Chamber and committees

The management by Police Scotland of any upgrade works on police medical rooms will include contingencies for the delivery of services from adjacent custody suites. This will minimise any impact on service delivery.

Police Scotland has budgeted for £665,700, excluding value added tax, for the phased upgrade of existing medical rooms in the transition to an NHS led service.

Police Scotland currently employs one forensic medical examiner (an equivalent term to a casualty or police surgeon). In accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998, it is not appropriate to disclose the salary arrangements.

Services of other healthcare practitioners are sourced through pre-existing service level agreements with local health boards, local agreements with GP surgeries or individual doctors as the need arises.

It is not possible to confirm what, if any, savings will be made as a result of the transfer of responsibility for healthcare and the delivery of forensic services to the NHS. The NHS will be delivering a different service to that currently provided, for example ensuring linkages with wider social and healthcare services, with improved clinical governance, and this will impact on relative costs of the service now and in the future. The delivery of combined healthcare and forensic services by the NHS could lead to efficiencies and therefore savings and we would expect to see the NHS taking the opportunity to introduce greater efficiencies over time.

Police Scotland will fund any upgrades to medical rooms in the custodial estate in order to bring them up to, or maintain, national standards agreed with the NHS. The medical rooms remain part of the Police Scotland estate and will be managed as such. Common specifications in relation to room standards, cleaning and waste disposal will be agreed between the police and NHS to ensure consistency across the estate.

Local NHS boards will supply, maintain and pay for equipment used in delivering healthcare services in the medical rooms.

The transfer to the NHS of responsibility for healthcare in custody and for the delivery of forensic services will ensure more effective and efficient services for some of the most vulnerable people in society including both victims and suspects. It should lead to better care and health improvements for those who are detained, through the provision of access to wider social and healthcare services in the community.

The NHS will not assume responsibility for the medical rooms in the police custody estate. The medical rooms will remain the responsibility of Police Scotland and the refurbishment programme to NHS standards will improve the quality of the services provided to those detained by the police.

Staffing of police medical rooms will be a matter for the NHS once it assumes responsibility for healthcare and the delivery of forensic services. Staffing arrangements will depend on the clinical model agreed by local health boards and the nature of the examination. Currently it is anticipated that the attending healthcare practitioner will be either a doctor or nurse. These staff will be contracted by the relevant health boards supplying the service.

The Scottish Government began collecting information on Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) in December 2013.

The first publication, covering the period 1 April to 30 November 2013, provides information for each local authority on: the number of applications, the number of determinations, the number of awards granted, and the total amount of DHPs spent or committed.

Average award values by local authority and a comparison with budget allocations are also made.

All statistical publications on Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) are available at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Social-Welfare/dhp.

The next publication, covering the period 1 April to 31 December 2013, will be published on Tuesday 18 February 2014.

During August 2013, a total of 75,662 households on housing benefit were affected by the removal of the spare room subsidy in Scotland. Of these, 3,939 were households where the main claimant was aged under 25 years.

Note: As housing benefit can be claimed by a household as well as an individual, age of claimant refers to the age of an individual claimant or, if claiming as a couple, the eldest age within that couple.

Source: Stat-Xplore, Department for Work and Pensions

https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/

The Scottish Government provides a range of incentives to improve the energy efficiency of homes. In April 2013 we launched our Home Energy Efficiency Programmes for Scotland (HEEPS) which provides £74 million in 2013/14 to tackle fuel poverty, reduce carbon emissions and support jobs. HEEPS supports the installation of energy efficiency measures in Scottish households and includes funding the Home Energy Scotland helpline which provides people with free impartial advice on the best steps they can take to improve the energy efficiency of their home and incentives available.

The Green Homes Cashback Scheme has also been running since 1 November 2012 and offers cashback vouchers to householders across all tenures of up to £1200 if they install an energy efficiency improvement that has been recommended on their Green Deal assessment. Since 2012 we have issued 17,449 individual cashback vouchers.

Section 65 of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 placed a duty on local authorities to introduce discount schemes for council tax, offering a minimum in-year reduction of £50 where householders undertake efficiency improvements to their home.

With the full powers of independence, this government would design a new means of funding and delivering energy efficiency improvements to Scottish homes that are fairer and better suited to our needs.