Chamber and committees

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The Strategic Group on Women and Work was formed following the Women’s Employment Summit in September 2012. The first meeting was on 27 March 2013 with subsequent meetings held on 26 June 2013, 30 October 2013, 26 February 2014, and 7 May 2014.

The remit of the group is to:

Agree the range of actions and recommendations from the Women’s Employment Summit;

Agree priorities across each commission and the timescales for action and by whom;

Advise on actions to further address the challenges raised, in particular how those outwith the Government could support change, e.g. employers, the third sector, communities and education and training sector;

Monitor implementation of the agreed plans, reviewing progress and challenging inaction;

Agree the content of Ministerial reports to Parliament on progress; and

The group will meet 3 or 4 times a year.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-17591 on 29 October 2013. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

The Scottish Welfare Fund guidance sets out the ringfencing arrangements for the Fund. The Scottish Welfare Fund guidance can be found on the Scottish Government website at:

http://scotland.gov.uk/Topics/People/welfarereform/scottishwelfarefund/scottishwelfarefuindguidance.

Yes, the Scottish Government expects everyone affected by the bedroom tax who applies for a discretionary housing payment to be awarded one.

This is a matter for Healthcare Improvement Scotland (HIS).

I am advised that HIS have published a correction to the report and the local report compendium. This can be accessed via the HIS website:

http://www.healthcareimprovementscotland.org/our_work/long_term_conditions/chronic_pain/where_are_we_now.aspx

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-20200 on 31 March 2014. All answers to written Parliamentary Questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx.

The Scottish Welfare Fund comprises of Community Care Grants and Crisis Grants.

For Community Care Grants, £14.3 million was distributed between 1 April 2013 and 31 December 2013. Information on the distribution by local authority is published in Table 15 at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Social-Welfare/swf/AprilDec2013.

For Crisis Grants, £3.7 million was distributed between 1 April 2013 and 31 December 2013. Information on the distribution by local authority is published in Table 16 of the publication.

Statistics on the Scottish Welfare Fund can be found at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Social-Welfare/swf.

I wrote to the Welfare Reform Committee on 2 May 2014 to advise them of our intention to introduce the Welfare Funds (Scotland) Bill in June 2014. A copy of the letter is available at:

http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/S4_Welfare_Reform_Committee/20140502_MB-MM_Scottish_Welfare_Fund.pdf.

The Scottish Welfare Fund comprises of Community Care Grants and Crisis Grants.

The table below shows how many applications contained someone on a sanctioned benefit during the period 1 April to 31 December 2013.

For Community Care Grants, 31 applications in total contained someone who had been sanctioned. Of these 31, 12 applications were successful in receiving a Community Care Grant.

For Crisis Grants, 400 applications in total contained someone who had been sanctioned. Of these 400, 165 applications were successful in receiving a Crisis Grant.

The Scottish Welfare Fund guidance regarding sanctions changed in April 2014. The data in the above analysis pre-dates this change.

Statistics on the Scottish Welfare Fund can be found at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Social-Welfare/swf