Chamber and committees

The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) are currently engaged with criminal justice partners, including the Police Service of Scotland, Transport Scotland and the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service to develop relevant infrastructure and guidance for the possible introduction of Speed Awareness Courses in Scotland.

The possible introduction of Speed Awareness Courses in Scotland requires enabling legislation. The United Kingdom Government has introduced the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill which is currently being considered by the House of Lords. The Bill includes provision for police forces in England and Wales to recover costs from drivers who are the subject of a road traffic diversionary courses.

Whilst the Bill does not include substantive provision to allow Police Scotland to recover costs from drivers, the Bill makes provision for the Secretary of State to make such provision for Scotland, similar to that provided for in England and Wales, by statutory instrument. Any such provision by statutory instrument would require to be made following passage of the Bill.

After suffering a substantial cyberattack in December 2020, SEPA enacted business continuity arrangements and implemented procedures to ensure priority planning and business critical cases were responded to.

SEPA worked with planning authorities and other consulting bodies, providing practical planning advice. By August 2021, SEPA had processed the backlog of cases and to date have responded to 1597 consultations.

Funding from the Scottish Government’s Affordable Housing Supply Programme can, and already is, being used by a number of local authorities to buy-back empty homes. Our proposals for Housing to 2040 include an action to establish a new fund for local authorities to bring empty homes back into use and convert suitable empty commercial properties in town centres into residential use.

The Independent Review of Adult Social Care recommended that accountability for adult social care should be transferred from local authorities to Scottish Ministers, creating a National Care Service.

The Scottish Government is currently consulting on proposals for the remit and role of a National Care Service and wider proposals for community health and social care. The consultation also seeks views on whether children’s social work and social care services, and justice social work, should be included in the National Care Service.

Scottish Government welcomes ongoing engagement with local authorities and their participation in this consultation process. All responses to the consultation and engagement events will be carefully analysed to inform the Government’s position on the role and remit of the National Care Service. We will continue our engagement with key partners and stakeholders across the range of proposals for the new legislation.

Social Security Scotland routinely publish information as part of the quarterly Official Statistics release ‘Funeral Support Payment’. This includes information on the number and value of payments made since launch. In the most recent publication, which covered data up until the end of June 2021, 9,865 payments had been issued since the launch of Funeral Support Payment.

Information on Funeral Support Payment was last published on the 24 August 2021 and provided information up to the 30 June 2021. This publication is available from:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/funeral-support-payment-high-level-statistics-to-30-june-2021/

Since the early stages of our pandemic response, the Scottish Government has been committed to a public inquiry into the handling of the pandemic in Scotland, with the purpose of scrutinising decisions taken in the course of this pandemic so far and to ensure that lessons are learned for the future. The Scottish public inquiry is expected to adopt a person-centred, human rights based approach.

Decisions about the scope of the inquiry are yet to be taken. Public engagement about a draft Scottish public inquiry aims and principles paper took place between 24 August and end of September. The Scottish Government is actively seeking the views of equality and Human Rights stakeholder groups. I also met with equality and Human Rights groups on 30 September. This feedback will help inform the terms of reference to be agreed between Ministers and the inquiry’s Chair, once they have been appointed.

Our ‘A Fairer Scotland for Disabled People: Employment Action Plan’ sets out key actions we as a Government will take to meet our commitment to reduce the employment gap between disabled people and the rest of the working age population by at least half by 2038. This Action plan will be refreshed in Spring 2022; and we are working closely with our partners, including disabled people themselves and the organisations that represent them, as we develop this. The Young Person’s Guarantee will ensure that every person aged between 16 and 24 – including disabled people and those from low socio-economic groups will have the opportunity to study, take up an apprenticeship, job or work experience, or participate in formal volunteering. The transition to net zero presents opportunities to put this into practice. This year we have provided £27 million for Fair Start Scotland to provide tailored support for unemployed disabled people to move into fair and sustained work.

We are also providing over £8.65 million for the Parental Employability Support Fund in 2021-22, and will invest at least a further £15 million across 2022-24. This helps low income families identified as being most at risk of experiencing poverty, including disabled parents to increase their earnings, by gaining and progressing in fair work, providing intensive, person centred key worker employability support. In August we launched phase 1 of The Green Jobs Workforce Academy. The Academy makes it easier for individuals of all backgrounds at any stage of their career to consider how their skills and experience can be built upon to launch a green career. Finally, The Individual Training Account scheme continues to support the unemployed or those in low paid work with the opportunity to access £200 towards training.

As Scotland emerges from COVID-19, our colleges and universities have a key role to play in rebuilding our economy. Ministers have been liaising with our education and skills system to address skills needs across various sectors of the Scottish economy, both in the short and longer term.

In December 2017, the Scottish Government introduced a cyber incident reporting procedure to notify the Scottish Government, Police Scotland and the National Cyber Security Centre of cyber incidents with the purpose of providing support to affected Scottish public sector bodies.

The Scottish Government cannot confirm the number of incidents prior to 2018 as there was no equivalent process in place encouraging Scottish public sector organisations to report cyber incidents to the Scottish Government.

Table 1. Number of incidents reported to the Scottish Government by the Scottish public sector bodies under the Notifiable Scottish Public Sector Cyber Incidents procedure since 2018