Chamber and committees

Reasons for train cancellations week beginning 16 May 2022 included driver shortages, trespass onto the tracks, fleet issues, signalling issues, points failures and other track faults. The following table provides the data for cancellations, week beginning 16 May 2022, for Newton station:-

It is not possible to accurately estimate, from nationally held data, the current number of unpaid carers of people with dementia.

Data collected by Public Health Scotland (PHS) through their social care data collection provides some information on people receiving social care support who have dementia. However, while data on whether the person receives help from an unpaid carer is requested, this was recorded as ‘Unknown’ or was left blank for 48% of records in 2020-21. As such, it was not possible to accurately estimate the number of unpaid carers of people with dementia from this data.

Upon arrival of Ukrainian Displaced People at Welcome Hubs, communication needs are assessed to ensure that information is provided in a format that meets their needs. This may include easy to read documents in community languages and interpretation services for those who experience language barriers.

ESOL provision is offered by a range of providers including Community Learning and Development services through local authority partnerships, colleges, schools, voluntary organisations, universities and private language providers. Scottish Government ESOL funding is currently provided through colleges as part of the grant allocated to the Scottish Funding Council. Colleges are instructed to work with Community Planning Partnerships to determine the level of need for provision and agree with partners how this need can be met.

As set out in response to S6W-08423 on 19 May 2022 , we remain firmly focused on supporting the six priority family types identified within our first Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan and will continue to engage with our partners, including gender representative stakeholders and women with experience of poverty, to ensure an intersectional and gendered approach is embedded in the development, implementation and monitoring of the actions set out in the plan.

‘ Best Start, Bright Futures ’ , our second Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan for the period 2022-26, recognises that to tackle poverty effectively we must deliver holistic, person-centred services and support that meets the needs of families - whilst also driving forward the transformation in our wider economy, necessary to tackle inequalities in our labour market.

The Plan is underpinned by robust data and evaluation, this includes our recently updated Child Poverty Measurement Framework as well as policy level evaluations and overall Child Poverty Evaluation Strategy . We also produce focus reports on the various child poverty family groups that explore progress achieved over time. This includes experiences of lone parents (who tend to be women) and mothers aged under 25.

Whilst quantitative data will enable us to track progress towards our outcomes, families will often fall into more than one priority group and in reality many face a combination of barriers and discrimination. We will ensure we use lived experience and a deeper understanding of the impact of intersection of characteristics in the design, implementation and monitoring of our actions and policies to ensure delivery approaches which are increasingly tailored and, ultimately, more effective.

To support our focus on implementation we have strengthened our approach to governance, including establishing a new Child Poverty Programme Board bringing together leaders, decision-makers, delivery partners and those who champion change across Scotland. The Programme Board will complement the statutory functions of the Poverty and Inequality Commission to ensure we hold ourselves to account on our performance against the plan, challenge our ambition, maintain a focus on our priority families and implement learning from the new approaches we are taking and testing.

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

We have published tables showing the debt advice levy funding for Scotland and the funding allocation for each year since 2019:

Debt advice levy funding: 2019 to 2020 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot)

https://www.gov.scot/publications/levy-funding-allocated-by-scottish-government-for-2020-21/

https://www.gov.scot/publications/levy-funding-allocated-by-scottish-government-for-2021-22/

https://www.gov.scot/publications/levy-funding-allocated-by-scottish-government-for-2022-23/

Mental health and psychosocial support is an integral part of care for people who suffer from cystic fibrosis and the Scottish Government continues to invest in the mental health workforce to increase its capacity and capability. NHS Scotland’s Mental Health Nursing, Psychology and Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) staffing numbers were at a record high on 31 March 2022. The number of psychology staff has doubled (105.9%) and the number of staff within CAMHS has almost doubled (95.6%).

Our overall investment includes £9 million in 2021-22 for psychological services to grow the applied psychology and psychological therapies workforce. Further funding will be provided for 2022-23 to support services to provide psychological care to all clinical areas of care detailed in the psychological services and therapies standard.

The Scottish Government has committed to develop a long term Mental Health Workforce Plan in the first half of this Parliament to ensure that, by 2026, 10% of frontline NHS budget is invested in mental health with 1% directed specifically for children and young people.

More broadly, the Scottish Government is committed to working to improve outcomes for people with rare conditions, including Cystic Fibrosis. We are developing an Scottish Action Plan for Rare Disease based on the four priorities of the UK Rare Disease Framework: faster diagnoses, increased awareness, better care co-ordination, and access to specialist treatments and care.

We are currently undertaking a refresh of the Social Security Programme Business Case and we will publish an updated version by the end of this year, which will include a refreshed delivery timetable and updated cost estimates.

The Scottish Government is committed to tackling gender inequality and embedding a human rights approach to tackling child poverty.

Our second Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, ‘Best Start, Bright Futures’ , is underpinned by extensive impact assessments – informed by consultation with stakeholders and individuals with direct experience of poverty. This includes an Equality Impact Assessment presenting summary consideration across policies and proposals included with the Plan focusing on how policies may impact, either positively or negatively, on different sections of the population in different ways, through the lens of Protected Characteristics, which includes sex. The above along with our Evidence Review on What Works , Cumulative Impact Assessment , Children’s Rights and Wellbeing Impact Assessment , Fairer Scotland Duty Impact Assessment and Islands Impact Assessment , helped inform development of the Plan and will continue to guide its implementation and delivery.

As set out in ‘ Best Start, Bright Futures ’, we are committed to focusing on the impact of all interventions through the lens of our six priority families and will seek to ensure that systems work for these families in particular. This includes a substantive focus on lone parent households, the majority of whom are headed by women, and mothers under the age 25 both of which are at greatest risk of poverty and encapsulate many of the inequalities affecting women more broadly. This includes barriers relating to entering and sustaining employment, childcare, housing and transport.

Through this focused approach, we will be able to drive down levels of child poverty whilst delivering significant progress on our wider equality and human rights ambitions – particularly in relation to advancing equality and human rights for women, disabled people and minority ethnic people.

We are committed to continue to engage with our partners, including gender representative stakeholders and women with experience of poverty, to ensure an intersectional and gendered approach is embedded in the development, implementation and monitoring of the actions set out in the plan. This includes, for example, establishing a Lived Experience Panel in Summer 2022, with members from each of the six priority family groups, including young mothers and lone parents, to help inform our employability policy.