Chamber and committees

Rapid rehousing transition plans (RRTPs) are developed and owned by each local authority in Scotland, working with their partners. The Scottish Government asks each local authority to complete an activities and spend template each year, requesting information about the implementation of RRTPs. The areas covered in the template include the development of Housing First, prevention activity, the use of temporary accommodation, the availability of settled accommodation and yearly spend.

The Scottish Government carries out a review of these templates, including any additional information provided from updated RRTPs, and feedback is provided to each local authority. The Scottish Government is currently reviewing local authority submissions for 2020/21 and feedback to the local authorities will be issued during August 2021. A report on the implementation of RRTPs will be submitted to the Homelessness Prevention and Strategy Group (HPSG) later this year.

This process provides assurance to the Scottish Government about the development and implementation of RRTPs across Scotland and supports our continued partnership in tackling homelessness. While local authorities and their partners are best placed to develop and implement plans based on local circumstances, the areas covered in the activities and spend template allow the Scottish Government to review how plans support national homelessness policy objectives.

The Housing First Pathfinder programme started in August 2018 across six local authority areas with Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire working in partnership. Up until the 30 June 2021, a total of 531 people have received Housing First support through the pathfinder programme, which has been funded by the Scottish Government, The Merchants House of Glasgow and Social Bite. The following table provides a breakdown of tenancies commenced and the number of tenancies sustained across each local authority area:

Housing to 2040 is Scotland’s first ever long-term national housing strategy and makes clear our ambition to deliver 100,000 affordable homes by
‎ 2031-32, 70% of which will be for social rent.

Local authorities have a statutory function to assess local housing requirements and to set out in their Local Housing Strategy (LHS) how this will be met.

Priorities and outcomes identified in the LHS inform local authority Strategic Housing Investment Plans (SHIPs) which are prepared annually and which set out affordable housing investment priorities over a five year period. These are expected to be publicly available.

We regularly assess workforce requirements across the whole of the Scottish economy, including in construction.

The construction industry is a core sector of the Scottish economy, providing infrastructure to businesses across all sectors of the economy. We are aware that the pandemic and Brexit may impact on the supply of labour in this sector.

For a successful recovery and to ensure no one is left behind we have a heavy focus on employability and skills. We continue to support our apprentices during these challenging times, including those in the construction sector, and have introduced additional interventions, such as an enhanced Adopt an Apprentice programme, to encourage employers to recruit and retain apprentices supporting the long-term future of work-based learning and the economy. In addition, we supported a range of skills-related activity, including supporting 5,033 people into modern apprenticeships in the construction sector during 2020-21. In 2021-22 we will invest more than £1bn to drive forward our national ambition for jobs and to equip our workforce with the future skills it needs.

The Construction Recovery Plan launched in 2020 sets out a range of short, medium and longer term actions to support employment, fairness of work, encourage new entrants into the sector, and address upskilling and reskilling needs to enable the sector adapt to technological change and net zero carbon in the built environment.

The number of children who have been fostered has been collected centrally since 2008-09. The following table shows the number of looked after children who have been placed with foster carers, in each year since the data first became available. Data on the number of adoptions is taken from statistics published by National Records of Scotland.

The information requested is publically available from PHS. This release provides information on alcohol-related inpatient and day case activity within general acute and psychiatric hospitals in Scotland. The release covers general acute hospital activity for the financial years 1981 to 1982, until 2019 to 2020 and psychiatric hospital admissions from 1997 to 1998 until 2018 to 2019. Due to limited data completeness the psychiatric hospital admissions were not updated for the financial year 2019 to 2020.

The most recent publication is available here Alcohol related hospital statistics - Scotland financial year 2019 to 2020 - Alcohol related hospital statistics - Publications - Public Health Scotland.

More detailed information on alcohol treatment will become available for future years following the full implementation of the DAISy system which went live from 1 December 2020.

Local authorities are independent corporate bodies with their own powers and responsibilities, separate from the Scottish Government. As such, the information requested is not held by the Scottish Government and would have to be obtained directly from individual local authorities or from COSLA.

The Scottish Government is able to provide details of contracts awarded by itself to third sector organisations however, without disproportionate time, cost and extensive review of many thousands of individual contractual agreements we are unable to provide data for other Public Bodies.

The data provided has been taken from Public Contracts Scotland (PCS), the Scottish Government's advertising portal. The data provided start from 2010 (when PCS was established), and are reliant on suppliers self-selecting their third sector status.

Details of contracts-frameworks awarded by the Scottish Government to third sector organisations are contained in the following table:

Data from Public Health Scotland shows the number of (a) children and (b) adults presenting with self-harming issues within Scottish NHS acute hospitals in each year from 2007 to 2020, broken down by calendar year of admission (inpatient data only). Figures for 2021 cannot be provided at this time.

Notes :

• The recording of data does not allow for a breakdown between NHS boards.
• There are some quality issues with this data set due to the recording of self-harm in Acute inpatient settings.
• Figures on self-harm presentations in Accident & Emergency departments, psychiatric inpatient hospitals and outpatients settings cannot be published at this time, due to data quality issues.
• Many people with self-harm related injuries are not treated as Acute inpatients, or do not present to NHS hospitals. Therefore, the data provided will likely be an undercount of self-harm related injuries in the period 2007-2020

The Scottish Government is actively working with partners to develop Scotland’s approach to self-harm; a commitment in the Mental Health Transition & Recovery Plan. We recognise self harm behaviour is complex and often reflects underlying emotional distress. We commissioned Samaritans Scotland to undertake research in 2020 which resulted in the publication of ‘Hidden too long: uncovering self-harm in Scotland’ ( https://media.samaritans.org/documents/HiddenTooLong_uncoveringself-harminScotland.pdf ). Building on that research, our engagement with partners and people with lived experience will allow us to better understand the prevalence and nature of self-harm (and associated data requirements). Crucially, it will inform our approach to ensuring compassionate responses which effectively support individuals and families.

The Programme Business Case which was published in February 2020 provides a full breakdown of implementation costs each year since Social Security Scotland was established. The link to the Executive Summary of the PBC can be found at the following link: https://www.gov.scot/publications/social-security-programme-business-case-executive-summary/ .