Chamber and committees

Information on Ministerial engagements is published on the Scottish Government’s website and is at https://www.gov.scot/search/?q=Ministerial+engagements . The most recent published information covers the period to April 2019. Since then I have undertaken the following engagements related to Equalities and Gender Recognition:

29 May – Visit to Shaheliya (Equalities)

12 June – Equality Network Trans equality reception at Parliament (Gender Recognition)

13 June – Meeting with Louise Macdonald, Chair of NACWAG (Equalities)

25 June – Meeting with Equality Network, Scottish Trans Alliance, Stonewall Scotland, LGBT Youth Scotland, LGBT Health and Wellbeing (Gender Recognition)

25 June - Equality Network reception – 50th anniversary of Stonewall (Equalities)

30 July – Visit to ASSIST (Equalities)

6 August – Meeting with Engender, Zero Tolerance, Scottish Women’s Aid, Close the Gap and Rape Crisis Scotland (Gender Recognition)

21 August - Meeting with Equality Network, Scottish Trans Alliance, Stonewall Scotland, LGBT Youth Scotland, LGBT Health and Wellbeing (Gender Recognition)

28 August – Speech at Scottish Women’s Aid “Women Against Violence Europe” event (Equalities)

Following my letter of 21 June to all MSPs I have also met with a number of MSPs from across the Parliament to discuss Gender Recognition.

The Scottish Government does not provide funding for the use of private tutors and there are no plans to provide means-tested vouchers for private tutoring. We recognise that children affected by poverty can face barriers to accessing education. That is why the Scottish Government has prioritised closing the educational attainment gap between children from the most and least deprived backgrounds. To tackle this, over the lifetime of this parliament we will invest £750 million in the Attainment Scotland Fund to deliver the Scottish Attainment Challenge. This includes Pupil Equity Funding, which is allocated directly to over 95% of schools. A key priority for schools and authorities is to encourage and support parents and families to engage with their children’s learning, and this is evident in the work underway as part of the Challenge Authorities and Schools’ Programmes.

We have been working with partners including the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, to develop the parameters of the Homelessness Prevention Fund to ensure that it is targeted in a way that ensures maximum impact. We will announce further details later this year in advance of the funding being available from financial year 2020/21.

It is for Shelter Scotland to decide what action it wants to take.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-25020 on 19 September 2019. 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 .

The Scottish Government considers any failure to provide temporary accommodation to those presenting as homeless as unacceptable.

That is why the Scottish Government has agreed to work with Glasgow City Council to understand the local issues they face and is leading a voluntary review in partnership to identify solutions on the Council’s failure to provide temporary accommodation to homeless people. Two meetings have been held which have focused on reviewing cases where a failure to provide temporary accommodation was recorded. This has uncovered some inaccurate recording and identified where improvements could be made, which the Council is taking steps to address. This work is continuing.

The Scottish Housing Regulator are also engaging with the council in terms of its failure of its statutory duty to provide temporary accommodation to homeless people.

It is the responsibility of Glasgow City Council to how it responds to Shelter Scotland.

The Orthopaedic community of clinicians and managers, supported by Scottish Government’s Trauma and Orthopaedic ACCESS Programme, are driving through a range of improvements to provide better care for patients, and continue to do so through increasing clinical efficiency and improving quality of care. The Trauma and Orthopaedic Access Programme supports several work strands with a detailed dashboard of indicators, which hospitals can benchmark their progress against.

We have recently accounted an additional total of £102 million that has been released under the Waiting Times Improvement Plan. This funding has been allocated to all territorial Health Boards and the Golden Jubilee. This funding supported by Boards Annual Operating Plans, will lead to increased activity and assist in a further reduction of waiting times.

I have asked Colin McConnell, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. His response is as follows:

The following table shows the average daily population of HMP Open Estate, Castle Huntly each year from 2010.

The Scottish Government is committed to involving people in its work. Increasingly we are using approaches that enable us to hear clear feedback, crowdsource ideas and to undertake user research to make sure policies and services meet the needs of people in Scotland. These participative approaches, when used proportionately, can provide an efficient and cost effective means of achieving a shared understanding of the complex issues and developing effective options for delivery.

On 24 April the First Minister announced an intention to establish a Citizens’ Assembly to address the change Scotland needs in a way that aims to build agreement, to debate choices respectfully and in a way that seeks maximum areas of agreement.

The amount of funding required for the Assembly will depend on its design, which will also determine how many members will be needed.

The specific questions to be put to the Assembly will be developed as part of the design process, but the Scottish Government would like the Assembly to consider:

• What kind of country are we seeking to build?

• How can we best overcome the challenges we face, including those arising from Brexit?

• What further work should be carried out to give people the information they need to make informed choices about the future of the country?

The Scottish Government will establish and continue to provide support to the Assembly, but the specific issues to be debated and the operation of the Assembly more generally will be conducted separate from Government. This process will be open and transparent in line with established good practice for the conduct of such initiatives.

This Scottish Government is firmly committed to supporting our Armed Forces and Veterans Community and ensuring that they are not disadvantaged when accessing services and support. An annual debate is held in Parliament, most recently in September 2018, to report on the work being taken forward across the Scottish Government to support our Armed Forces and Veterans Community in Scotland, including in areas such as health, housing and employability.

Examples of our support include work to respond to the recommendations of the Scottish Veterans Commissioner who continues to provide strategic advice and scrutiny; the Scottish Veterans Fund, now in its 12 th year, which has provided £1.4 million to charities and organisations, supporting over 150 veterans projects to date; and our work to take forward the Strategy for our Veterans which was launched across the UK last November.