Chamber and committees

The debt advice levy was devolved on 1 January 2019. The Scottish Government received £1,479,363 in respect of January to March 2019.

The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

Evaluations of the Making Advice Work programme were conducted by the Scottish Legal Aid Board in 2014 and 2017. They are available on the Scottish Legal Aid Board web site.

The Making Advice Work programme is not targeted at families. The Scottish Government does not hold this information.

The Scottish Government continues to provide £2.7 million to fund 27 advice projects as part of the Scottish Legal Aid Board programme. Nonetheless, in the face of tightening budgets resulting from the UK Government’s continuing austerity programme, we must target our funding to ensure it goes where it is most needed. We have therefore had to take the difficult decision not to continue funding of some of the Scottish Legal Aid Board projects which overlapped other funding from Scottish, UK and local governments. We will be working with affected projects in the coming weeks to offer support for the transition away from Scottish Government funding.

I have asked Colin McConnell, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), to respond. His response is as follows:

The Scottish Prison Service does not hold the information you request.

Information on the average daily prison population and the maximum daily prison population for each establishment is detailed in Appendix 2 of SPS’ Annual Report and Accounts each year. These reports can be found on SPS’ website at http://www.sps.gov.uk/Corporate/Publications/Publications.aspx

Whilst we do not hold information on the number of people being homeless or having a reliance on drugs prior to sentencing, SPS’ Prisoner Survey contains information on accommodation and drug use. These surveys can be found at http://www.sps.gov.uk/Corporate/Publications/Publications.aspx and may provide some useful information.

This information is in the public domain and can be found on the Scottish
Government’s website within the Budget Bill documents covering the last five
years. This information can also be found on the Scottish Legal Board’s
website in the published Annual Accounts covering the last five years. Links
to these websites and documents are attached.

Scottish Budget 2019-20
https://www.gov.scot/budget/

Scottish Budget – Archive https://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback//
archive/20170105064207/https://www.gov.scot/Topics/Government
/Finance/18127/Documents

Scottish Legal Board – website – Published Annual Accounts
https://www.slab.org.uk/about-us/what-we-do/annual-report/ .

This information is not centrally held.

Data on Audiology service waits is included as part of the 18 weeks referral to treatment waiting time data which is published quarterly by ISD. The 18 weeks referral to treatment performance information is based on an aggregate return from NHS Boards and does not provide specialty level data.

As I set out in the chamber on 7 February, in response to Mr Findlay’s previous question on this matter, NHS Lothian has taken steps to manage the availability of spaces and to provide alternatives to on-site parking, along with alternative forms of transport.

The Board remains committed to ongoing, constructive engagement with patients, staff, visitors and neighbours to understand and address parking-related issues. This engagement, along with other measures undertaken by the Board to alleviate parking-related issues, is ongoing and will continue to be ongoing.

This information is in the public domain, and can be accessed through the Renewable Planning Database. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/renewable-energy-planning-database-monthly-extract