Chamber and committees

Protecting and promoting disabled people’s human rights is central to our approach to social justice.

The Disability Delivery Plan, which we will publish in December, is part of our programme for a fairer Scotland. It will set out our ambitions, alongside a range of actions we will take over this parliamentary term, to tackle barriers to independent living, and will drive change to advance equality of opportunity for disabled people, and in doing so will promote and support the contribution that they can make in their communities.

This builds on the firm foundations of work already underway such as investing in accessible transport solutions, opening up access to Scotland for disabled tourists, supporting the Supported Business Framework and the £200,000 Access to Elected Office Fund in Scotland (2016-17) to help disabled people who wish to stand for selection or election in the 2017 local government elections.

The Scottish Government, through Developing the Young Workforce is encouraging all public sector employers, (Scottish Government included), to support the ambitions of our Youth Employment Strategy which aims to increase the employment rate for young disabled people to the population average by 2021.

The Scottish Government is committed to increasing the diversity of staff across the whole organisation. We recently signed up to the Disability Confident scheme which recognises our commitment to our disabled staff and to increasing the number of applications we receive from disabled people.

We continue to work with internal and external applicants, including young people applying for Modern Apprenticeships and Student Placements (internships), to ensure that no part of the process inadvertently impacts disparately on them. This includes specific support during the recruitment process for the applicant, adjustments to particular parts of the process or the scoring mechanism and specialist training for those undertaking the recruitment process.

The Scottish Government provided £6 million to local authorities in 2016-17 to enable them to increase the minimum income allowance threshold from 16.5% to 25%.

The Scottish Government estimated that increasing charging thresholds from 16.5% to 25% would benefit around 13,000 people through reduced charges and take around 900 people out of charging altogether.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-04420 on 15 November 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

The Scottish Government is seeking clarification from The Highland Council and Dumfries and Galloway Council on the use of funding provided in the 2016-17 local government financial settlement to allow local authorities to increase income allowance thresholds for people who pay social care charges. Perth and Kinross Council has raised its charging thresholds in 2016-17 from £177 to £195 per week.

The Scottish Government received correspondence from Falkirk Council in September 2016 on the extension of free personal care to under 65s with a diagnosis of dementia, and responded outlining the work being undertaken by the Scottish Government to review the fairness of the charging system.

In the Programme for Government, we set out our intention to conduct a feasibility study to consider the possibility of extending free personal and nursing care to those under the age of 65 with a diagnosis of dementia.

Local authorities have the ability to exercise discretion in the application of charges for social care, and are able to reduce or fully waive charges for social care based on the individual circumstances of the service user.

We recognise that disabled people in Scotland continue to face negative attitudes, stigma and discrimination. We will raise awareness of disability and disabling barriers through the next phase of the One Scotland Campaign - which we will launch in 2017. This will focus on the barriers to inclusion that disabled people face.

The Scottish Government does not hold details of all supported factories and businesses that meet the definition within the Public Procurement Directive given effect into scots law by the Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015.

Work is currently on-going to get a better overview of businesses that qualify under the new definition of supported businesses. Using our Developing Markets for Third Sector Providers contract, Ready for Business are progressing a survey with suppliers, asking third sector organisations and social enterprises to self-declare whether they meet the revised definition. The survey can be found at https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Supportedbusinesses.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-03738 on 1 November 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.

While we are critical of the decision of the UK Government not to devolve Access to Work to Scotland, it is an important scheme among others to support disabled people into and to sustain employment. We are actively promoting Access to Work to both employers and disabled people as often and as much we can to ensure a higher uptake and use of the scheme - for example through Fit for Work Scotland and Healthy Working Lives, as well as our other partners including organisations supporting disabled people.

For devolved services from 2017 providers will need to ensure that disabled people are supported to claim and receive the Access to Work funding they are entitled to so that they can sustain employment.