Chamber and committees

Additionally, the Scottish Government publishes information on household incomes via a number of surveys, including the Labour Force Survey, Expenditure and Food Survey, Family Resource Survey and the Scottish Household Survey, and is working with wider UK bodies to further expand knowledge around use of early learning and childcare through the Understanding Society Survey. We are also currently undertaking our own financial review to better understand the costs of providing the free entitlement to early learning and childcare.

The Commission for Childcare Reform report's recommendation 12 was that ‘there should be a duty, probably on local authorities or community planning partnerships, to act as the strategic planning authority for childcare.’ Under the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014, every child who is entitled to the funded 600 hours of early learning and childcare must be offered a place if parents wish it, and it is the responsibility of local authorities to ensure that this happens.

The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 also places a legal duty on local authorities to consult with local parents on early learning and childcare and out of school care, and publish their plans to reconfigure services based on consultation outcomes. By consulting with parents about their needs, local authorities can develop a comprehensive picture of early learning and childcare provision in their area. This opens up opportunities to integrate early learning and childcare provision with out of school care, school and wider family support at local level, where this is possible.

The Scottish Government is committed to encouraging the take-up of benefits to ensure that people who are eligible, but who are not currently making claims, receive the benefits to which they are entitled; both UK Government benefits and those that will transfer to Scotland under the new Scotland Act. We are currently assessing options and will work with other interested stakeholders to ensure we reach those who are not making claims. We will keep you fully informed on progress.

The Scottish Government has access to information on benefit take-up published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and HMRC.

Estimated take-up rates for pension credit, income support and employment support allowance, jobseekers allowance and housing benefit are published by DWP for Great Britain as a whole. No Scotland or sub-Scotland level data is available. The latest statistics are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/income-related-benefits-estimates-of-take-up-financial-year-201314

To improve services across the whole of Scotland, we’re investing an additional £150 million for mental health over five years.

From this, we announced a £54 million package in January 2016, of which
£4.8 million will be awarded to healthcare improvement Scotland to establish a mental health access improvement support team. The improvement programme will work in collaboration with NHS boards to deliver sustained improvements in access to child and adolescent mental health services and psychological therapies services and should address disparities between boards. This work will be undertaken in two distinct phases: diagnostic work to identify the enablers and barriers to the board being able to deliver on improved access, which will then be used to develop an improvement plan.

NHS boards have also been allocated £24.7 million to increase capacity to deliver services.

We are also providing support for improving mental health services in primary care settings. On 18 February 2016, the Cabinet Secretary for Health And Sport launched the mental health primary care fund, totalling £10 million, which will encourage new ways of working with GPs and others to ensure people with mental health challenges get the best support available, in settings they want, as fast as possible and in the form best suited to them. We received a significant number of proposals, and we are currently working with NHS boards and integrated joint boards to consider which would best deliver the changes we want to see.

We are working closely with NHS boards to ensure that the number of specialist beds matches the need and demand of children and adolescents. We are also encouraging NHS boards to develop their community based intensive outreach services in order to enable children and young people to return to their own communities at an earlier stage of their recovery.

A new model of 'hospital at home' type care and treatment has been introduced across many NHS boards. This new approach creates new capacity. In areas where the new approaches are most advanced this has been demonstrated to have had the effect of significantly reducing the need for unscheduled and temporary admissions of under 18s to adult psychiatric hospital beds.

Generally children accessing child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) will be treated in the community however there may be times when it is necessary to admit them to hospital for specialist treatment. Should this be the case they would be admitted to one of the three regional CAMHS inpatient units or for under 12s the Royal Hospital for sick kids.

We have made significant progress on commitment eight of the Mental Health Strategy: 2012 to 2015. Some examples are as follows.

NHS Education for Scotland (NES) has rolled out the Solihull approach across Scotland. This two-day training is designed to help practitioners to think psychologically about development in the earliest years of life and to integrate an understanding of infant mental health into their everyday practice. Between 2013 and 2016, 72 trainers were established and 667 early years practitioners were trained.

NES has responded to the identified need for health and social care professionals working with young families to receive appropriate preparation and education to promote and support the mental health of women, babies and families. This has been done through the development of three new online learning resources.

An online learning resource on infant mental health and promoting positive early relationships has been launched. This provides core information on definitions of infant mental health and attachment, how professionals can promote positive relationship development from conception to five years of age, and how they can identify and respond to any emerging problems.

In March 2016, NES also provided a two-day educational event for 35 midwives from all over Scotland to support them in developing their knowledge and skills relating to maternal and infant mental health, and in developing high quality services.

The current cohort of five child and adolescent psychotherapy trainees are due to complete their training in 2017. Planning is underway for the commencement of a new cohort of trainees in 2017.

We expect our football authorities and clubs to proactively take action to swiftly develop and deliver their own robust solution to address unacceptable conduct. This remains our preferred solution, and we are working constructively with the authorities and clubs to achieve this.

We have not prescribed what action must be taken.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-00536 on 16 June 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.