Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government condemns all acts of antisocial behaviour, including vandalism, and we believe that our focus should be on preventing these crimes from occurring in the first place.

There are currently a number of provisions contained in the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995 and Antisocial Behaviour etc. (Scotland) Act 2004 that specifically deal with the offence of vandalism and these include on the spot fixed penalties that the police can issue to those suspected of low-level statutory vandalism offences. Local agencies, such as Police Scotland and local authorities, are best placed to deal with these offences and it also open to them to undertake early intervention and diversionary work to prevent antisocial behaviour in their areas . We currently have no plans to replicate the UK Government’s proposals, but will monitor the development of this approach.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information and it is not collected by Public Health Scotland.

Scottish Ministers continue to encourage public bodies to share good practice on debt assistance and collection and to show empathy and dignity when working with people struggling with debt. At a recent meeting of the ‘Joint Working Group on Sourcing of Local Government Funding and Council Tax Reform’ ministers raised the issue of Council Tax Debt and Recovery with the COSLA President, Vice President and Resources Spokesperson.

Scottish Government has also taken considerable action to help people struggling with the impacts of the cost of living crisis. This year we will provide funding to local government in excess of £350 million to deliver the Council Tax Reduction Scheme, ensuring over 450,000 households receive some level of Council Tax Reduction and on average recipients save over £750 a year. More widely, in 2023-24 we are tripling the Fuel Insecurity Fund and maintaining our investment in the Scottish Welfare Fund at £41 million to support those most in need.

Every Public Body publishes an Annual Report and Accounts which will include details of amounts owed to them. These annual accounts will normally be available online on the website of the individual organisation.

The Scottish Government continues to support struggling households, which is why both last year and this, we have allocated almost £3 billion to support policies which tackle poverty and protect people as far as possible during the ongoing cost of living crisis. We will also allocate at least £11 million in 2023-24 to support free debt, welfare and income maximisation advice.

Quasi-government agencies (quangos) are referred to as devolved national public bodies. There is no requirement to maintaining financial records of devolved national public bodies as far back as 1999, therefore, this information is not held centrally.

The national directory of all devolved national public bodies is in the public domain, and may be accessed in the following link. It provides information on Scottish Government funding for the current year, where applicable. It also provides links to the webpages containing published accounts for the various bodies.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/national-public-bodies-directory/pages/introduction/

The Scottish Government does not hold this information and it is not collected by Public Health Scotland.

The information you have requested is not held centrally by the Scottish Government as the management of debt is an issue for education authorities and their finance departments.

The Scottish Government is aware, however, that Glasgow City Council announced at the end of March that it would write off outstanding school meal debts at all schools under its management at a cost of around £300,000 to the council; City of Edinburgh Council cancelled £64,000 of outstanding school meal debts in August 2022 and, earlier this month, councillors at Midlothian Council announced they had cancelled all outstanding school meal debts in the area totalling around £32,000.

Local authorities also have the power to make discretionary offers of free school meals to families, where they are experiencing financial hardship due to exceptional circumstances, if they do not meet the regular eligibility criteria.

COSLA, working with partners from across Local Government, have developed a set of good practice principles for the management of school meal debt, which were published on 20 February 2023. The intended audience for these principles is local authority staff across a range of departments (including education, catering, finance and debt collection) as well as Head Teachers, class teachers and other school staff. The principles can be accessed through the following link: COSLA Publish Good Practice Principles for Managing School Meal Debt - 20th February 2023 | COSLA .

The Scottish Government welcomes the work of organisations like Coeliac UK who are already undertaking communications work to increase awareness and knowledge of coeliac disease. We supported their messaging on Coeliac awareness week by sharing their twitter campaign raising awareness of lesser-known symptoms of the disease.

NHSinform.scot provides clear and accessible information on Coeliac Disease including, symptoms, causes, diagnosis, and treatment.

In 2018, a new national evidence-based pathway for coeliac disease was launched across four health boards (NHS Lothian, NHS Lanarkshire, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Tayside). It was funded by Scottish Government’s Modernising Patient Pathways Programme (MPPP) and co-produced in partnership with key stakeholders including Coeliac UK, and people living with coeliac disease and clinicians.

Recently, Maree Todd MSP, the then Minister for Public Health, Women’s Health & Sport attended ‘Coeliac Disease: The Challenge of Underdiagnosis’ in the Scottish Parliament on Thursday 9 March 2023. The event was supported by Coeliac UK and included a presentation from a patient representative.

I refer the member to the answer to question S6W-17748 on 18 May 2023. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at https://www.parliament.scot/chamber-and-committees/questions-and-answers .