Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has committed to deliver the National Transitions to Adulthood strategy as part of the 2021 Programme for Government and within this Parliamentary term. Our priority is to start early discussions with disabled children and young people to have their voices clearly heard across developing policies that impact on their daily lives, which we plan to undertake by January 2022. In addition we will review responses to the National Care Service consultation on the inclusion of children's social work and social care services as a route to reduce complexity and improve transitions and support for those that need access to a range of services.

We will carry this out in the context of wider work that has a direct impact on these children and families including United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) / United Nation Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UNCRPD), Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC) Refresh, the Promise, the Review of Additional Support for Learning Implementation on Support for Learning: All our Children and All their Potential , Fair Work, and Mental Health.

The cost of energy remains a significant issue in terms of tackling fuel poverty and can discourage switching to electric zero emissions technologies for heating. As energy pricing and obligations are reserved, we must see action by the UK Government if we are to meet both our emissions and fuel poverty targets.

The Scottish Government is engaging broadly to raise our concerns for the people and businesses of Scotland. A letter has been sent this week from the Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport to the BEIS business secretary highlighting the need for affordable energy and Ministers are engaging with industry and consumer groups, including fuel poverty organisations.

We note the publication of Shelter Scotland’s Understanding the True Cost of Evictions in Scotland report and will study the details as part of our wider consideration of evidence around this area. We have reservations about the report’s treatment of rent arrears costs as part of the analysis and will engage with Shelter Scotland to gain an understanding of the work that has been carried out.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that eviction for rent arrears is a last resort. A social landlord must have exhausted all attempts to resolve rent arrears with the tenant before taking action to evict. The Scottish Government and Social Landlords reaffirmed our joint commitment to supporting people to keep their homes and avoid eviction where tenants are struggling through no fault of their own to manage their rent in our Shared Statement: Social landlords working together with tenants to avoid evictions: https://www.gov.scot/publications/joint-working-on-evictions-social-housing-shared-statement/ published on 25 June 2021.

While there is no mandatory requirement for public body senior officers to take specific carbon mitigation training, in recognition of the value of climate literacy the Scottish Government has supported the Royal Scottish Geographic Society to develop a Climate Solutions Qualification, written with University of Stirling’s Management School, University of Edinburgh’s Centre for carbon innovation and the Institute of Directors. This course is designed to increase climate literacy and climate action throughout public and private sector leadership.

The Scottish Government has supported the delivery of 100 places on the course to leaders across the public and private sectors, equipping them with a vital understanding of key issues related to addressing the climate emergency. In total, 400 leaders from business and the public sector have now completed the full online qualification, and 60,000 people have subscribed to a shorter 90-minute version.

International travel restrictions are important in limiting the importation of further cases of the virus, in particular new variants, which could undermine the rollout of our vaccine programme. Exemptions to self-isolation requirements have been granted for seafarers returning directly to Scotland from red or amber list countries outside of the UK. Seafarers who are repatriating in Scotland are also exempt from isolation and the financial pressure that isolation incurs. This exemption does not apply to seafarers returning to Scotland for a period of leave or any other non-work-related circumstance. Offshore workers arriving from amber list countries to work on the UK continental shelf are also exempt from isolation requirements. Where workers are required to travel internationally for business reasons, employers are encouraged to consider how they support their employees to comply with restrictions on their return to Scotland.

No information is collected on how many specialist dementia beds have been available in each year since 2007, either nationally or broken down by NHS Board.

Part 1: Committed costs of the advertising to date total £435,162.73. Part 2: The campaign is planned to run from 19 August-26 September 2021 with a further burst of activity from 25 October-14 November 2021. Part 3 :The campaign target audience is all adults in Scotland and the campaign is forecast to reach 95.2% of those.

Our overriding commitment is to the safe and secure transfer of disability assistance from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to Social Security Scotland, and this has been our priority throughout the development of our new social security system. It is essential that clients continue to receive the payments they rely on both in terms of disability benefit and the passported access this provides. To this end, the Adult Disability Payment criteria will remain largely the same as the existing Personal Independence Payment Framework during the case transfer process, but will be reviewed in due course. We also need to continue to safeguard against creating a system in which individuals paid by Social Security Scotland are subject to significantly different eligibility requirements from clients whose cases have not yet transferred to the Scottish system.

Changes we are making to the delivery of Adult Disability Payment, such as replacing assessments with person centred consultations, will improve the delivery and process of Adult Disability Payment and address many of the concerns raised by stakeholders, including on the 20 metre rule. In particular, the reliability criteria, which is applied to determine eligibility, will be enshrined more fully in legislation for Adult Disability Payment than it previously has been for Personal Independence Payment. This criteria requires a client to be able to carry out activities safely, repeatedly, in an acceptable manner and in a reasonable time, and these factors will be used to ensure that decisions will take full account of how the client experiences each activity – including moving around.

We have also committed to undertaking an independent review of Adult Disability Payment in 2023, one year after delivery has begun. The review will enable all of the eligibility criteria to be considered and will ensure that people in receipt of Adult Disability Payment will be able to provide their valuable feedback and experiences of the process so far. The DWP are aware of our commitment to review Adult Disability Payment.

We understand the benefits of having a pet and sympathise with tenants who have to give up their pet when they move to a home where no pets are allowed. Decisions on whether pets are allowed in a tenancy are a matter for individual landlords and will be reflected in each tenancy agreement.

Landlords should however give careful consideration to policies that restrict pet ownership. We would encourage both social and private rented sector landlords to take a practical and considered approach to this and consider the benefits of reduced social isolation and loneliness that can come from pet ownership, particularly in cases where a tenant has a pet and needs to move to a new tenancy.

As part of the shared policy programme between the Scottish Government and Scottish Green Party a new deal for tenants will be the focus of a Rented Sector Strategy we will publish by the end of 2021, and consult on in early 2022. This new deal will introduce new and strengthened rights for tenants, for example giving tenants greater flexibility to decorate their home and to keep pets.

The Scottish Government published guidance in August 2020 setting out the circumstances under which additional grant support requests would be considered for projects contractually awarded prior to the March 2020 lockdown and which were as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additional grant support through this route from the Affordable Housing Supply Programme is discretionary and is dependent on the circumstances of the individual organisation, development and the contractual arrangements.

An assessment of applications can only conclude when all the appropriate evidence has been supplied to support the request for additional funding. In the case of a request for support in Dumfries and Galloway, the Scottish Government recently received sufficient evidence to determine the claim and the Housing Association has now been informed of the outcome of that assessment .