Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government has committed to recruiting 250 Links Workers during the lifetime of this parliament, with at least 40 being recruited by September this year. In implementing the programme from April to September 2017 there is a focus on sustaining and developing existing and effective Links Worker programmes which meet the core components. These ‘early adopters’ are specifically, Glasgow: 14 practices, Dundee: 11 practices, Edinburgh: 9 practices, Inverclyde: 6 practices and North Ayrshire: 4 practices. Plans for the recruitment of Links Workers beyond September 2017 are currently in development.

The most recent council tax collection statistics are published at http://www.gov.scot/stats/bulletins/01224.

Council Tax is a local tax and therefore it is for individual Councils to take all practical steps and use their powers to collect the unpaid tax due to them, especially in cases where households are wilfully avoiding payment as this is unfair on the overwhelming majority of people who do pay their taxes.

People who are finding it difficult to pay their council tax should contact their council immediately as they may be entitled to relief under the Council Tax Reduction Scheme. We have invested over £1 billion in the Council Tax Reduction scheme since 2013-14, assisting almost half a million households each year to meet their council tax.

This information is not held by the Scottish Government. The best source of this information will be the individual local authorities as the employers of these staff.

Contact details for the Scottish local authorities can be found at: http://www.cosla.gov.uk/councils

The Scottish Government considers that existing pet fostering services can offer a valuable short term emergency care for pets whose owners are temporarily unable to care for their pet for a number of reasons.

Those participating in such a service have a statutory requirement, under the Animal Health and Safety (Scotland) Act 2006, to ensure the welfare of any animals in their care.

I refer the member to the answers to questions S5W-07878 and S5W-07879 on 15 March 2017 and 21 March 2017 respectively. 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.

The Scottish Government provides funding to NHS Health Scotland to work with employers to provide appropriate training opportunities to support workplace mental health and wellbeing: this offers opportunities for employers to support and implement policies on mental health in the workplace.

The Scottish Government also provides £1m per year in addition to Comic Relief’s £0.5m for See Me, Scotland National Programme has a comprehensive programme on workplace discrimination that includes the award winning workplace campaign – “the Power of Okay"

The Equality Act 2010 is reserved to the UK Government.

The Scottish Government, through the national agency for sport, sportscotland, work with the sporting governing bodies to encourage their clubs, including football and rugby, to open their facilities for community based sporting groups.

We are also working with the Robertson Trust who have recently undertaken research on sport for change which is an approach being used by an increasing number of organisations in Scotland to deliver a wide range of positive benefits for individuals and their communities. This research should help inform how we can support and grow the valuable contribution these organisations make including enabling access to facilities.

There has been no change to the practice of NHS boards providing information regarding the number of people who are treated separately from those attending pain clinics. The number of patients seen, as published by ISD quarterly, are the number of patients who have attended for their 1st appointment at a pain clinic.

With reference to my previous response to question S5W-06880, the Inverleith Medical Practice team are to provide a full service to patients up to 30 June 2017. Following this patients are to be shared with surrounding Practices following analysis of the spread and allocation based on proximity of the patients' home to the nearest GP Practice. Letters have now been issued to all patients advising them on which local Practice they have been allocated and reassuring them that their electronic medical records will be transferred to that Practice ensuring continuity of care for patients.

As we approach the closure of the Inverleith Medical practice the retention of the practice staff team within the NHS was one of the key considerations of NHS Lothian. All of the staff have found alternative positions several with other GP practices, and all within the NHS, something which we actively promoted. A single member of staff has decided to take a break from work over the summer and will then be back in touch.