Chamber and committees

Revenue Scotland, in its role as Scotland’s fully devolved tax collection and management authority, regularly publishes data on its website regarding the number of property conveyances and non-residential leases subject to Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT). These are available at https://revenue.scot/news-publications/publications/statistics .

Revenue Scotland’s Annual Summary of Trends in the Devolved Taxes 2019-20 provides an overview of LBTT returns related to conveyances, leases and lease reviews received from 1 April 2015 to 31 March 2020. This includes estimates for residential and non-residential conveyances at a sub-Scotland level.

In particular, Figure 16 of this publication includes an estimate of the number of residential conveyance returns received, by local authority area and year, while Figure 21 gives an estimate of the number of non-residential conveyances received by Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) 2 area and year. Local authority level estimates of non-residential conveyances are not provided to minimise the risk of disclosing protected taxpayer information.

In addition, Revenue Scotland’s monthly LBTT publication provides Scotland-level information on the number of residential and non-residential LBTT returns, including leases, received by month of submission.

The timeline is a matter for Lord Hardie. Updates on the publication of his Report will be provided on the Inquiry website at the appropriate time, a link to which is included below. 

Home Page - The Edinburgh Tram Inquiry

All NHS Boards in Scotland have access to a range of tools and resources developed by Healthcare Improvement Scotland to improve reliable delivery of evidence-based interventions to patients at risk of harm from deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and to contribute to the overall aim of reducing mortality and harm in acute hospitals.

There are currently 27 empty homes officers working across 25 local authority areas. We can advise that the following local authorities do not have an empty homes officer post:

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-01075 on 22 July 2021. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at Written questions and answers | Scottish Parliament Website

The answer as provided in S6W-01075 sets out the available information published on the number of long term empty homes through Scottish Government annual statistics on long term empty properties and unoccupied exemptions, most recently published at Housing statistics quarterly update: December 2020 - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) .

Detailed Excel tables are also available at Housing statistics: Empty properties and second homes - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) , which provide local authority level figures on the number of long term empty properties from 2005 to 2020, and on the number of unoccupied exemptions from 1996 to 2020.

The figures are sourced from the Council Tax Base data return, and are based on an annual snapshot of properties on the Council Tax Valuation List as at the first Monday in September each year. Data on long term empty properties have been separately identified in the Council Tax Base data return from 2005 onwards, and so no information is held centrally for the earlier years 1999 to 2004.

As set out within the Tackling Child Poverty third year progress report, published on 23 June 2021, it is estimated that the Scottish Government invested almost £2.5 billion to support low income households in 2020-21. The member can find the breakdown of this investment on pages 67-69 of the report using the following link:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/tackling-child-poverty-third-year-progress-report-2020-2021

The Scottish Government does not hold this information centrally. However, the number of patients who are registered with a NHS dentist can be found on Public Health Scotland at: https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/dental-statistics-registration-and-participation/dental-statistics-registration-and-participation-statistics-as-at-30-september-2020/ .

The Scottish Government is committed to delivering the Promise, supporting families to stay together in a safe and loving environment, and reducing the amount of children who are taken into care. Fundamentally, Getting it right for every child (GIRFEC) is the Scottish Government's approach to supporting children and young people. It supports families and helps to prevent family breakdown by making sure children and young people can receive the right help, at the right time, from the right people. GIRFEC is a strengths-based approach and is underpinned by principles that include working in partnership with families, and providing an early offer of support to improve outcomes for children, young people and families.

The Scottish Government also recognises more needs to be done to transform the system of holistic support that is provided to families. The Programme for Government 2021 commits to investing at least £500 million over the life of this Parliament to create a Whole Family Wellbeing Fund. This will enable the building of universal, holistic support services, available in communities across Scotland, giving families access to the help they need, where and when they need it. Furthermore, our ambition is that from 2030, we will be investing at least 5% of all community-based health and social care spend in preventative whole family support measures that will enable us to continue to Keep The Promise.

In addition, the Scottish Government continues to deliver a range of policies aimed at supporting the specific needs of children, young people and families. For example:

• National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland (published 2 September 2021), which places greater emphasis on prevention and support and working with children and families to reduce the risk of harm.
• Development of a Framework to improve holistic family support for families affected by a loved one's drug or alcohol abuse.
• £120 million through our Recovery and Renewal fund to address the mental health impacts of Covid-19 including a range of actions addressing relationship support.
• Funding to Relationships Scotland, who provide a number of services including family mediation, relationship counselling and “parenting apart” classes.

Charges for National Qualifications have remained unchanged since 2012-13 despite changes in costs. While charges contribute towards the cost of awarding National Qualifications they do not cover the full costs. In addition, 2020 and 2021 late entry fees have been waived and there have been no charges for appeals. There are therefore no plans to reimburse National Qualifications payments.

For 2021, SQA estimates that the costs of providing certification for national qualifications was £41.7m, while income from local authorities, colleges and independent schools is expected to be £30.5m. The remaining cost is covered by SQA’s grant in aid budget from the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of Neighbourhood Watch schemes before 2012. In 2012, there were approximately 1,500 Neighbourhood Watch Schemes in Scotland and the most recent figures to June 2021 show that there are now 1,976 Schemes registered.

Since March this year, 36 new Watches have been registered. Additionally, there has been an increase in the number of people signing up to receive free ALERTS, both as individuals and as points of contact for organisations, with total current figures at 26,832 individual registrations.