Chamber and committees

This is an operational matter for the Scottish Funding Council. I have asked the Chief Executive to respond.

This is an operational matter for the Scottish Funding Council. I have asked the Chief Executive to respond.

The Scottish Government is working with stakeholders on the development of options to deliver a new fund for young people who have been in care, to support them into appropriate work, training or educational opportunities. We aim to announce further detail of the focus and the operation of the new fund by early 2017.

Alongside partners in Local Authorities, Skills Development Scotland (SDS) and the Third Sector we will continue to support young people who have experience of being looked after, to participate in education, training and employment. These young people are specifically highlighted as a priority group across Scottish Government funded training and employment programmes, including, Activity Agreements, Employability Fund, Community Jobs Scotland, Scotland’s Employer Recruitment Incentive and Modern Apprenticeships. Our Equalities Action Plan for MAs outlines the actions SDS will undertake with partners to improve the participation of under-represented groups, including care leavers, within the MA programme. An additional package of in-work support is also available to young care leavers through our funded Open Doors In Work support package.

In Scotland’s Economic Strategy we said we would address long-standing barriers in the labour market so that everyone has the opportunity to fulfil their potential. Fairer working practices can help utilise more effectively the skills and talents of groups who do not always get the best deal in the labour market and contribute to inclusive economic growth. This is the context in which we are scoping arrangements for the fund, which will be announced in due course.

A review of health and social care targets and indicators was announced in September 2016. This review will be chaired by the University of Strathclyde Professor of Global Public Health, Sir Harry Burns, and will ensure targets and performance indicators lead to the best outcomes for people being cared for, whether in hospital, primary care, community care or social care services. The current indicators on palliative and end of life care, as well as potential additional or alternative indicators, will be considered as part of this review.

The current core suite of integration indicators was developed in consultation with a wide range of stakeholders across all sectors, including NHS Scotland, COSLA and a wide variety of third and independent organisations to ensure that they would be effective in driving forward improvement across the National Health and Wellbeing Outcomes.

The two indicators on palliative and end of life care were included in order to reflect Health and Care Partnerships’ key role in commissioning high quality palliative and end of life care services. The indicators will help ensure that there is a focus on more planned approach to palliative and end of life care which reflects best practice and, as far as is practicable, is in accordance with the needs and wishes of patients, carers and their families.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-02458 on 21 September 2016. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

Health and Social Care Integration Indicator 15 on the “Proportion of last 6 months of life spent at home or in a community setting” is now fully developed and will be reported on by all Health and Social Care Partnerships (HSCPs) as part of their Performance Reports. All HSCPs will publish their 2016-17 reports by the end of July 2017 and annually thereafter.

Work is on-going to ensure availability of robust data for indicator 23, “Expenditure on end of life care”. The recently announced review of health and social care targets and indicators will include further consideration of this indicator.

The international evidence is clear - promoting competitiveness and addressing inequality are interdependent. Reducing inequality is not only important in itself, but is vital to creating the conditions to deliver sustainable economic growth over the long term.

Scotland’s Economic Strategy, published in March last year, contains relevant evidence on the relationship between inequality and growth (pages 22-23). For example, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) found that lower income inequality is correlated with faster and more sustainable growth. This is supported by work from Professor Joseph Stiglitz concluding that countries that are more unequal grow more slowly and are less stable. Finally, a recent working paper by Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimates that rising income inequality in the UK has decreased Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita growth by 9 percentage points between 1990 and 2010.

Further Information on Scotland’s Economic Strategy can be found at

http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2015/03/5984.

We are working with local government to determine how best to utilise the £10m funding for domestic energy efficiency and will provide further information in due course.