Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government does not set the level of payments to either kinship carers or foster carers. Payments are the responsibility of local authorities. However, the Scottish Government recognises that financial support needs to be more consistent, if it is to be fair and is currently reviewing financial support to kinship carers with an aim to publish its findings by autumn 2013.

The following answer was corrected on 15 May 2013

 John Swinney: The Scottish Government’s greener marketing campaigns help change behaviours which impact on carbon emissions. This, in turn, helps Scotland achieve its climate change targets of a 42 per cent reduction in CO2 by 2020 and an 80% reduction by 2050.

Campaign results include:

76 per cent of those who saw the Travel & Transport campaign were willing to leave their car for shorter journeys.

95 per cent of those who interacted with the Eat In Season campaign went on to cook or eat in season food.

The Scottish Government has tendered contracts for a number of marketing services to deliver the campaigns.

These are Marketing Communications, Public Relations, Research and Direct Marketing.

The following table gives the information requested.

Published details of Scottish Government marketing spend can be found here: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/People/Directorates/Communications/advertising-marketing/spend

Barnett consequentials accrue to the Scottish Block as a whole and it is for Scottish Ministers to decide how to allocate the total resources available to them across devolved spending programmes.

The Scottish Government received £3.4 million in Barnett consequentials over 2013-14 and 2014-15 as a result of additional UK spending on advisory services, which adds to the total budget available to the Scottish Government in these years.

I refer the member to the answer to question S4W-13907 on 26 April 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 Government has announced £7.9 million of funding for advice services to deal with the impact of welfare reform.

On 25 April 2013 it was announced that the Scottish Legal Aid Board would distribute £5.1 million of Scottish Government funding as part of a single programme also incorporating £2.35 million funding from the Money Advice Service. The Scottish Government funded elements of this programme are expected to open for applications on 13 May 2013, when full details of the criteria will be published.

In addition, we have allocated £2.5 million to Citizens Advice Scotland up to March 2015 and have invested £300,000 in a number of other projects in 2012-13.

The Scottish Government understands that the State Hospital have undertaken an internal investigation into anonymous allegations made to NHS Counter Fraud Services. The outcome of the investigation will be reported to the State Hospital Audit Committee.

The Scottish Government understands that in June 2012 members of the State Hospital senior management team received a recruitment and retention premium as part of their remuneration package.

Due to an oversight, payment of the premium was not made at the time it was due. Therefore, this resulted in a back payment being made.

The Scottish Government understands that the State Hospital have asked their internal auditors to report on three anonymous allegations made to NHS Counter Fraud Services.

Neither the Scottish Government nor the Care Inspectorate collect information on numbers of foster carers broken down by local authority area.

There is an agreed protocol between Audit Scotland and the Scottish Government covering the arrangements for carrying out and clearing performance audit reports undertaken on behalf of the Auditor General for Scotland (AGS) which are published as part of the Scottish Public Finance Manual. The purpose of the protocol is to ensure that all relevant parties in the Scottish Government and Audit Scotland are aware of the arrangements for carrying out performance audits undertaken on behalf of the AGS and clearing draft reports.

The protocol states that in relation to the draft report/key messages:

“The project manager sends a copy of the key messages document and draft report to all project advisory group members, including the SG representative, for comment.”

For formal clearance of the report, the protocol says:

“The AGS sends a formal letter and a copy of the report to the relevant Accountable Officer. The AGS’s letter specifies the date when comments are due back (this is three weeks from the date of the letter) and asks for confirmation of the factual accuracy of the report and any other comments on the presentation and conclusions.”

While the Scottish Government can provide comment on the draft report, the final decision on what to include in the report is solely the responsibility of Audit Scotland. The comments provided were in line with standard procedures where Audit Scotland asked for comments on the draft report. In the interest of accuracy, Audit Scotland accepted a number of points raised and amended the final report accordingly, in exactly the same way as has been done on many other occasions.