Chamber and committees

The National Group to Address Violence Against Women has met on the following dates since May 2007:

26 June 2007

26 November 2007

19 February 2008

9 June 2008.

The next meeting of the National Group will take place on 24 February 2009.

The ending of ring fencing provided local authorities with an opportunity to better integrate care and support services which allow people to sustain independent living when they might otherwise not be able to do so.

Until 31 March 2008, the Scottish Government published annual statistical information from local authorities on housing support services delivered under the Supporting People programme. We have consulted with local authorities and other stakeholders on the continuing need for this statistical information and the practical issues of obtaining it.

We will shortly publish the responses to the consultation and a decision on future reporting.

National homelessness statistics continue to be the core mechanism for recording and reporting performance in tackling and preventing homelessness. Performance against the indicator All unintentionally homeless households will be entitled to settled accommodation by 2012 in the National Performance Framework is reported via Scotland Performs. Local authorities are also required to report annually to the Accounts Commission on performance of their homelessness services against a range of indicators drawn mainly from information collected in the homelessness statistics system.

The collection of performance data will remain the same as it has in previous years i.e. Violence Against Women projects funded by the Scottish Government will be asked to complete end of year progress reports for internal monitoring.

Furthermore, local authorities will be submitting an annual report to the Scottish Government showing achievements against their agreed contribution to national outcomes as detailed in the single outcome agreement in September 2009.

The Scottish Government is committed to tackling violence against women. Over £44 million has been allocated over 2008-11 to tackle violence against women, including domestic abuse. This is double the amount from the previous three years.  £10 million of the £44 million has been allocated to implementing the National Domestic Abuse Delivery Plan for Children and Young People. Almost £2 million has been committed to the ASSIST service, established to support victims, going through the domestic abuse court in Glasgow.

The ring-fenced status of the Fairer Scotland Fund (FSF) will end at March 2010. For the period 2008-10 we intend to fully integrate performance reporting arrangements for the FSF into the wider single outcome agreement (SOA) approach. Progress towards outcomes related to tackling poverty and disadvantage will continue to be monitored through SOAs in the long-term.

This information is not collected centrally.

Local authority funding for respite services for all care groups was not previously ring-fenced. Funding for respite and carer support services was included within the annual local government finance settlement and paid as part of the general block grant. That remains the case.

In recognition of the importance of respite and short breaks in supporting both carers and those they are caring for, the Scottish Government included a commitment in our concordat with local government to make progress towards an additional 10,000 respite weeks a year. We have provided an extra £4 million - on top of the total settlement to local government - to enable local authorities to deliver this commitment in full by 2011. These additional weeks should benefit a wide range of carers and those they are caring for, including disabled people.

It will be at the discretion of individual local authorities how they develop and allocate these additional weeks, based on local needs and priorities. We have agreed with COSLA that they will monitor the delivery of the commitment and will report to the Scottish Government with total Scotland-wide figures.

The performance of landlord registration is monitored monthly using statistics which show how many applications for registration have been received and how many have been approved, broken down by local authority area. Removal of the ring-fenced funds has had no bearing on the performance information that is collected.

The reference group on self-directed support last met on Thursday 30 October 2008.

The launch of the Community Regeneration and Tackling Poverty learning network will be on Tuesday 27th January 2009. The network is new, but it builds on the work of earlier stakeholder fora supported by the Scottish Government. It now brings together in a more joined up way colleagues engaged in important linked areas such as community regeneration, financial inclusion, income inequality, employability and health inequalities.

It will focus on practical issues highlighted  by local partners, notably in the context of rolling out the Fairer Scotland Fund over the past year; and it will involve a series of workshops and other events designed to meet the learning needs identified by network members.