Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government, including Social Security Scotland, have not incurred any additional costs in 2024-25 as a result of the Department for Work and Pensions administering a payment equivalent to Winter Fuel Payment to eligible Scottish clients in 2024.

Public Health Scotland published Estimated Prevalence of Opioid Dependence in Scotland 2014/15 to 2019/20 - Estimated Prevalence of Opioid Dependence in Scotland - Publications - Public Health Scotland earlier this year, based on Bayesian analysis of linked healthcare data. However, those estimate do not include problematic use of other substances, nor do they provide information about the living and family circumstances of people experiencing problematic drug use.

The Scottish Government also published Child protection - Children's Social Work Statistics Scotland: 2021 to 2022 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) which showed that there were 2,358 new registrations onto the Child Protection Register during 2022 where parental drug misuse or parental substance misuse was identified as a concern at the Case Conference. Similar to the Public Health Scotland source, however, this does not provide a full picture of problematic drug use in households.

Our code of guidance on homelessness is designed to give the best possible support to frontline practitioners in their work to prevent homelessness. It sets out the importance of staff training for homelessness officers, particularly in the requirements of the homelessness legislation, the code of guidance, anti-discrimination legislation and the relevant local authority's housing and homelessness policies.

More recently we have supported the development of a housing options training toolkit. The toolkit is a learning and development resource platform for housing officers and frontline staff to aid them in providing housing options advice, including to people experiencing domestic abuse.

Additionally, as part of the homelessness prevention duties within the Housing (Scotland) Bill, we will work with stakeholders and delivery partners to identify the training and guidance required to support relevant bodies to meet their new obligations.

The previous UK Government’s No Recourse to Public Funds policy prevents local and national government in Scotland from being able to provide appropriate, safe housing and accommodation solutions for women who have restricted immigration status. It is not acceptable that people, including women are fleeing domestic abuse, face destitution or are forced to remain in unsafe conditions because of their immigration status. Scottish Ministers raised this issue repeatedly with the previous UK Government and will continue to engage with the new UK Government to urge change to these policy conditions.

The Scottish Government and COSLA continue to work together to deliver the vision and principles of Ending Destitution Together, to improve access to support and services for people who are subject to UK Government immigration policies, as far as is possible within devolved powers. During 2024-25, the Scottish Government provided £440,000 to Fair Way Scotland to enable the increased capacity of case workers across Scotland, supporting those who are risk of, or experiencing homelessness and destitution. This investment will help people exercise their rights to eligible public funds and access emergency cash support.

Social Security Scotland routinely publishes information on Scottish Child Payment applications, payments and the number of children actively in receipt of the payment by local authority area.

As of 30 June 2024, the number of children aged 0-15 years actively benefitting from Scottish Child Payment in each local authority area relevant to the West Scotland parliamentary region were as follows:

• Argyll and Bute – 4,100;
• East Dunbartonshire – 3,770;
• East Renfrewshire – 3,575;
• Inverclyde – 5,375;
• North Ayrshire – 10,395;
• Renfrewshire – 10,545;
• West Dunbartonshire – 7,165.

This information along with other local authority areas can be found in the latest Scottish Child Payment Official Statistics publication:

https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/publications/statistics.

The next edition of the Scottish Child Payment publication which will cover the period to the end of September 2024, is due to be published on 26 November 2024.

The Scottish Government does not hold the requested information. This information is held at a local authority level. Local authorities are required under section 202B of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 to keep a register of all byelaws.

The Scottish Government Affordable Housing Supply Programme allocation for Glasgow City Council for this year is £90.231m. This comprises the original allocation of £78.687m and the additional £11.544m made available as part of efforts to boost affordable housing supply by acquiring properties to bring into use for affordable housing and to help reduce homelessness. The funding made available to Glasgow City Council last year through the Affordable Housing Supply Programme was £103.683m, so this years funding represents a decrease of £13.452m. As well as the additional £11.544m made available to Glasgow City Council this year, the Council and Scottish Government officials meet regularly and will continue to work closely in order to maximise affordable housing delivery in the city.

The Scottish Government has established a National Rehabilitation Network, comprised of rehabilitation leads from each health board or health and social care partnership. Network members lead on supporting the application of the Six Principles of Good Rehabilitation and share best practice where the principles are already in place.

The introduction of the Rehabilitation Self-Assessment tool, issued to all 14 health boards in September 2024, will support the evaluation of progress against the Six Principles of Good Rehabilitation to improve rehabilitation services as set out in the Once for Scotland Rehabilitation Approach. The data collected through the self-assessment can be used to demonstrate the impact of rehabilitation services across health and social care services and raise the profile of rehabilitation.

Scottish Government reconfirmed the commitment to improving rehabilitation services through joining the World Rehabilitation Alliance (WRA) in May 2023. This global network of stakeholders supports the implementation of the Rehabilitation 2030 Initiative through advocacy activities. Scottish government continue to share approaches and learning internationally.

To support practitioners in applying the Six Principles of Good Rehabilitation, Scottish Government has developed a self-assessment tool in partnership with the National Rehabilitation Network. This tool was issued to all 14 health boards in September 2024, to be used as a local benchmarking assessment in line with local rehabilitation strategies, for monitoring and evaluation purposes as well as improvements in patients care.

The data collected through the self-assessment will be used to demonstrate the impact of rehabilitation services across health and social care services.

Since the strategy was published Scottish Government has also awarded funding to support the delivery of the Once for Scotland Approach. This includes £526,650 to the Care Inspectorate to enable them to scale up their Care About Physical Activity Programme and £250,000 to Thistle Foundation to support rehabilitation teams to adopt person-centred rehabilitation.

I met with the UN Special Rapporteur earlier this year and we welcome publication of the Report’s findings.

Our Strategic Approach to challenge and deter demand for prostitution and improve support for those with experience was published in February 2024. It recognises that prostitution cannot be considered in isolation, and sets out the Scottish Government’s collective approach, working with stakeholders across the wider public and third sector.

In common with the Nordic Model, the Strategy seeks to enable women to safely, and sustainably, exit from prostitution.

While we continue work with partners to develop a wider improved support pathway, we are now in a position to make progress with an initial phase of this work. Collaborating with Police Scotland, we will look to challenge demand and improve support for women with experience of commercial sexual exploitation.

I met with key stakeholders earlier this month to outline this collaboration, which includes:

• A secondment from the Scottish Government’s Violence against Women and Girls team to ensure that strategic connections to wider relevant Scottish Government initiatives are made.
• Supporting the further development of Operation Begonia (already operational in Aberdeen) to lead to a national and consistent policing approach.
• Funding Police Scotland to gather intelligence to understand the full extent of demand for commercial sexual exploitation across Scotland, helping to better reach victims and strengthen the response to tackling perpetrators

This is a key stage in implementing our Strategic Approach, ensuring that we increase the opportunities for women to access support whilst at the same time ever limiting the opportunities for those carrying out exploitation.