- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 August 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 19 September 2017
To ask the Scottish Government how many staff from each of its other directorates have been (a) transferred and (b) seconded to its Social Security Directorate.
Answer
The Scottish Government offers staff working in its Directorates various routes to move from one Directorate to another. These include high priority vacancies, managed moves and open, internal advertising. We do not operate policies around transfers or internal secondments.
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Tuesday, 22 August 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 19 September 2017
To ask the Scottish Government how many staff its Social Security directorate has employed each month.
Answer
Social Security Directorate was established in July 2016. The following table provides the relevant information from that period onwards. Full time equivalent staff in Social Security Directorate (directly employed - permanent & fixed term, modern apprentice & inward loan).
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FTE staffing
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31 July 2016
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51.8
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31 August 2016
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52.1
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30 September 2016
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54.1
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31 October 2016
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59.1
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30 November 2016
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65.1
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31 December 2016
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66.7
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31 January 2017
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77.8
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28 February 2017
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89.8
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31 March 2017
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96.1
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30 April 2017
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106.0
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31 May 2017
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114.8
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30 June 2017
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125.8
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31 July 2017
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153.3
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- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Wednesday, 06 September 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 19 September 2017
To ask the Scottish Government whether is has commissioned the Department for Work and Pensions to produce a Scotland-only version of the Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year 2015/16 statistics.
Answer
The Scottish Government has not requested the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to produce a Scotland-only version of the take-up statistics.
DWP emphasise a number of data quality issues in the methodology note accompanying these statistics, including challenges around matching survey and administrative data. For this reason, DWP provide range as well as point estimates for take-up. These challenges would be greater if attempting to replicate this methodology with Scotland-only data.
The Scottish Government continues to make relevant data requests to DWP in relation to devolved benefits.
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 18 September 2017
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Current Status:
Taken in the Chamber on 21 September 2017
To ask the First Minister what financial support the Scottish Government offers to parents of premature babies whose child is in hospital.
Answer
Taken in the Chamber on 21 September 2017
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Friday, 01 September 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 18 September 2017
To ask the Scottish Government what information it has on how many mixed aged couples who are entitled to pension credit do not claim it, and what the value of this unclaimed pension credit is (a) in total and (b) on average.
Answer
The Scottish Government does not hold this information because Pension Credit is administered by the Department for Work and Pension, who publish estimates of benefit take-up including Pension Credit. Whilst this does include a “family type” breakdown, it does not include a breakdown of mixed-age couples.
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 04 September 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 18 September 2017
To ask the Scottish Government whether it is monitoring the ethnicity of individuals participating in its Social Security Experience Panels and, if so, whether this data will be published.
Answer
Scottish Government researchers are now analysing the ‘About Your Benefits and You’ research. This research includes a survey and a series of focus groups across Scotland. The About Your Benefits and You survey asked for some demographic information from panel members (including age, gender, disability and caring status). This will be added to information gathered as part of the ‘Have Your Say’ panel registration process which collected information on additional support needs. This will start to build a picture of who our panel members are.
We will ask the panel members their religion, ethnicity and LGBT status at a later stage in the panel research. This is because we designed and tested the survey with panel members, and they asked that we do not collect this information at this early stage.
Scottish Government researchers are committed to equality monitoring as part of the Experience Panels. However, it is vital that we build trust with panel members, collecting demographic information sensitively and ensuring that panel members are involved in how and when demographic data is collected.
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 04 September 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Jeane Freeman on 18 September 2017
To ask the Scottish Government whether race equality has featured as a discussion in its Social Security Experience Panels and, if not, whether this topic will be addressed.
Answer
Scottish Government researchers have recently completed the ‘About Your Benefits and You’ research, the first piece of research carried out with panel members. This initial piece of research collected some demographic information from panel members, as well as helping us to understand in a bit more detail what panel members think works well in the current system, and where there is room for improvement.
This initial research did not specifically ask about race equality. However, the open nature of the survey questions and focus group discussions gave panel members the opportunity to discuss what is important to them. Scottish Government researchers are now analysing the results of the ‘About Your Benefits and You’ survey and focus group research.
The Experience Panels research project is longitudinal (follows panel members over a period of time) and equality monitoring will form an important part of this. The information collected from the About Your Benefits and You research will be used to develop a programme of work in collaboration with the Experience Panels that reflects what is important to our panel members.
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 04 September 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Angela Constance on 13 September 2017
To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to prioritise addressing evidence gaps in relation to race and ethnicity detailed in Scotland's Equality Evidence Strategy 2017-2021.
Answer
As set out in the Equality Evidence Strategy, prioritising evidence gaps will take into account how important data will be in informing major policies, programmes and frameworks. The Race Equality Framework and the National Performance Framework are the starting points for the early years of the evidence strategy in relation to race and ethnicity. A Race Equality Action Plan setting out the key actions for this Parliamentary session will be published in 2017 and will further inform the Strategy’s priorities.
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 04 September 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Angela Constance on 13 September 2017
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the evidence gaps highlighted in Scotland's Equality Evidence Strategy 2017-2021, how it will fill these gaps to support the measurement of the impact of the planned introduction of the socio-economic duty across the public sector, and whether the gaps relevant to poverty and inequality will be filled prior to its planned introduction.
Answer
There are already a number of sources of evidence that can underpin the planned socio-economic duty. The Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) provides a highly effective localised data source on socio-economic disadvantage, and this has been complemented recently by commissioned work from David Simmonds Consultancy and Heriot-Watt University on small area estimates of income and poverty. Scottish Household Survey and the Labour Force Survey includes a range of data around employment, levels of skills and occupational sectors, and NHS Health Scotland produce data on health inequalities and outcomes by local authority and by SIMD categories. Administrative data held by public bodies can be added to these sources. There is therefore a range of evidence available for public bodies to deliver the planned socio-economic duty. However, the Equality Evidence Strategy sets out the process for further development of data on socio-economic status over the next four years.
- Asked by: Mark Griffin, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Labour
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Date lodged: Monday, 04 September 2017
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Current Status:
Answered by Angela Constance on 13 September 2017
To ask the Scottish Government, in light of its position as set out in Scotland's Equality Evidence Strategy 2017-2021, that “The Scottish Government cannot, and should not, take responsibility for attending to all evidence gaps”, what discussions it has had with relevant stakeholders to coordinate an approach to addressing these gaps.
Answer
The Equality Evidence Strategy is the start of a four year process aimed at strengthening the overall equality evidence base. It sets out the strategic approach to filling evidence gaps and outlines plans for future collaboration. How we do this will depend on the protected characteristic and the range of priorities and plans already in place. In most cases our intention is to hold workshops based on a protected characteristic to discuss priorities and a coordinated approach to filling the gaps. The first workshop will be to consider evidence gaps around gender and is scheduled for late October 2017.
