCVO and third sector organisations, and telecoms companies. The recently published report Connecting Scotland - A Year in View demonstrates the scale of the investment and the impact of the programme so far. To date, Connecting Scotland has distributed almost 7,000 devices to organisations based in Glasgow. As set out in the Programme for Government, by the end of this Parliament, we will ensure Connecting Scotland has supported up to 300,000 households to get online, backed by £200 million of investment.

We are also making substantial investments in Scotland’s digital infrastructure, despite responsibility for broadband being reserved to the UK Government.

Our Reaching 100% (R100) programme – consisting of the £600 million R100 contracts, our Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme and commercial coverage – will help to deliver universal superfast access across Scotland.

The Scottish Government engages with the UK Government through the British Irish Council digital inclusion workstream, and officials regularly engage with telecoms companies on digital inclusion issues.

The Scottish Government continues to work with and support Scotland's environmental regulator SEPA in tackling waste crime.

The introduction of the Regulatory Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 introduced additional enforcement measures for SEPA to utilise which included Fixed Monetary Penalties, Variable Monetary Penalties and Enforcement Undertakings. This has expanded SEPA's toolkit for tackling environmental offending and allows a greater range of remedies targeted at both punishment of offender and remediation of environmental harm.

SEPA participate in several multi agency initiatives such as the Scottish Organised Crime Task Force and the Joint Unit for Waste Crime, a cross UK initiative to allow greater collaboration and operational impact on serious waste crime , particularly those who operate cross border.

In respect of tackling the ongoing issue of litter, a review of the National Litter Strategy was completed in 2019 and published on the Scottish Government website earlier this year. The review provides a snapshot of the activities that took place between 2014 and 2019 and also outlines areas of success and good practice case studies. Work has begun to refresh this as a National Litter and Flytipping strategy, which will be published in early 2022. Enforcement will be one of the four key themes this strategy focusses on.

Data on waste crime convictions is available from SEPA's website ( www.sepa.org.uk/regulations/enforcement).

Under the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act (2004), all public bodies in Scotland are required to further the conservation of biodiversity when carrying out their responsibilities. The Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) Act (WANE Act) (2011) introduced a further requirement for all public bodies in Scotland to provide a publicly available report every three years, on the actions which they have taken to meet this biodiversity duty.

Protecting habitats, species and Scotland’s ecosystem services is an integral part of SEPA’s regulatory remit. All SEPA’s regulatory decisions take account of potential effects on biodiversity and opportunities for biodiversity enhancement. SEPA is responsible for setting standards in environmental licences that protect and help improve the state of water, land and air and the services that ecosystems provide. SEPA issues environmental licences under a range of regulations, including the following:

• Pollution Prevention and Control (Scotland) Regulations 2012
• Water Environment (Controlled Activities) (Scotland) Regulations 2011
• Waste Management Licensing (Scotland) Regulations 2011

SEPA’s Nature conservation procedure for environmental licensing ensures that its statutory duties to protect designated features in nature conservation sites are incorporated into all environmental licensing regimes in a consistent and auditable manner.

Under the Nature Conservation (Scotland) Act (2004), all public bodies in Scotland are required to further the conservation of biodiversity when carrying out their responsibilities. The Wildlife and Natural Environment (Scotland) Act (WANE Act) (2011) introduced a further requirement for all public bodies in Scotland to provide a publicly available report every three years, on the actions which they have taken to meet this biodiversity duty.

Scottish Ministers hold regular meetings with SEPA on their strategic objectives, responsibilities and programmes of work, including pollution control, which are central to addressing the biodiversity crisis.

Waste crime has a serious and detrimental impact on our environment, communities and compliant businesses. The Scottish Government’s Serious and Organised Crime Strategy recognises waste crime as a strategic threat.

In respect of an annual appraisal of waste crime impacts, SEPA contribute to the Scottish Multi Agency Strategic Threat Assessment (SMASTA) on an annual basis, which now includes a section on Environmental Crime. This is compiled by Police Scotland with input from relevant partners.

The National Care Service proposals are at an early stage and will be subject to consultation until the beginning of November. Following the consultation Ministers will take a view on the scope of the National Care Service and further work will be required to develop legislation for consideration by Parliament.

The Whole Family Wellbeing Fund is an essential component of the delivery of the recommendations of the Independent Care Review for children now known as #keepthepromise. We are committed to delivering this change in the immediate future and will work with key partners to ensure this happens. Any proposed change to the way services are delivered to children and their families will take into account the need to ensure the effective delivery of #keepthepromise for Scotland’s children across all relevant universal and targeted services.

The Scottish Government has been working with partners including Integration Joint Boards, COSLA and Alzheimer Scotland through the first four months of 2021 and subsequently to review the provision of dementia post-diagnostic services.

This year’s Programme for Government confirmed that we would provide extra resources to help ensure that everyone who is entitled to the service has the option for referral. We will be allocating the annual equivalent of £3.5m for this purpose on a recurring basis.

As the national agency for sport, sport scotland invests Scottish Government and National Lottery resources to help the people of Scotland get the most from the sporting system. sport scotland works in partnerships with Scottish Governing Bodies of sport (SGBs), local authorities, leisure trusts, sports clubs and community organisations, schools, colleges, and universities to provide greater opportunities for all to participate in sport.

sport scotland’s investment in each local authority area, in each year, since 2012-13 can be found from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Bib. number 62729)

This data covers investment by sport scotland, in both the local authority and other organisations in the local authority area, including investment for Active Schools, Community Sport Hubs, Sport Facilities Fund, National and Regional Facilities, Transforming Scottish Indoor Tennis Fund, Cycling Facilities Fund, Cashback for Communities, Active Places Fund, National Lottery Awards for All, Direct Club Investment, COVID-19 Ice Rink Funding, COVID Loss of spectator funding, and Get Into Summer.

The following table shows the number of people diagnosed with dementia and referred for post-diagnostic support from a named Link Worker in financial years 2018/19 and 2019/2020. Information on people diagnosed with dementia who are not referred for PDS is not available centrally.

For 2018/19, 8,021 people equates to approximately 43.4 % of those estimated to have been diagnosed with dementia in that year. Of those referred in 2018/19 for post-diagnostic support, 75.1% received a minimum of one year’s support. Full 2019/2020 figures will be published next year.

Table 1: Number of people diagnosed with dementia and referred for post-diagnostic support by financial year of diagnosis: Scotland: 2018/19 to 2019/20

Housing to 2040 is Scotland’s first long-term housing strategy. It sets out the Scottish Government’s vision for housing by 2040, that everyone has access to a safe, warm, affordable and energy efficient home that meets their needs, located in the place they want to be. The strategy needs to be agile and able to respond to future changes, and is in alignment with the Shared Policy Programme agreed with the Scottish Green Party. The updated commitments will be reflected in the governance process and monitoring framework plan for Housing to 2040 that will be established later this year.