Chamber and committees

The Scottish Government is keen to strengthen diplomatic, economic, educational and cultural ties with other countries including Qatar. Disclosing the details of discussions with the Qatari Government, particularly without their consent, is likely to undermine their trust in the Scottish Government and other Scottish partners which could inhibit progress in developing these relationships.

The Scottish Government has no business deals with Qatari companies.

The Chair of the Independent Review recently notified the Chief Medical Officer of her decision to resign as a result of a change in her availability. A replacement is presently being sought, and the Independent Review plans to publish its Final Report late this year or early in the New Year.

The amendment sought to impose a requirement on contractors to pay the Scottish Living Wage under public contracts. As we explained at the time, the amendment was not compatible with our obligations under EU law. The European Commission has confirmed in writing that any requirement on contractors, as part of a public procurement process or public contract, to pay their employees a living wage set at a higher rate than the UK’s National Minimum Wage is unlikely to be compatible with EU law.

The Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 took every opportunity to tackle Living Wage through procurement. Under powers provided for by the Act we published statutory guidance on “Addressing Fair Work Practices, including the Living Wage” in October 2015 and public bodies’ procurement strategies must include a statement of their general policy on the payment of the Living Wage to those involved in delivering public contracts.

So we are using the limited powers we currently have to full effect, and as a result, Scotland has the highest proportion of employees - around 80% - paid the Living Wage of all the four countries of the UK.

The Scottish Government recognises there has been some deterioration in waiting time performance in NHS Lothian and are aware that the Board has decided to make use of the private sector to ensure patients are seen as quickly as possible. This is in line with the Scottish Governments policy that Boards can make use of the private sector in the margins to address short-term capacity issues and reduce waits for patients.

To support NHS Lothian the Scottish Government has also made available £2.5 million to help support NHS Lothian deliver waiting times standards and guarantee during 2016-17. In addition, the Scottish Government has already committed to invest £200 million to create five new elective centres including one in Edinburgh and also at St John's in Livingston. This network of new centres will ensure sustainable delivery of waiting time standards and guarantee in the future and will help drive down the use of the private sector.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-03582 on 4 November 2016. 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 source for statistics on fuel poverty is the Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS). The most recent fuel poverty statistics were published in December 2015 and relate to 2014 (Scottish House Condition Survey: Key Findings 2014 http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2015/12/8460).

The table below shows the number of fuel poor households in Scotland for each year between 2003-4 and 2014 as estimated from the SHCS.

Note: There have been some improvements to the methodology used to generate fuel poverty estimates over this period. Further details are provided in the SHCS publication.

The Scottish Government collects information on rough sleepers through the HL1 data-set. This data collection records information on homeless applications and is supplied by local authorities to the Scottish Government.

Since 2002, the HL1 data-set has recorded cases where rough sleeping occurs a) the night prior to a homeless application being made and b) at least once during the three months prior to the application being made. However, it is voluntary for applicants to supply this information.

For annual figures on this, see Table 2a in the publication: Homelessness in Scotland: 2015-16 available at: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/RefTables/Homelessness201516

Use of the HL1 only provides information on homeless applicants who sleep rough and will not count all rough sleepers. Some rough sleepers will not necessarily want to engage with services or are particularly hard to reach.

Local authorities supply the Scottish Government with information on homeless applications through the HL1 data-set. The following table provides the number of people who have presented as homeless over the last ten years.

Number of applications for homelessness assistance in Scotland

Source: Scottish Government HL1 dataset as at 25 May 2016

Since 2007, applicants have been asked their main reason for making an application for homelessness to their local authority. The main reasons for applying as homeless remain largely unchanged. Dispute within the household/relationship breakdown is one of the main causes of homelessness applications (29% of all applications) or being asked to leave (26%).

This data is available in Table 9a of the annual publication: Homelessness in Scotland: 2015-16. Available at: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/RefTables/Homelessness201516

The majority of funding for suicide prevention and other mental health promotion, early intervention and appropriate services and treatment for people with mental health problems, is drawn from the overall funds allocated to NHS Scotland and Local Authorities each year by the Scottish Government.

Scottish Government spend on a number of mental health programmes (such as improving access to psychological therapies and educating and training the workforce) will all have had an indirect impact on helping to reduce the suicide rate by 18% since 2001 but this is difficult to separate because of the diverse way in which spend is reflected across the various budgets and programmes. The following table shows some examples of Scottish Government programme funding allocated for specific initiatives over the last three years which will have had a more direct impact on reducing the suicide rate in Scotland. It would be disproportionate to research and produce this information for the seven years prior to 2013.