Chamber and committees

The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care and myself met with hospice sector representatives on 14 March to discuss the pressures that the hospice sector are currently facing. The Scottish Hospice Leadership Group and a number of hospices continue to be valued members of the Scottish Government’s Strategy Steering Group for Palliative and End of Life Care, and Scottish Government officials continue to attend the Scottish Hospice Leadership Group (SHLG).

The Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 places the statutory responsibility for local roads, including the provision of parking spaces with local road authorities. The number of parking spaces required in each area is therefore determined by the relevant local authority.

The Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of parking spaces in each local authority.

The Scottish Government welcomes the City of Edinburgh Council’s commitment to cut car kilometres by 30% by 2030, and will work with all local authorities to support equitable measures which discourage car use to accompany greater investment in public transport and active travel for a fairer and greener transport system. As outlined in our route map to achieving a 20% reduction in car kilometres by 2030, jointly developed with COSLA, the scale of the climate challenge means that we need to take forward a broad combination of interventions including infrastructure, incentives and regulatory actions, taking into account the needs of people on low incomes to help ensure a just transition to net-zero.

For academic year 2021-2022, which is the most recent data we hold, 22,635 international students were residing in student accommodation (university halls and private purpose-built student accommodation) and 29,090 in other rented accommodation. We do not hold information specifically in relation to private rented or social rented accommodation.

International Enrolments at Scottish Universities by Accommodation Type, 2021-22

The Scottish Government has no plans to establish such a fund; however, we are currently considering a number of advocacy-related recommendations from the Scottish Mental Health Law Review. This includes whether a national dedicated independent advocacy service for unpaid carers should be developed.

Independent advocacy is central to empowering people to have their voices heard and to participate fully in decisions about their care. The Scottish Government is committed to co-designing, with people with lived experience including unpaid carers, and implementing a coherent, consolidated and consistent approach to independent advocacy across the National Care Service.

The Scottish Government also funds the Social Security Independent Advocacy Service, delivered independently by VoiceAbility. This is available to support anyone who self-identifies as disabled to access their Scottish Government benefits. This means the service is available free of charge to all carers and cared-for-people who identify as such.

Lending and insurance policy are reserved matters for the UK Government. We are aware of the difficulties that some people are facing in accessing mortgages for buildings with potentially unsafe cladding. Work has been undertaken between the UK Government and UK Finance to develop a solution which reflects the situation in England and we are in urgent discussion with UK Finance about adapting that solution for Scotland as quickly as possible. The Single Building Assessment is a crucial element in identifying issues in buildings with potentially unsafe cladding in Scotland. We expect the vast majority of buildings to be found to be safe, but first we have to carry out comprehensive and technical assessments. This is a complex and time-consuming programme, and a number of assessments are either at final or pre-final reporting stage.

Scotland is a leading financial centre, second only to London in the UK. The industry sustains more than 145,000 jobs (80,000 in financial services and 65,000 in related professional services), and the sector is the biggest contributor to Scotland's economy, representing approx. £14bn or 9.6% of GVA to the UK Economy.

The Scottish Government does not hold fintech sector specific information on how many jobs have been created in each of the last 5 years. However as at December 2022 there were 211 fintech SME enterprises in Scotland compared to just 26 in 2018.

FinTech Scotland achieved the Silver level of Cluster Excellence accreditation from the European Secretariat for Cluster Analysis awarded due to the demonstrated growth and development of the cluster.

The Single Building assessment process has started for the 27 buildings in the original pilot. The pilot has been extended to 105 building. As the programme continues we expect further buildings to be identified and assessed. As we survey and undertake these further assessments we will have clearer information on the time-frame for the completion of all surveys on buildings with potentially unsafe cladding.

Community bodies receive support to request an asset transfer under Part 5 of the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 from a range of sources. The Scottish Government provides support for community bodies by funding the Community Ownership Support Service (COSS), who support community based groups in Scotland take a stake in or ownership of previously publicly owned land or buildings.

Since 2017 COSS have worked with 688 community bodies considering their options for taking on land or buildings including by asset transfer. COSS has supported 92 asset transfers and have a further 380 ongoing cases. They also provide advice to relevant authorities on all aspects of the asset transfer process and their adviser led service is free to access.

From the most recent annual data available since the Act came into force on 23 January 2017 to 31 March 2022, community bodies have made 352 asset transfer applications.

The Scottish Government does not hold the full level of information requested for reasons outlined in our answer to your recent question S6W-15113 on 7 March 2023. We do know that our delivery partner the Fuel Bank Foundation has found that in the current financial year, around four in every ten applications have come from households which include at least one child under the age of 16, or if in education, under 18.

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/written-questions-and-answers